Rev. P. Bedard, representing l'Eglise reformee du Quebec, addressed the delegates with the following words:

Esteemed Brothers,

It is a joy and a privilege to be with you. I would like to thank you, also on behalf of Rev. deBlois, for the welcome we received. This is the first time I am present at one of your Synods. But it is not the first time I have the pleasure to meet with some of you.

My first official contact with your churches goes back exactly four years ago. In May 1994, I met the consistory of the church at Ottawa. I went with another delegate of our Synod. We were appointed by the Synod of l'Eglise reformee du Quebec to initiate contacts with the Canadian Reformed Churches. At that time, we didn't know much about your churches and about the kind of relationship that was possible between you and us. We contacted the church at Ottawa. I can bear witness here with gratitude that we have been warmly received by their consistory. They were quite interested to hear about who we were and what was the Lord doing among us in Quebec. We appreciated their willingness and availability to help us go through the whole process of developing official contacts with your Federation. We worked together to prepare an overture presenting the ERQ. The consistory at Ottawa sent the overture to Classis Ontario North. I also had the privilege to be there, in December 1994, for that second step. Rev. deBlois was also there. Classis accepted to send the request for Ecclesiastical Fellowship to Synod Abbostford, three years ago.

As you know, Synod Abbotsford appointed a committee for contact with our churches. And again, I had the privilege and the responsibility to be part of the next step. Rev. deBlois, Mr. Thibaudeau and myself were appointed by our Synod to work with your committee. And we had the joy to meet together, to work together and to know each other. More than that, we together have appreciated to learn what the Lord was doing in the long history of your churches as well as in the very short history of our churches. I can give evidence again in favor of Rev. Visscher, Rev. VanPopta, Mr. Oostdyk and Mr. Boot. I have appreciated their ability to listen, to ask specific questions, to answer our questions, to raise some concerns, and to give us encouragement. In a word I have seen in their attitude, in their words and deeds a brotherly love, for which I am thankful to the Lord. The committee didn't consider their mandate lightly. After many meetings, readings and discussions, they have submitted a lenghty report to your churches.

During these years, I also had the opportunity to visit some of your congregations and to meet some other people of your churches. And each time I have been impressed by the rich spiritual heritage the Lord gave you and by your serious desire to transmit it to the next generation. Through these experiences I can say, personally, that my vision and my understanding of the church of the Lord has deepened, and my confidence in the Lord's gathering and preserving His people has grown. Not that we should live by sight. No we live by faith alone in His promises. But the fact that the Lord has graciously given us brothers and sisters is a strong encouragement.

Having myself been born and raised in a strong Roman Catholic family, I must admit that it would be easy for me to covet what the young people of your congregations may receive at home and in your churches: the pure Gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ, the faithful teaching of the Bible, regular prayer, catechism, words of wisdom, fellowship with brothers and sisters in the Lord, many good examples of Christian families, and so many other things that some of the members of your churches may sometimes take for granted. I encourage them not to take them for granted, and not to neglect, or even to despise the heritage received. If the contacts between you and us may be helpful at least in this area, I would be happy. Whatever will happen in the future about our relationship, the work already done would have not been in vain.

But I am not complaining about what I have not received. I have so many reasons to be thankful. I even fear that if I had to count all the blessings I received from the Lord, I would forget many of them. The king David said: "Bless the Lord, o my soul, and forget none of His benefits." (Ps. 103:2). It would be too long here to tell you my story: Having been baptized in the Roman Catholic church, having received all the Roman Catholic doctrine; then as a teenager starting to read the Bible, being converted at eighteen, rebaptized in a brethren assembly, and later on, providentially discovering the Reformed faith, struggling with the doctrine of the covenant and infant baptism, and finally accepting and confessing what the huguenots, my ancestors, believed four hundred years ago! And today I have the so great privilege and responsibility to be minister of the Word and sacraments! How can it be possible?

In our churches in Quebec, we are a total of about three hundred people. Most of them have gone through a more or less similar experience. And today, we have children. We teach them the Bible and the Reformed doctrine. By God's grace, we want to be a good example for them. We pray the Lord for this second generation. We also want to reach other people around us with the Gospel that we cherish. The road before us is full of challenges. The world around us is full of dangers. And we lack so much experience. But yes, there are so many reasons to be thankful because there are so many blessings to count!

