Editor's Notes

One of the synodical duties I recently fulfilled was to attend on behalf of the CRCA the after synod international conference to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the GKSA.

This was held after the weekend after the synod. A number of people were asked to speak on the subject of ‘Reformed Identity in the world today’. On the very first morning of the conference, John Rogers of the Reformed Churches of New Zealand was asked to present the first presentation from overseas I was asked to follow him on behalf of the CRCA and Australia. John and I were both amazed that being the ‘small fry’ in such a gathering we had been given this honour. Needless to say we were both very nervous and wondering whether we were up to the task being in the midst of professors and others with doctorates (some with a few of them!). I briefly shared our history before speaking about the CRCA’s vision of ‘a church reforming to reach the lost for Christ’ as well as the ‘Fourfold Task’ as adopted by synod 2006. This was very warmly received and what we as the CRCA are doing was alluded to at various times for the rest of the conference.

What struck a chord with many who listened was the blessing we have as a denomination in that we have for the past three years not had any study committees, thus allowing the churches to focus fully on ministry formation and mission. That our Ministry Formation Task group had been given $400,000 (2.46 million Rand) for assisting in church planting was inspirational as some delegates shared with me later. Others said they longed for the day when their synods too could be free of internal debates which made their synods issue driven. Just the other day I received an email requesting material I had used for the presentation which I share with you for the encouragement of all in the CRCA:

“I regard the presentation that you’ve made during the conference a highlight of the conference. It was really good! It shows what can be done if “brothers live together in unity” (Ps 133). How blessed you are! Indeed it is good and pleasant to the Lord when his kingdom can be enhanced in that way. I think strategically you have made the best of your circumstances and put it to work to the glory of the Lord”.

As I shared with the delegates at the conference, and in communications since, the challenge for the CRCA will be to remain ministry and mission focussed and leave our synod and classis agendas clear of matters that would distract us from the task we have as part of the Australian Church to reach the lost for Christ in this nation.

This is not to say that we sweep matters that need discussion under the carpet to be ignored. It does mean that we learn to agree what are ‘debatable’ matters (as the Spirit through Paul calls them in Romans 14) and remember that our unity is not in looking alike but is based spiritually on our union in Christ, and theologically on our agreed standing on the Forms of Unity – Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Confession in so far as it does not go beyond the other three.

As my friend from South Africa said in his email, we are indeed blessed! It is surely good and pleasant to the Lord when His kingdom can be enhanced in the way we as a denomination have been given the grace to do. Let us pray that in the synod in May in Melbourne we will continue to make the most of this time which the Lord has so graciously gifted us.

"If a person comes to the Gospel and sees the events of Good Friday and Easter and believes that they happened and that they can bring some peace of mind, but does not see and savour any of this divine glory, that person does not have saving faith."

It is natural for us when we think of the Gospel to think in terms of the good news concerning the saving work of Christ. Rightly we see the cross and the resurrection as central to that good news. We also easily think that the good news is about what God has done to save us, from our sins and ultimately from Hell. The Gospel in this line of thought then is about making it to heaven.

Piper however says in his book “The gospel is not a way to get people to Heaven; it is a way to get people to God." The point he makes throughout his book is that the whole point of the Gospel is God himself.

What Piper is telling us in this book is that to really ‘get’ the Gospel, to understand it and really take it into our lives, is to behold the glory of God! It is to look into the person and work of Jesus and see in a way that nothing else comes anywhere near demonstrating to us, God Himself in all His glory. “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
(2 Corinthians 4:6, NIV)

To see the glory of God is possible only in the face of Christ is of course on account of the fact that Jesus alone is God in the flesh, Immanuel – God with us.
"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word."
(Hebrews 1:3, NIV)

This has all sorts of implications for those who are Christians and gather for worship especially again this coming Easter. It has the same implications for the mission of reaching the lost for Christ and for church planting. The truths about beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ also has profound consequences as we do church education in Sunday school, catechism, kids clubs, youth ministry; it has everything to do with how we do small group fellowship and our own personal devotions.

To truly ‘get’ the Gospel is to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus. To see God in such a way that through His Spirit we are moved to bow down and worship Him!

As we seek to lead the next generations to Christ the aim must be that in the face of Christ they may by the Spirit behold the glory of God and are led to bow down and in all of their life, joyfully and thankfully, give themselves to God in heartfelt worship.

