Our Team
Dan Brunt
Senior Pastor
Dan is the new Senior Pastor of Wantirna Church. Along with his wife Maritza, and their two children, Naomi and Lucas, this pastoral family comes with a passion for genuine relationships, community evangelism, and empowering individuals to be their best for Christ.
Dan was ordained as a minister in 2022, and has more than six years of pastoral experience, pastoring two churches on the Central Coast (NSW) before moving to Melbourne. Prior to studying ministry at Avondale University, Dan completed his Bachelor of Science, majoring in Psychology. He also worked in sales as a supervisor for Telstra for more than five years, and is excited to use all these combined skills and experiences to further God’s kingdom.
Apart from spending time with his family, Dan also enjoys staying active (especially tennis), making music, and bridging the gap between science and religion.
Contact Dan – [email protected] | 0432 923 772
Wendy Saluni
Associate Pastor
Wendy started with Wantirna at the beginning of 2022. Wendy has been in ministry for the last eight years. She is currently sharing her ministry time of service between two churches – Wantirna and Northpoint.
Her love and call to ministry comes with a passion in wanting to see people live out and claim the promise of Jesus found in John 10:10 which says “I have come to give life and give it more abundantly” with a grounding in 1 John 4:8 which says “God is love.”
She loves ministering and doing life alongside all age groups and finds that there is something to learn, all the time, from different generations and different groups of people.
In her downtime, she loves spending time with God, with her family, getting outdoors, reading and listening to different material that will challenge her, listening to great music, eating food that hopefully she won’t react to, and learning to be present with people from all walks of life.
My prayer, from the lyrics of two songs: “Destined for Greatness” sung by Faith First and from “Hosanna” sung by Hillsong are:
“To love the unlovable, teach the unteachable, touch the untouchable, reach the unreachable; see the unseeable, shake the unshakeable, heal the unhealable, break the unbreakable..”
“Heal my heart and make it clean, Open up my eyes to the things unseen, Show me how to love like You have loved me; Break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause, as I walk from earth into eternity”
Contact Wendy- [email protected] | 0431580016
Paul Bower
Lead Elder
As the current Lead Elder at Wantirna, Paul works closely with the pastoral and elders team in ministering to the Wantirna church family. He was born in Adelaide and has been part of Wantirna church for the last 18 years.
Paul is a professional Coach and Consultant that provides Business Advisory Service to companies both large and small around Australia. Family is important to him – he ranks his family and the way they are as his proudest accomplishment. He believes Jesus is the most influential person in his life and His eternal love of us just “blows our mind”. This means that very little (of any) fears or worries keep him up at night as God has it all under control.
One would describe Paul as versatile, sociable and friendly, and he enjoys most genres of music, although rap wouldn’t be at the top of the list.
Besides God and his family, one of his other passions include his Harley Davidson. In his own words, to manage stress, Paul will “hand it over to God, and then go for a big long drive on my Harley and remain positive.”
Contact Paul – [email protected] | 0484 001 235
Lesley Clark
Church Custodian
Along with members of her extended family, Lesley has been attending Wantirna church since 1983. Her role as Church Custodian is to manage and coordinate the use of church facilities, property and equipment. As well as our program being a busy one it is regularly used by other entities and Lesley is the person who coordinates the usage of our facility for all these events.
Trained as a registered nurse, she has served the Adventist church in various other roles, from church cleaner to the chairman of the local Adventist school board. However, the one accomplishment she is most proud of is that she and husband JC have raised two wonderful kids who love Jesus.
She jokingly describes herself as a busy body, but Lesley is seen by many as fun, reliable and faithful. She positively asserts that she trusts God implicitly and therefore has no fears or worries that keep her awake at night.
In her words, this is what she would like to achieve in the next ten years:
“To be in heaven, along with as many people in my sphere of influence as possible! While waiting for that to happen I plan to keep myself healthy and active so I can be a blessing to others.
And to achieve a $25 season pass to snowboard at Red Mountain when I turn 75.”
Contact Lesley – [email protected] | 0418 320 954