If you are looking for an established, well organized Reformed federation in Quebec, may be you will be disappointed. May be you will not find it the way you would like to find it. It would be easy for you to say: "Look here, they don't have this, they don't have that, they are not like us." Of course, we are not. How could we be? Yes, we have shortcomings. And you have too. Yes, it takes time to build a Reformed church. And the Lord took time to build your churches. And it is not finished. But should we first concentrate on what we do not have or on what we do very imperfectly? To my eyes, our very existence is a miracle of God's grace! And of course God's grace comes with God's law. There are promises and obligations in His covenant! You see, I have learned it. So, as a new Federation we have to grow, to learn and to apply God's Word in all the areas of our church life. For example, we have to discuss things like confessional membership and the fencing of the Lord's table. And I believe that you may be helpful in these things, as well as we may be helpful to you in other areas.

We have studied your rules for Ecclesiastical Fellowship. We have adopted quite similar rules. One thing that attracts me a lot in these rules is the mutual character of the relationship. How could two different Federations, of two different sizes, with two different histories and experiences, be bound in a mutual relationship? This is a good question. We may have the right answer on paper. And I thing the rules give a clear answer. But then we have to live up to them. The smaller and younger brother may be tempted to have an inferiority complex. The bigger and older brother may be tempted to have a superiority complex. It must not be so in the Lord's family. We both have things to give to the other and things to receive from the other, mutually. The rules, I believe, express that truth clearly.

But maybe I anticipate too much. The Ecclesiastical Fellowship is not established yet. Our Synod has accepted to approach you and to propose to you such a relationship. But you may still have some questions, some concerns that must be dealt with. Is it feasible to come to such a fellowship? Is it the appropriate time? Are there other discussions and works that should be done before? Your Synod has to make decisions in this regard. I know that you will not consider the subject lightly, but that you are devoting prayer, time and energy to it. All that I can say here is this: May God's will be done and may you have wisdom to make decisions for His glory.

If I may say something about other decisions you still have to make, three words come to my mind: Faithfulness, consistency and courage. I encourage you to continue to be faithful to Scriptures, to be consistent specially in the way you deal with other churches, and to have the courage to make the good decisions that will express faithfulness and consistency. On one hand, I know your deep desire to help others. To me, it is obvious. On the other hand, I know where you stand with your Confession. It is also obvious. Sometimes you may wonder how those two can go together. How to abide by the Confession, in doctrine and life, and at the same time how to keep your hands opened, ready to help others and share your heritage with others? I have no magic formula to propose to you. But I believe, I have the conviction that they go together, consistency and openness, even if you may not always see it. Sometimes you may have tensions among you, among your churches, about that, even tensions inside yourselves. We live by faith, don't we? Our refuge is in God's wisdom, not ours, isn't it? The best way you can help others is to be faithful, consistent and courageous, and all this by God's grace only. But now I am starting to preach to you. Please forgive me.

I think it is appropriate here to conclude with a word about your generosity. Since your last Synod, and even before, many of your congregations have supported us financially. They have done that "not reluctantly or under compulsion", but as cheerful givers and with amazing generosity. As the Apostle Paul says: "Whoever sows generously will also reap generously." (2 Cor. 9:6). May your churches reap, by God's grace, one hundred times what they have given. And be sure that your generosity results in many expressions of thanks to God!

In conclusion, my prayer is that the Lord will continue to guide us together. In each of our congregations, in our respective Federations, and all together may we "be like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose" (Phil. 2:2), having the same attitude as that of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you.

Rev. G. H. Visscher responded to Rev. P. Bedard's address on behalf of the ERQ with the following words:

The joy that I experience this evening as I respond to you on this occasion is in one line with the joy and thanksgiving to the Lord that has grown over the past number of years as I have come to know the two of you, and your other committee member, br Luc Thibaudeau. I am sure that I speak for all the members of our committee (also br. W. Oostdyk present here, br. J. Boot, and Rev. John van Popta) when I express tonight the appreciation that we have for you and your churches and your stand for the Reformed faith in that province which still is and hopefully will continue to be part of our great country. In the meetings that took place between our two committees, in Montreal, Quebec City, Cornwall, and Burlington, we have always appreciated the fact that even though it was hard for you and your churches you have sought to remain faithful to the Reformed heritage.