This must also be the goal of all our seeking to reach the lost. That in showing them Jesus, they through the work of the Spirit may behold their God and fall down and worship Him and declaring He alone is God.

“When we celebrate the gospel of Christ and the love of God, and when we lift up the gift of salvation, let us do it in such away that people will see through it to God Himself. May those who hear the gospel from our lips know that salvation is the blood-bought gift of seeing and devouring the glory of Christ. May they believe and say, ‘Christ is all!’ Or, to use the words of the psalmist (Psalm 70:4), ‘May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great!’”.

As I settle down to write this month’s notes for the May issue of T&S, the next synod of the CRCA is only weeks away. It is clear to anyone who has been reading the pages of T&S and of course the synod reports themselves, that the main item on the agenda will be that of ministry formation and church planting.

We have had some discussion in T&S about the challenge before our churches as to church planting. As usual, such a subject, though thoroughly debated and voted on at synod 2006, raises concerns which as per its editorial policy, T&S has allowed to be aired.

To publish differing viewpoints on matters before the church can be confusing to some. However we have always thought it one of our reformed strengths that we teach our people to be able to be discerning and so have avoided ‘spoon feeding’ them so as to raise up weak and vulnerable members who will not be able to stand on their own feet to be discerning about what they read. Through our church education ministry (Sunday School though Catechism) we have always sought to build a firm foundation of faith and knowledge from which our people will not be easily led astray.

One of the concerns I have is that most members these days do not take the opportunity to either obtain or read the synod reports, nor to engage in the process of raising their concerns via the means provided through local Sessions and state Classis meetings so what troubles them can be raised at Synod level.

T&S remains a place where to a wider degree people can be informed as to the matters of concern being worked out in the CRCA at this time.

In this issue I am going for the first time to take some time to share my thoughts, and to an extent open my heart in an effort to help our readers. This will take a little time but I ask for your patience and encourage you if necessary to break up your reading of what I share below over a period of days if need be. My prayer is that what I give of myself here will be used of the Lord to be a blessing. If it does not work out that way for you then I ask that you forgive me for taking up your time.

One of the problems with issues’ is that those expressing a concern, and those not so troubled, tend to make things ‘either/or’. This can be demonstrated first of all in a criticism I have often heard in various CRCA contexts when it has come to challenges laid before us as to the need today to reach our local communities, and even the nation with the Gospel. It has been said that such an emphasis demeans and even ignores the efforts of the past when our churches were established. This is a concern some have raised concerning Brian Vaatstra’s item on church planting in T&S’s February issue.

To be fair to Brian as to both his article on church planting in the February issue and also Brian’s whole approach to this challenge, it is not true of him to say he has no recollection of the CRCA’s history of church planting or that he ignores or demeans it.

In the second of the synod reports that have been offered to all in our churches to read, this is clearly demonstrated. In the opening of an appendix to the report Brian wrote:

“When the early Dutch migrant families came to Australia 50 years ago, they brought with them a desire to build the kingdom of God in this country. They established new churches wherever they settled, much in the same way the early Christians did when they were forced out of Jerusalem by persecution. The result was that churches were multiplied and planted throughout the country, and people were saved, albeit mainly through the evangelism of other Dutch migrants (Article 30 of the Acts of Synod 1952 states, “The churches are encouraged to carry out home missions work among the many unchurched Dutch migrants”). This effort grew the Christian churches to a peak of around 10,000 members in the 1980s.”

“My prayer and hope is that the Christian Reformed Churches will embrace and support church planting as a biblical imperative. We have a wonderfully rich heritage of church planting.”

I have reread Brian’s article in the February issue and do not see anywhere a disregard of the CRCA’s heritage of church planting. Brian’s point was that this wonderful activity so prevalent in the early days seems to have dried up and we need to return to it. In his own words in his appendix to the report he wrote:

“However, as large-scale migration from Holland stopped, and Australian-born children started to outnumber Dutch-born children in many churches, our churches gradually lost their immigrant character, which had in the past provided the impetus for church planting. As a result church planting has all but stopped, and with it the growth of our denomination, which has slipped to just under 9,000 members in 2005.”

Some might excuse themselves and say they were not aware of what Brian had written as reported in the second report to Synod. That is just my point. It has been available for months as it was one of the first reports to reach the churches. Of course as that reports makes clear, that appendix is in fact lifted from what was published in T&S in its Reformation Day issue of October 2006.

