It was good to see David Burke at the General Assembly of Australia this week.
He and Paul Cooper were launching their book Read In The Light, a compilation of essays relating to the Declaratory Statement that the Australian Presbyterian Church adopted at its formation which formalises its understanding of certain aspects of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Anyway, David was reflecting on having heard of a couple of people being described as ‘churchmen.’
In a certain time that phrase may have described someone who seemed to have a higher loyalty to the institution of the church than to Jesus.
But David set himself the task of composing a positive formulation of what that description might mean.
“A good churchman is someone who sees and relates to the church in Christ. He is committed to the church through, in and for Christ. He values the church not in itself but as the body and bride of Christ. His loyalty to the church is conditional on and conditioned by his loyalty to Christ.”

Read his whole post at his blog.

Each morning numbers of folk who arrive early for the meeting of the General Assembly of Australia gather for prayer.

It was so heartening to walk in at the designated start time on Tuesday to find those gathered had already started.

To these are added those who are praying for this meeting around our nation and around the world.

For those praying, I believe God is leading us in unity, wisdom, and peace as we seek to follow Jesus together.

k

Not a great weekend for tips in the first weekend of AFL finals. The trend is to overlook the form of the teams that lost the major finals and overestimate the form of the winners of the elimination finals. I’m resisting that and expect the teams that came first and second in the home and away season to win this weekend. I don’t have confidence about their ability to go further than that, but we’ll see.
I was disappointed that Cronulla and Wests didn’t tie and knock Brisbane out, but Paramatta will probably fix that this weekend.

NRL (last round 3/8; season tally 121/192)
Easts
Melbourne
Cronulla
Paramatta

AFL (last round 1/4; season tally 126/202)
Geelong
Brisbane