Darwin Presbyterian Church

Saturday September 6 to Wednesday September 9, 2009

Through his involvement with Presbyterian Inland Mission and inspired by God, Rob Duncanson felt called to recommence a Presbyterian congregation in Darwin in early 2007. The work was established by and is currently under the supervision of the PIM Committee and has neither a Session nor a Presbytery over it. This is of course highly irregular, but no reason to squash the moving of the Spirit of God!

Rob was commissioned and sent by my own Presbytery, Melbourne West, and he has been very powerfully supported in many ways especially by his home congregation in Melton but also by the wider Victorian Church.

I was aware that my immediate predecessor as Moderator had visited the new church in Darwin, and when I spoke with him about it he strongly encouraged me also to visit in an "official" capacity to continue the support and encouragement that is being offered by the PCV. Never having been to Darwin, I was of course delighted to follow through on that suggestion, as were my family who were able to accompany me.

It is our hope that the GAA next year will agree to place Darwin Presbyterian Church under the pastoral oversight of the Presbytery of Melbourne West and the General Assembly of Victoria.

Weather: Let's get the traditional Aussie pastime of talking about the weather out of the way first!

We arrived in Darwin at about 2am on the Saturday, and it was already 26' so we were off to a flying start. Each day seemed to get hotter than the last, with the Tuesday peaking at about 40'.

We did experience some early rains, but nothing heavy or lasting and it didn't disturb our schedule as both occasions on which it came down were after we'd completed the day's trip and were in the car heading back to our motel.

On the Monday evening, enjoying a meal in the open air on the wharf, we watched a spectacular lightening storm in the distance, but all that reached us was an almost imperceptible splash of rain, a slight drop in the temperature (to below 30') and a gentle breeze.

Tourism: Yes, yes, I know we were supposed to be there on church business, but we also wanted to take in some of the sights and sounds of a new place, and of course it was the tourism aspect that attracted our teenage daughter to join us! All in all, it was a rather pleasant family holiday with a reasonable mix of business and pleasure.

We visted the Mindil Market on Sunday evening and sat on the beach (with about 10,000 others it felt like) to watch the strange but beautiful sight of the sun melting into the horizon almost exactly on 7pm. I still find it utterly bizarre that some people actually believe this world has come about by accident rather than design.

On Monday we took a drive (thanks to Rob and Jeanette lending us their car) about an hour south, through that wonderfully named township of Humpty Doo, to the Adelaide River and a "Jumping Crocodile" boat excursion. Other members of my family braved the offer of holding a rather large serpent around their necks, but I declined and sat far away, availing myself of copius amounts of free coffee. If whisky had been on offer, I might have embarrassed myself. But that's what snakes do to me. The crocodiles, despite being much more dangerous, were much more acceptable. We saw one that is over 5m long and thought to be about 100 years old.

On Tuesday we turned right off the Stuart Highway instead of left and headed for Litchfield Park. Having misunderstood directions, we took the early turn off that goes past Berry Springs and found ourselves for about 30km on a dirt track instead of tarmac. All part of the great adventure! When we eventually got there, we had a wee dip in the various rock pools and waterfalls that were on offer. Very refreshing and again quite remarkable beauty in the natural world.

On Wednesday we visited the Museum and Art Gallery. The display about Cyclone Tracy, which destroyed a huge proportion of the town on Christmas Day 1974, was the most interesting part. We also visited the Anglican Cathedral, which had been damaged by bombs in World War II and then completely destroyed by the cyclone. The modern building that was then built has won awards for its design.

Church: Ok, so now that we've got that other stuff out of the way, what about the new Presbyterian Church in Darwin?

On the Saturday evening we had dinner with the Duncansons (Rob, Jeanette and two of their sons, Ben and Dooze) in the manse, followed by a movie night with about a dozen of the congregation. We sat in the driveway of the house and watched a Christian movie which used the disintegration and then repair of a marriage relationship to present the gospel of grace and forgiveness.

Afterwards, we got our first opportunity to chat with church members and begin to get some insights into congregational life in Darwin. What strikes you immediately, is that nobody is from Darwin. I know the whole of Australia is a migrant nation, and there are many people in my own congregation in the heart of Melbourne who were not born locally or even in Australia, but in Darwin this migrant culture is taken to extremes.

Church on Sunday is now being held in a lecture theatre in Kormilda College, which Rob reckons is pretty well ideal for their current requirements. There would have been perhaps 40 to 50 people there, mostly young adults with a decent number of children. The service was fairly straightforward and in many respects very traditional, although in keeping with all things Darwin it was very informal. I wore a shirt and tie, which makes me a bit strange in their eyes, and for a bit of fun I presented Rob with one of our Scots' Church ties and the challenge to actually wear it sometime. He put it on before the end of the service, even though it clashed badly with what he was wearing, both in colour and in style!!

After church we had a babecue lunch at a local park, and the great thing about that was that there were a number of kids at just the right age for Duncan to have a lot of fun with: nephews and nieces of my chaplain John Dekker, no less. I kicked a football around with the Duncanson boys and Duncan and his new buddies threw frisbees around and enjoyed some play-fighting with sticks for swords. Thankfully nobody got hurt.

On Monday, once we'd got the tourist stuff done and dusted, as I've already mentioned we had dinner on the wharf with the Duncansons and one other member of the congregation turned up too. This was a useful opportunity to ask Rob about his hopes and aspirations for the congregation and especially how he thinks they will be able to cope with the constant turnover of people. The congregation has lost 60 people in the last 12 months, which is more than 100% turnover in a year, and several of those who we could see are "core" people in the current congregation are likely to be moving on in the next 12 to 18 months as well.

There are unique cultural aspects of life in Darwin that make outreach to local people quite difficult, but various things are being worked on that will help him to get past the high fences and guard dogs, most notably the use of the internet... http://www.darwinpresbyterian.org.au/ 

On Tuesday evening, Alison attended a women's Bible study while I took Mairi and Duncan back to the wharf so that we could taste crocodile and kangaroo burgers. We enjoyed them! I've never yet heard what went on at the study, so I'm kind of assuming is was "secret women's business" and it will only ever be shared with me on a "need to know" basis. Ho hum.

On Wednesday we had lunch with Rob and Jeanette which extended so far into the afternoon that we ran out of time to take the kids to the free water park with new slides that they'd been told about and really really wanted to go to, but we had a plane to catch. Such is life.

So all in all, we spent a lot of time with Rob and Jeanette but we also had several opportunities to speak with a good number of other members of the congregation. It was wonderful just to get to know them a little bit better, including two of their boys who in years gone past have been acquainted with our girls through PYV camps.