One of the joys of being a part of the Presbyterian Church (of Victoria, and Australia) is the levels of oversight we are used to. As a Presbyterian congregation, we are under the oversight of the local elders (Session) as well as the oversight of our Presbytery, a body made up of representative teaching and ruling elders of all the congregations within our region. In our case, the Presbytery of North Western Victoria which stretches from Castlemaine to Mildura. You can read more about Presbyterian Church government here.

This Sunday, July 19, we will welcome members of the Presbytery’s Five-Yearly Visitation Committee, whose task is to (as the name suggests), visit us, ask questions of members, managers, elders and the minister, receive the completed questionairres issued by the Presbytery beforehand, and work all this into a report for the Presbytery regarding the health of the congregation and how the gospel is progressing among us. It’s been some time since the last Presbytery visit, so we are looking forward to this one, after our usual monthly lunch (which has been moved a week earlier to coincide with this!)