Rev. C. Bouwman, representing the Free Reformed Churches of Australia, addressed the delegates with the following words:

Esteemed brethren in our Lord Jesus Christ!

It is distinctly a pleasure for me to be in your midst. It's a pleasure for me personally, for it's most enjoyable to be back in the town of my youth and make acquaintance again with so many with whom I've grown up. I note with delight that there are brothers at this Synod with whom I used to cavort and discuss at Young Peoples' Society in this very building - and I like to think we're none the worse because of it! Equally, it's a great pleasure to renew contact with various with whom I've spent time at the Theological College - and I admit: it brings back many pleasant memories! And possibly what gives me the greatest pleasure in being here is the opportunity to observe that Australian blood is well and truly represented amongst the delegates to this Synod - undoubtedly for the great benefit of this meeting!!

All of that, Mr Chairman, illustrates something of the warmth and closeness of the bonds existing between the Free Reformed Churches of Australia and the Canadian Reformed Churches. It's that closeness that also prompted our previous Synod in Kelmscott two years ago "to send a delegation to the next Synod of the Canadian Reformed Churches" on the ground that "the degree of common interests we have with the Canadian Reformed Churches makes face to face contact desirable."

"The degree of common interest we have," said our Synod. Yes, brothers, our bonds go far beyond the ties of friendships and family. You in Canada (and I admit: even after being gone for ten years it sounds strange to me to speak about "you in Canada"!) and we in Australia have a common origin and so a parallel history. As one of your delegates to our 1994 Synod said it: "we are churches that have developed through immigration from a common ancestral home, with a common confessional heritage…. That history of immigration presents us with common difficulties and challenges…." You in Canada have established a Theological College for the Training of the Ministry, and we in Australia reap the fruits, for the majority of our ministers received their training at this institute. You in Canada have developed a Book of Praise, and we in Australia make grateful use of it, Sunday by Sunday in the church services and daily in our homes and schools. You in Canada have a reformed teacher training institute, and we in Australia eagerly accept graduates from Covenant College to teach the covenant children in the schools we've received. You in Canada produce reformed literature in the English language, notably Clarion and Reformed Perspective, and these magazines find their way into very many of our homes and hearts. You in Canada raise the young men and the young women, and we send our boys and girls to your land to steal them for ourselves… - and, O yes, we do send some back to assist in cross fertilisation too…. In so very many ways, then, we in Australia benefit greatly from the gifts the Lord has given to our bigger sister in Canada, and it is only fitting to thank the Lord in your hearing for what He in mercy has given to us in you over the years. It is our heartfelt prayer that the Lord will continue to use the Canadian Reformed Churches as a source of blessing for the Free Reformed Churches of Australia. We are a small bond of churches, consisting of nine congregations with some 3300 members, and so very much feel the need for warm contact with the churches in Canada to whom we are so close.

Yes, we are small. But both Canada and Australia are historically members of the British Commonwealth, and so have inherited from Great Britain the same language, the same legal system, the same political system. The result is that there are no pronounced cultural differences between Canada and Australia - except in those areas that relate to climate. As the children of the first Free Reformed migrants grew up and knew themselves to be dinkie-die Aussies, their sense of affinity to Holland and what that land had to offer to Australian church life lessened in favour for growing affinity with Canada. We understood in Australia: we have so much in common with Canada that bonds with Canada need to grow and be strengthened. We understood too: it is not necessary for us in Australia to do for ourselves what you have already done in Canada. We see, then, no need today to begin our own Training for the Ministry. It is for us no problem to send our young men to the Theological College in Hamilton. I may mention that the College in Hamilton receives regular mention in our prayers as well as collection rosters, so much so that we in Australia refer to the Theological College of the Canadian Reformed Churches as "our" College. We remember with deep appreciation the fact that the Canadian Reformed Churches sent Dr Faber to visit us at the time of his retirement, and our upcoming Synod needs to consider a proposal from our Deputies for the Training for the Ministry to invite one of the professors of the College to come to Australia in order to raise the profile of the College in our midst still more. For my part, our Deputies for the Training for the Ministry requested me to take the opportunity while in Canada to meet with the faculty of the College, and I may mention that the meeting was very helpful as we set ourselves to encouraging and preparing our young men for studies in Hamilton.