This demonstrates we need to be careful about conclusions we draw from what we read or hear.

Further concerns raised concerning the emphasis on church planting has to do with the role of the ‘minister’, or as some call it, the ‘preaching elder”:

“The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.” (1 Timothy 5:17, NIV)

Concerns on this level raise matters of the danger of a loss of focus on the pastoral care of God’ people, a shallowing of the depth of knowledge of those who preach and teach, as well as expressions of inadequacy of some ministers as to having the time or ability to train up ministers on the local level.

Let’s look at the subject of a pastor thinking he does not have certain abilities or feels ill at ease in being called upon to do certain works. This is a feeling I have long lived with in all manner of contexts.

One of the blessings I have be given of God is that last year I was able to celebrate my 30th year of ordained ministry in the CRCA. It was for me a very moving time as almost to the day of my ordination, on December 7th last year I was also officially set apart by CRC Perth to be its church planter to reach the lost for Christ in the wheatbelt northeast of Perth. In that time of ministry I have served four churches in three states and in that time I was continually thrown into situations in which I felt I had no gifts and way out of my depth.

In Newcastle with my 25th birthday celebrated the day before my ordination, the Lord placed me amongst some very gifted and godly ladies whom He used to shape what was to become a strong evangelistic focus of my ministry. Through the Saturday Morning Bible School and what became massive Vacation Bible School ministries, they thrust me out of my comfort zone and taught me how to relate the gospel to children. What I thought was beyond me, through these ladies and others since, has now become a strength. I will never forget those days or these women whom God used to be such a blessing to me.

Round the time of my 29th birthday I started in Inala as the only ordained minister with a congregation of around 500 and a session bigger than the entire Classis! There the Lord continued His work on and through me making me more uncomfortable than ever before. Having been trained in door to door knocking with EE3 (evangelism explosion), this really took off in Inala where much of this took place. I used to dread those nights but will never forget one evening when knocking on the door of a house just round the corner of the church we were greeted by a burly truck driver in a blue singlet. I expected abuse or at least scorn after my introduction. I was stunned by this response: “It’s about time the church stopped leaving us to the Jehovah’s witnesses! Come on in!”. After two hours we left having shared the gospel round this man’s coffee table with some of his family listening in.

In St Marys two more godly ladies of the congregation challenged me further as to ministry to the children, this time within the worship services. They wanted me to do object lessons with the children before the sermon and present the message for that day at a level the children could understand and in a few minutes! That led on to children’s services once a month in which the children came forward and by means I had crafted, helped me unfold the sermon for that night. Instead of having to listen to a sermon pitched to the adults as best they could, it was the turn of the adults to listen to the Word but pitched at the children’s level. I was told many times by adults how much they learned from those services!

In Perth the challenge has been to become a mentor and trainer of leaders. Again feeling out of my depth, and with God’s guidance and help, finding my way while all the time feeling uncomfortable, I have set about this task over the past years. In part I have made up my own material and in others used existing resources. More recently what I felt others were better able to do we got them in! Murray Capill and Bill Berends from the College came and led retreats, the blessings of which continue to flow. From those three retreats alone we have years of work to do to implement what we have learned.

With just over nine years to retyrement (remember Bill Bosker’s article of last year)
I again find myself in a position in which I feel hugely uncomfortable, at times downright scared and certainly ill equipped. Indeed all the churches I have served over the past thirty years the Lord has continually thrust me into uncomfortable and fearful situations in which I was sure I was not gifted. I could share many other examples but you want to read other material in this issue I am sure – so we’d better leave some room. I now realise that through all that unnerving experience the Lord has been preparing me for the work now at hand.

If you were to ask me what has been the greatest lesson in all my experiences it would have to be this – I have always been inadequate for the task, but God in His amazing grace has been with me into whatever He has thrust me, and by His strength alone I have dared to move forward into this new calling which will take me I do not know. I only know I must heed a call now confirmed by the local church.

Sometimes we need to just give things a go and see what the Lord works through and in us. Through Him and in partnership with others we are more competent than what we realise. The passage of Scripture that has been foundational for nearly all my ministry is as follows:

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV)

Anyone who has been to a conference knows that it is a common experience of attendees that they leave that event hopefully much inspired and challenged but once they return to their regular schedule the tyranny of time takes over and conference notes get filed and forgotten and nothing much happens. It certainly has been my experience!