As the sub-title of our report also suggests, in one country we have indeed "two solitudes." It is hard for us west of the province of Quebec not just to understand your language but even more to comprehend the special challenges that you have because of the context in which you live and work - a context which is so predominantly Roman Catholic and yet so entirely estranged from the Word of God. You mentioned growing up Roman Catholic and not reading the Bible until 18; Luc Thibaudeau told us once how he too grew up in a Roman Catholic home but had never even opened a Bible until he went to a Bible study at university. He expressed also the pain that he felt in being rejected as a result by members of his own family. This is pain that you too have and do experience in many ways. What further pain all of you must feel because having come into the community of Reformed churches you have experienced rejection also there. Churches who were involved in the formation of the Eglise Reformee du Quebec are now also strange to you because of the choices they made, choices which you so rightly said were not in accord with your basis, nor your direction. It is because of all this and so much more that you are here tonight and we thank God for you and your churches. We rejoice in the fact that though we may have two solitudes, we know of a deep and wonderful unity. It is not a unity that we create. It is not yet a unity on paper. But it is a unity in the Spirit of God. Our confession speaks of this: a truly Catholic church which is "joined and united with heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith"(Article 27, B.C.). It is only because of that unity that we have been able in the past years to have our discussions.

The fact that we know of such unity and welcome you here tonight does not mean that we do not have differences. You know, we know, they are there. We have discussed them in significant detail as can be seen from our report to Synod Fergus. And you will experience, no doubt, that the Synod will be even more taxing than the four of us in the committee appointed by Synod Abbotsford 1995. But it is our hope and prayer that, regardless of what this Synod decides and how it evaluates our recommendations, you will be patient and not lose heart.

It is my hope that the last number of years have been only a beginning of a longstanding and beneficial relationship. And it certainly does not need to be onesided. You have acknowledged your need for help with respect to directing your course, with respect to benefiting from that common heritage of the Reformation, and with respect to the limitations in your resources. We will be glad to help as we can. Our heritage is our joy. And it is not painful for us either to share with you the financial resources God has entrusted to us for a while. What are we to do with all that but use it as God wants us to? But it is not a one-way street. You need to help us. Help us to reach out to the rest of our common nation, help us to speak to a nation which is increasingly become estranged from God, and His Word.

Let me speak at the same time for a moment to the other members of Synod Fergus 1998 about this matter. There will be the temptation to say that we have to use the same standards with respect to the ERQ as we have used with the OPC, as we are using with the RCUS, and all the others. But the great question that we have been wrestling with as committees in the past years is the question: can we do that? Does the Lord ask that of us? Can we relate to the mission churches of Irian Jaya in the same way as we would relate to the RCUS? Can we expect of the mission churches of Brazil what we expect of the United Reformed Churches of North America? Can we relate to the ERQ in one line with these other churches on our continent? Not that they are the same as those mission churches. They are not. As br Bedard once said (you can find it in our report) "we are not refugees!" But yet, all the Lord's people and all the Lord's churches are not the same. To those who are given much, much is required. But to those who are given less, less is required. Brothers, by the grace of God, there are seven ministers of God's Word in a federation that has no more than 300 people, struggling to reap a harvest in a field in our own country that is "ripe for harvest"(John 4:35)? The question before us is: will we embrace and extend the right hand of fellowship as we continue to help them, and be helped by them as we work in our own backyards?

Brs Bedard, de Blois, on behalf of Synod 1998, I ask you to pass on the greetings to all the brothers and sisters in the province of Quebec. Tell them not to give up. Urge them to remain strong in the faith. For the times are evil and will become more so. And remember: until our Lord returns, the churches that stand on the basis of the Word of God and the precious heritage of the Reformation should not divide and fragment more and more but join arm in arm, heart to heart against the real evil one and those who are his.