The same may be said in relation to the Book of Praise. You in Canada have laboured for years to develop a Book for the churches, and we in Australia see no need to do that work again. One travels, then, as far away from Fergus as is possible in physical miles, and the church service is the same, with the same confessions, the same psalms and hymns, the same liturgical forms - word for word (be it, as some would say, in purer English pronunciation). It prompts the question: as you consider further developments for the Book of Praise - and I notice that suggestions to this extent are on your agenda- might it be possible that ways and means are found for our two bonds of churches to work together in developing the Book of Praise? Admittedly, that course will not be without its challenges. Our last Synod, for example, made a small change to the form for the Ordination of deacons so that the command of the apostle in Gal 6:10 (to "do good to all men, especially to those of the household of faith") is no longer addressed to the deacons but to the congregation as a whole. Similarly, the large majority of our churches are using the New King James Version, while you prefer a different translation. Such decisions on our part are not meant to be criticisms upon your decisions. Instead, they represent the fact that we are two separate bonds of churches, both responsible for affairs within our own lands. At the same time, such differences do not preclude close consultation and cooperation. We would ask, therefore - given the great amount on interaction between us- that where our decisions differ from your decisions as recorded in a valuable resource as the Book of Praise, you grant us the honour of giving our decisions your careful consideration - even as we have considered and will consider your decisions carefully.

I observe that your Committee on Relations with Churches Abroad has informed your assembly that the Free Reformed Churches of Australia decided in their 1996 Synod to terminate membership in the International Conference of Reformed Churches - of which the Free Reformed Churches of Australia and the Canadian Reformed Churches were both charter members. In time past we have requested from your deputies some assistance in coming to grips with the implications of our ICRC membership, and I take the opportunity today to thank you and your deputies for the assistance given. Precisely because we have requested your assistance, it seems to me correct to give some account of why we decided to terminate our membership.

Our Synod mentioned as Ground for our decision primarily this: "the membership of the FRCA in the ICRC has not promoted harmony and unity in the churches." This is a reality we have experienced since the initial decision to join was first made in 1983. Over the years, many overtures and appeals have been presented to Synod and deputies have written numerous reports. In writing these appeals and reports, as well as in digesting and answering them, the Free Reformed Churches of Australia have definitely studied and made use of the thinking that has occurred in the sister churches on the doctrine of the church. (Consciously we seek to prevent that our relative geographic isolation be a handicap to us!) Yet we could not persuade each other that membership in the ICRC was either commanded by God or forbidden by Him. When Synod Kelmscott, then, was confronted with appeals and overtures from three of our nine churches to terminate membership in the ICRC, our Synod decided to do so. Please note: we have stepped out of the ICRC not on grounds that membership in the ICRC might be unScriptural, but rather on grounds that internal division is not worth the price of ICRC membership. And I may mention to you that our decision to farewell the ICRC has indeed served to restore more harmony and peace within our churches.

Still, you will wonder why membership in the ICRC has been such cause for discussion and difficulty in our midst that one third of our churches requested Synod to terminate this membership. Allow me to mention a couple of reasons. Possibly the reason easiest to explain is this: all member churches of the ICRC consider each other, by virtue of their ICRC membership, to be true churches of the Lord. This reality gave problems in our midst because we have been striving for numerous years to come to the point where we could recognise the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia as a true church of the Lord - and have not been able to. So, within the international forum of the ICRC we were saying that the PCEA was a true church, but within our own country - where the FRCA and the PCEA both live- we could not say that the PCEA was a true church. This tension between saying Yes and No at the same time heightened pressure in our midst to step out of the ICRC. Did Jesus not said that our Yes must be Yes, and our No, No? (cf Mt 5:37). A second reason relates to the urge of the stated aim of the ICRC Constitution, where the members are encouraged to seek contact and unity with fellow members. So the ICRC was seen as the engine that determined with whom the FRCA ought to establish and formalise contact.