“Whenever the subject of church planting and raising up a new generation of leaders for future Gospel ministry comes up in our Tasmanian Classis, I can almost hear the groans of my colleagues. I sympathise with them. Where can a minister possibly find the time to put any real effort or energy into training and church planting? The duties of preaching, teaching and pastoral care are such that they easily keep the minister busy for up to fifty to sixty hours per week. It’s impossible to see how anything else can be added to the diary.”

Is it any wonder, then, that a large number of our churches didn’t even bother filling in the two church planting surveys sent round by the Church Planting Taskforce in 2007 and 2008. Church planting must for many be just an impossible dream.”

One of my greatest regrets today is that a course I did some years ago on coaching, which provided a really effective tool for raising up new leaders, met such an end. If only I had taken time to not do something else and make room to fit what I learned into my schedule! I would have saved myself from a lot of pressure and my work load would have been much lighter.

With weekly T&S responsibilities, synodical responsibilities as to ecumenical relationships, preaching twice a Sunday and all the other responsibilities of a local minister, I admit I often felt I was about to go under the load I was carrying.

How to fit in time for mentoring and coaching after synod 2006? How to work on a culture of church planting? Where to find the time!

One of the most helpful things I have been involved in with local leadership was in getting Murray Capill to lead us in two retreats (we don’t have to do all the training ourselves). The first was on pastoral care and the second on leadership teams. Both had as their first sessions the biblical foundations for these subjects. Having set that biblical foundation all of the following day we theoretically and practically explored how these responsibilities could be pursued into day’s climate.

I’ll never forget Murray’s illustration of young children playing soccer for the first time. This was on our retreat about team leadership. It was amazing through his illustration to see how the children play the ball rather than their positions. Instead of wingers and strikers and defence and goal keeper ALL the team chased the ball in one bunch all over and up and down the field! I personally recall how one game I was watching even the goal keeper got bored and joined the seething pack in the middle of the field! Keeping in mind the biblical foundations for team leadership, Murray then revealed that is how Sessions so often conduct their meetings and work! We all gasped and laughed because we all immediately saw it was so true!

Since then we at CRC Perth have been working as leaders in session being responsible for an area close to their heart and letting them run with it (we still have heaps of work to do!). Likewise we have been working at implementing lessons from the pastoral care retreat in which we have sought to work with the ‘one another’ principle in Scripture in that the members of the church have a duty of care for each other which if properly exercised would take an enormous load off local leadership.

The key here is to recognise that we do need to raise up leaders – a fact that is acknowledged almost universally in the CRCA as to the lament that regardless of size our local churches are finding it hard to even find elders and deacons. I know we all agree on this.

Spiritual formation in terms of coming alongside of men individually or in small groups and getting them beyond hearing but not living the Word (being wise men who build their house on the rock) is a key element in this. Here I fully agree with John Rogers that men should have the right stuff before they get to college and this is where in part it begins – of course before this it begins in the home with good spiritual leadership towards children! Personal coaching and mentoring are so pivotal to this work of developing people spiritually.

What we need to do then is find ways to do this that will not overwhelm local leaders nor lead to the neglect of other areas of responsibility. The Ministry Formation Task Group is there to assist. Beyond that there are so many resources but it does need time to sit back and review and plan ahead as a team – John Rogers was right in saying not everybody on their own has that gift. What has aided CRC Perth has been special meetings just to ‘brainstorm’ about what is holding us up and what are the ways forward.

Another area of concern to address here is the matter of the undermining of the preaching of the Word. This centres on the area of raising up as many leaders as we can for the fellowship groups and churches to be planted (Task 3).

John de Hoog makes this point well in the Vicariate Committee report. First of all let us acknowledge the context of the priesthood of all believers that John acknowledges earlier in his appendix to the vicariate report:

“Ordained ministry positions only form a small part of the ministry teams that serve in local churches, and the ordained ministry person is far from being the only person who engages in Word ministry in a local church. The multiplication of ministry envisaged in Task 3 means that the number of non-ordained ministry people in local church ministry teams will continue to outstrip the number of ordained ministry positions. According to Ephesians 4:12 that is highly desirable; every ordained ministry person should have the goal of equipping others for ministry. Task 3 of the fourfold task reflects this Biblical emphasis.”

