Pastor Danny Philip has been appointed president of the Papua New Guinea Union Mission (PNGUM). The appointment was made on Tuesday, August 20, during the Division Executive Committee meetings at the South Pacific Division (SPD) headquarters in Wahroonga, Sydney.
Pastor Philip has been serving as SPD discipleship strategy leader since 2021. He replaces Pastor Malachi Yani.
SPD president Pastor Glenn Townend paid tribute to Pastor Yani’s leadership. “His leadership during PNG for Christ, which saw the first explosive growth that we’ve seen in the South Pacific, was really a great thing, focusing on prayer, fasting and discipleship,” Pastor Townend said. “We thank God for Malachi.”
Welcoming Pastor Philip to the new role, Pastor Townend highlighted his pastoral and administrative experience. “Danny has long-term experience as a pastor, district leader, mission secretary and mission president in Papua New Guinea, as well as in discipleship leadership at the Division. In the four years he’s been here, he has been loved by every union. People really appreciate his very down-to-earth and focused way of challenging people to make disciples—he does it and he lives it.”
Reflecting on his appointment, Pastor Philip said, “Firstly, I feel humbled to be called to that role. It is a massive task, one that covers more than 600,000 members, and our church there is growing strongly. I am humbled to serve our people in Papua New Guinea.”
Looking ahead, he highlighted two key priorities: strengthening discipleship and listening closely to members. He emphasised the importance of churches as training grounds for mission and nurture. “Every local church should become a training place where we can equip more people for mission and for caring for one another,” he said. He also stressed the need to hear both “the voice of God” and “the voice of our people—young and old—about what they want their church to be.”
“PNG is growing and we want to focus on improving leadership, governance and compliance,” he added. “We will need the support of SPD leaders and the sister conferences in AUC to assist our union and missions to work together to address governance challenges in our territory.”
Pastor Philip also expressed gratitude for his years at the SPD office. “SPD has been my family for the past four years. I enjoyed working with my team and all SPD staff, and we really appreciated their friendship and warmth. We will miss that, but we also look forward to building strong relationships with our new family at PNGUM.”
Pastor Philip’s ministry began in 2002 as a church pastor in Central Papua Mission (CPM). He has since served as a district director (Central Papua Conference), mission secretary (Eastern Highlands Simbu Mission), ministerial secretary (CPC), and mission president in various PNG fields (New Britain New Ireland Mission), before joining the SPD as discipleship leader in 2021.
He is married to Susie, and they have three sons.