120th Anniversary: Hunter Baillie Memorial Church, Sydney

Sunday February 22, 2009

(click on any of the pictures for a larger view)

Alison and I escaped to Sydney overnight without any children! Duncan was left at home in the capable care of his older sisters, with a little bit of help from some good friends too.

Strictly speaking this was not a 'moderatorial' invitation. It came about because in 1889 Rev Alexander Marshall, minister of Scots' Church Melbourne, was the guest preacher at the inaugural service of this church - although nobody could tell me why he'd been invited, or what the connection was either with Marshall personally or with Scots' Church.

In 1989, Rev Norman Pritchard, then minister of Scots' Church, had also preached at their centenary, but it was to my benefit that they did not wait another 100 years before continuing the tradition of inviting ministers from the centre of Melbourne to share with them on special ocassions.

However, I have decided to include a report here because even though the fact that I am currently serving as moderator of the Victorian Church is (by human estimation) merely co-incidental, nevertheless, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I am always deeply impressed by the way in which people recognise and give weight to that office which I hold.

Besides which, in the immediate aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires, the minister asked me to bring a report from the Victorian church, speaking as moderator, and to lead the congregation in prayer, which I was of course pleased to do, at both the 10am 'ordinary' service and at the special anniversary service in the afternoon.

We were looked after extremely well by Malcolm Beveridge, Session Clerk, and his wife Margaret. Their house is atop a decent hill in the suburb of Mossman and the view that we had from our bedroom balcony was a quite stunning panorama of the harbour, including the Bridge and the Opera House.

 On the Saturday evening, the minister Rev Peter Dunstan and his wife Jane joined us at the Beveridges' for dinner and it was a delight to spend some time getting to know this newly married couple! (Well, 18 months or so.)

The anniversary service was attended by several local dignitaries, members of parliament, councilors, representatives of the National Trust and neighbouring clergy of several denominations.

I preached from Jushua chapter 4, the story of the 'memorial cairn' that God instructed Jushua to raise when they had crossed the Jordan and entered into the promised land. As a sermon illustration I spoke about the Scotland Australia Cairn in Mossman that I had discovered the previous day from a roadside sign and Malcolm had taken Alison, me and his dog for a walk to see it.