I know we all agree that to multiply leaders and workers in the church is both biblical and a much desired thing. John in the quote above says it so well.

This does not take away a concern about the undermining of the ministry of Word and sacrament John goes on to say:

“In recent times the emphasis on multiplication of ministry in our denomination has had the potential to blur the definition of what constitutes the ordained ministry in the eyes of many. Some churches are appointing additional staff with titles such as “youth pastor” or “executive pastor” or “pastoral care worker”. People appointed to such positions are undertaking aspects of the work traditionally associated with the role of ordained ministry people, including regular preaching and pastoral work, and the administration of the sacraments. They are undertaking all the tasks traditionally associated with the ordained ministry, but without being officially ordained. As Task 3 gains more traction, this trend will only accelerate.”

In the recommendations at the end of his appendix John de Hoog then includes the following :

1. That if a man is preaching more than once a month in a local congregation he must seek to be officially ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacraments.

2. That in the future only those officially ordained be allowed to exercise these regular preaching ministries.

What needs to be acknowledged here is that no one wants to see a decline in the quality of preaching CRCA pulpits. I also do not for a moment believe anyone is advocating the eventual demise of the minister of word and sacraments.

We need to assure one another that however we see men coming into our pulpits, we retain both a high level of preaching and do not lose sight of that elder set aside for the special work of preaching and teaching.

We need to carefully listen to each other about this and make sure we strongly work together to multiply leaders in the CRCA in all areas of the church’s work including the ordained ministry of Word and sacraments.

Finally there has been some discussion as to what comes first in outreach strategy – preaching or church planting? It is very much the chicken and egg type question.

In my current work in the wheatbelt the model is one of preaching first. There was no core group siphoned off from a larger congregation. It is an outreach to people of various denominations without an ordained minister, to provide them good preaching and teaching and lead them into reaching their town for Christ.

In other models you have a pre-prepared group who after months of preparation begin services with 30-50 people – in Australia, an average sise congregation. In this case the actual church plant is more to the front of the time line.

In the win a block model revealed at the last minister’s and wives conference, a handful of people began door knocking a suburban block and over time built trusting relationships. All the while no services were taking place – no preaching was being done by the church planters in that community in so far as worship services were concerned. Eventually those being visited enquired about where the church was and upon hearing there was none in the community, they encouraged these church planters to get services started – and so they did. In this model not preaching nor a church plant came first – but relationship building through adopting a block was the starting point.

To rightly talk about a church planting strategy does not pit preaching over against church planting nor ordained ministry over against non ordained. Church planting strategy is about the different ways we as CRCA can move out into our neighbourhoods and birth new churches just like the early migrants did. It is about rekindling that kingdom vision that was once so strong in the past. I do not believe there is anyone in the CRCA opposed to this.

Today we must look beyond migrant focussed mission (Dutch in the past and South African today). We must reach out to ALL the lost in our communities and beyond, regardless of their ethnic origin, how recently they have arrived on our shores, their current beliefs or lifestyle. Like Jesus we must be prepared to move among the untouchables of society bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

As I have said before, we are closer than sometimes is made out. On this and other issues we face we need as CRCA to:

• Pray earnestly for wisdom from God to discern rightly what we are facing – perceptions no matter how much they seem to be real are not always trustworthy.

• Really appreciate and acknowledge the concerns of others. We need to demonstrate how what is perceived is not so, or how a real danger can be avoided. If this is not done people feel violated in that they feel ignored and pushed aside.

• Acknowledge there can in many cases be more than one correct way – alternative views are not always exclusive

A lot is at stake and I do not have in mind the CRCA. What is at stake is nothing less than the glory of God and our enjoyment of Him which is our chief aim in life.

It is a beautiful noise, not filling the street as Neil Diamond sings in his song, but pattering against the caravan in which I am sitting.

I am again in Wongan Hills in the wheatbelt some two hundred kilometres North East of Perth. The noise is that of rain, good soaking rain that has been falling for the best part of the day and night with isolated showers today. Sunday a week ago one of the farmers asked in the Wongan Hills worship service to pray for rain – we had not seen rain for some six to seven months. Most of the seeding has been done and without rain much of the potential harvest was due to be lost. This then is a real answer to prayer for which we give thanks.