Before we withdrew from the ICRC, concern was communicated to us by sister churches that departing from the ICRC would cause us to be isolated. It is now two years ago that we have withdrawn our membership, and to date there are no indications that we are becoming an island to ourselves. We continue to have contact with the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, to the point that our coming Synod needs to consider a concrete proposal concerning how to make progress with this church. (For that reason we are also keenly interested in what you will decide regarding the Orthodox Presbyterian Church - and why you will decide it.) Further, our previous synod answered positively a request from the churches to "instruct deputies to continue to gather information regarding the Free Reformed Church of the Philippines..., with the aim of seeing whether official contacts should be opened with them" (Acts 1996, Art 68). Again, regarding the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, Synod 1996 could declare its "gratitude for the faithfulness which deputies found in the RCNZ" and instruct deputies to "strive for a sister church relation with the RCNZ" (Acts 1996, Art 53). We are also very heavily involved with our sister churches in Indonesia, the Gereja Gereja Reformasi Indonesia, and have also been involved in giving assistance to the so-called Musafir churches in Indonesia.

You will notice: we are concentrating our contacts to churches in our quarter of the globe. We are small, and so can not be all things to all men. Accordingly, we decided in 1990 already to develop new contacts only with churches who were geographically close to us, for whom we therefore have a greater responsibility. Other churches around the world we would leave to our existing sister churches living in proximity to the new church (see Acts 1990, Art 58). Our current practice, then, resembles what your Committee for Relations with Churches Abroad has recommended to this Synod.

As to mission work, the Free Reformed Churches of Australia have for years been busy in Papua New Guinea. Of late responsibility for the work that's been done in Port Moresby and Ekoro has passed to Toronto - here's an example of helping each other. We for our part are investigating possibilities in the PNG city of Lae. Efforts are also under way in our midst to establish mission work in India and in China. There certainly is enormous scope for mission work in our part of the world! Maybe, just maybe, we can do more work together in mission.

Dear brothers in the Lord, I must come to an end. Your sister churches in Australia greet you in the name of the Lord, and wish you God's indispensable and promised blessing on all your labours. May we meet more often, consult together more often, do more things together. When all is said and done, we need each other as brothers of one culture, one language, one heritage, one faith.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.

Rev. J. Moesker responded to Rev. C. Bouwman's address on behalf of the FRCA with the following words:

Brother Bouwman,

I have been asked to respond to you on behalf of this assembly and the Canadian Reformed Churches in general, and I do so with great pleasure. On a personal level. Br. Bouwman, it's a pleasure for me as former Fergusite to address you as former Fergusite too. We both spent our youth as members of the convening church of Fergus, and knew each other fairly well. But its not only a personal pleasure. I may address you as delegate from a federation of churches which, though distant in geographic terms, are very close to us here in Canada in heart, spiritually.

Thank you, brother, for the warm greetings you gave here on behalf of the Free Reformed Churches of Australia. We are certainly grateful that the Free Reformed Churches sent a representative to Synod Fergus 1998. It gives our relationship a very personal touch.

Your presence at this assembly certainly signifies how close we are as churches. You yourself are Canadian born and raised, as are some other ministers and members in the Australian churches. On the other hand, at this assembly we have among the delegates two brothers - a minister and an elder - who were Australian born and raised. This shows how close we are as churches, in spite of the geographic distance between us. There is much travelling back and forth, between Australia and Canada, among the members of our respective churches.

And no wonder. You mentioned that too. We share a common heritage, the heritage of the Dutch Reformations. We have a common language, You share our Book of Praise. You substantially support the Theological College of the Canadian Reformed Churches in Hamilton, something for which we as churches are very grateful. You share our college, we could say.

We aren't identical, though. We are different and develop differently in some areas. Although the Australians speak English as we do, we don't always catch on to what you are saying, and wonder sometimes why you don't just speak "real" English. Different words and expressions. Different method of church government, without classis. The Australian churches have picked the New King James as their Bible translation of choice. They also, in spite of the assistance given from here to come to grips with what membership in the ICRC means, are no longer member churches of the ICRC with us. So there are differences.

However, what holds us together is far greater than any differences between us. We share a common faith in the one true God and in His Word. We share a common desire to be true to the Word and to serve and glorify His Name in our respective countries. And it is our hope and prayer that even though there may be separate developments and adaptations in our very different countries, we will continue to enjoy that bond of our common faith and that common desire to serve and glorify God. May we continue to seek each other and help each other and even grow in affection for each other as churches. We need each other in this world which, as a famous Canadian stated, is ever more becoming a "global village." Also an ecclesiastical "global village," I might add.

Br. Bouwman, we thank you again for your brotherly greetings from "down under" and we wish the Free Reformed Churches of Australia God's continued blessing and care. We also wish you a good stay here yet among us, also with family, and may God grant you a safe return to your own family, church and country. Peace be with you all.