Another reason for thanksgiving is that last night we started the first home fellowship group in Wongan Hills. At this time it is just one couple and myself. We look to the Lord to grow us into a greater sense of community and that in His time others will join us, especially those who at this time have no saving knowledge of Jesus. Indeed as we find in Scripture, we plant the seed and we water it but God alone causes growth to take place. We look to God for the harvest not only of wheat and other crops but especially of souls.

“What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9, NIV)

Over the past couple of months I have received two emails as to the difficulty of some of the articles to read, especially that concerning the emergent church. Once
I explained why we have at least one ‘meatier’ article in each issue one correspondent in particular was very appreciative of my response and explanation. In case there are others I share below what I wrote:

It used to be that T&S was just 28 pages and we found that to provide something for everybody (all age groups) we needed more pages.

We also recognised that there were readers who wanted lighter material to read and others who wanted meatier items to read (not necessarily theologically trained people). The item on the emerging church is a hot topic in leadership circles of all denominations and is important reading for all elders, deacons and ministers and anyone else interested in the church growth movement and church planting.

To meet the different needs of our readers, some years ago we expanded T&S by
12 pages and especially enlarged the feature article area of the magazine. This was to give us room for a mixture of lighter material as well as at least one meatier item for those wanting some deeper reading.

Like any magazine or newspaper, T&S does not expect everyone to read every item - though in the surveys we have done in the past, we found many do. As we have always said, there is something for everybody. Having expanded the magazine from 28 to 40 pages means no one is short changed”.

I trust this explains better why we do have some items that might be difficult for some people to read.

This month’s notes find me on the road again, this time almost at the end of a trek right across the continent from Sydney to Wongan Hills and then after the worship service there tomorrow, to home base in Perth.

It is Saturday morning and I have been on the road since Monday afternoon, with a one day stopover in Parkes (that NSW country town known for its dish which was featured in a movie about how Australia played a big part in beaming the pictures coming from the first walk on the moon to the world.)

The occasion for this long journey was to be pick up a new vehicle for the rural and remote area mission Florence and I are developing. It is a Landcruiser camper built for us by KEA in Sydney. It will enable me to visit country towns in the wheatbelt and stay wherever I want without the need to pay for motel rooms or onsite vans.

The previous 4WD (a Pajero) we had for nearly 21 years and it has just done 400,000km. It is our hope the new vehicle will last just as long and will take us beyond the Wheatbelt ministry into a call we have felt for a long time to eventually serve in our retirement in the Kimberley area in WA’s north west. The cost of getting the troopie freighted to WA was about $2,500, so taking some accrued days off to drive the ‘truck’ over has saved us about $1,500.

One of the great features of the trip has been the stop over in Parkes where I was able to catch up with BJ who is a year twelve student doing the profession of faith course on the internet with me using our virtual classroom. This is a video and audio conferencing tool which is proving to be very effective. More on that next issue when we will have a feature story on that aspect of the trip and my work in the wheatbelt.

As you all know by now the future for T&S is going to be very challenging. Be that as it may, for now we need to carry on and do the work that is immediately before us. To that end, the start of the new financial year in July marks the completion of the tenure of John Hughes our current business manager. Stepping in to that position from July will be Lizelle Fourie of the Grace congregation in WA. In our next issue we will introduce Lizelle and formally farewell John.

On the note about the future of T&S, a number of people have been in contact and have offered ideas for the way ahead. As I have written previously, I have much to consider as editor and the team also needs to allow things to settle before coming together to make a decisions for each person. In the coming two months I am away on long service leave after serving the CRCA some 30 years, almost eight of these as editor of T&S. The team and I will give this time to reflection as we consider what to do. It will also give all the churches time to consider the synod’s decision and its implications.

Please remember us all in your prayers and myself as editor as we have big decisions to make. May the Lord’s will prevail and His glory served in whatever transpires.

The experience of the past few days has been a privilege and a blessing and reveals again the tender mercies and kindness of the Lord. This month the Ed's notes come from a nursing home in Rooty Hill, NSW where my wife Florence and I have been spending time with her mum, Grietje Kuitert.

Just yesterday, Thursday July 2^nd, Grietje turned 90. Quite surprisingly she had many letters from dignitaries including the Prime Minister, the Governor as well as the Premier of NSW and both state and federal local members of parliament – surprisingly because I thought you only got that when you reached 100 years! I have told mum Kuitert that she will now need to live on for another ten years to get her letter from the Queen! However, she made it clear that she looks forward to a far better reward in the presence of the Lord.

I have seen it many times, and in each case it has been a privilege and blessing, that our older ‘foundation’ members with all the challenges of older age and the difficulties that come with that, none the less remain assured that the Lord is with them and has in store for them something that this world cannot compete with. Paul puts it so well in his second letter to the Corinthians:

“ Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-8, NIV)

Before leaving for Sydney for this special occasion I have continued to think about the future of a printed edition of T&S. You will see in this issue a letter to the editor which carries a theme that has much in common with a number of communications I have received, as to the belief that it is not likely many will follow T&S onto the internet and that we are about to lose our denominational ‘flagship’. One of those communications from a colleague suggested that we must preserve our last printed denominational link in some format, perhaps a cheaper newsletter type production, bulk ordered by all churches and distributed to every household, perhaps ten or so pages stapled together.

Besides the fact that I think synod has demonstrated a lack of support even for something like that, it is an idea that bothers me much. Allow me a moment to explain why.

Some time ago Rev. Bill Deenick wrote a paper: “ On being Bravely and Distinctly Reformed”. In that paper he addressed a number of areas including worship. In that section, brother Deenick had this to say:

“In every part of its worship only the best will do. If there is to be a building, it should be a good building. If there is to be an overhead projector, it should be the best one possible, so that everyone can comfortably read both the words and the music. And so also the musical accompaniment should be first class..” (Reflections on Being Reformed Bravely and Distinctly - Rev. J.W. Deenick)

I don’t know how this brother thinks about these things today. I have discovered however that this belief is where I find myself in all of my life – not perfectly of course (anyone who knows me is more than aware of my faults and inconsistencies!). Yet those who know me also know that I cannot give anything less than 100% - I can’t do things I commit to by halves. Such has been the case with T&S.

There can be no argument that T&S could be published in a cheaper less attractive format. However I as editor could not give myself to that format for the following reasons:

1) As CRCA we are much better off financially than those days when all churches bulk ordered T&S and ensured every member had a copy. In those days, supplying Gestetnered copies was no small demand on migrant wallets when there was the competing challenge of supporting local church building, RTC College development and establishment of Christian Schools; not to mention feeding families on one wage, families which were usually bigger than those promoted by the previous federal treasurer – one for each parent and one for the country!

2) T&S is a publication that has come of age and has for the past years realised the original vision of producing something for all the family in each issue.

3) T&S has become a publication which has begun to increasingly attract requests for reprint of our articles (even in French from a Canadian denominational magazine) as well as offers for articles from overseas (just another received today!).

4) T&S in its present printed format is giving the Lord the best we can bring in service to him. Anything less than what we have now will fall short of the mark even though it might produce some level of communication between the churches. That is something to which I cannot give myself as it would be far less than the best we can do.

It is of course argued we will have that flagship and that communication instrument in the internet version and that printed publications are on the way out. I remember a similar pronouncement about a paperless society with a computer in every home – interestingly the statistics reveal we go through more paper than ever before – we all seem to print out multiple draft copies to read in our hands before going to final print!

Personally I don’t see that argument upheld each time I go to the newsagent to pick up my aviation magazines or the newspaper. There are more magazines appearing all the time, adding to those in the multiple rows of the shops – gardening, motoring, fishing, photographic, current affairs etc. It appears most of us still enjoy a magazine on our lap over a cup of coffee or tea – something to be flicked through, items of interest noted, to be read over the next weeks with the promise of future coffee breaks in view.

Last issue and again in this one you will find our current promotion which focuses on saving our printed T&S in its current form – giving the Lord the best we can give. Posters have also been sent out to all churches to be prominently displayed calling upon CRCA members to sign up now for 2010.

We seek to know earlier than normal how many subscribers we shall have so we can make a final decision in December whether T&S 2010 will be the last printed version in its current form and whether I will continue as editor.

Unfortunately without the CRCA subsidy we have had to increase bulk subscriptions to
$36/yr but then that is still only 70c per week and far less than other magazines or newspapers we buy on a daily or monthly basis.

If we wish to have the best we can produce and maintain our printed ‘flagship’ beyond 2010 now is the time to commit. See your local representative as soon as possible and register your subscription.