Brief history

Indonesian Reformed Church (IRC) was originally known as Indonesian Scriptural Fellowship (ISF) and commenced in June 2003 by a number of Indonesian Christian families in Sydney who shared a common theological view, vision, and need to congregate.

When ISF began meeting, there were only a handful of people attending with no permanent or part time minister serving this small group. We had to regularly invite outside pastors or evangelists on ad-hoc basis.

It was with gratefulness to the Lord that Rev Robby Moningka was enabled to join us around mid-2004. Together with the Committee (functional elders), he worked on the programs to further develop our group. One of the initial crucial moves was changing the organisation name from ISF to IRC to reflect its true activity and establishment as a church. Another important plan was to seek an established church/synod with which IRC could be aligned and grown with.

Despite being able to operate independently, IRC is also aware of its own constraints – primarily due to limited number of various resources – in reaching out to a larger community and resolving issues that may arise in the future.

Through the help of Rev. Henk DeWaard (of RTC Geelong), IRC was introduced to Rev. Leo Douma (of CRCS) in 2004. The process started from there onwards and has been a long, yet enjoyable journey for both CRCS and IRC to arrive at where we are today where IRC has now been received as a full member of CRCA Classis NSW in February 2008.

Vision and Mission

IRC has a vision to providing a meeting place for believers to come together to worship God and learn the truth of His Word with other believers in Sydney as well to uphold and promote Christian teaching into families, church, and community.

IRC was founded with the mission of glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ on the basis of Calvinist Reformed Theological doctrines. Presently we are focusing on reaching, teaching and supporting Indonesian spoken Christians in Sydney, particularly newly migrated families and students.

Objectives and motives in joining CRCA

In order to fulfill the above vision, we felt the need to find an established local church or denomination with the same articles of faith as that of IRC's which will eventually be able to nurture and provide an overarching body with whom this young church can be associated and work together in ministries and form the body of Christ.

It is our desire to be actively involved and contribute to the continuation and advancement of Reformed Theological teachings. Together with CRCS and other Reformed Theology-based churches in Australia and Indonesia, IRC hopes to make a valuable contribution to this movement to continue to thrive so that the next generation will carry on and preserve these biblical doctrines crystallised in Reformed Theology.

Structure and background of members

Current members (around 50 including children) consist mainly in families with young children. Many of them were recent migrants from Indonesia, although some elderly members have been residing in Australia for the past two or three decades. They come from various denominations and churches in Indonesia and Australia. Although this mixture provides a good opportunity to nurture, grow and bring together a diverse group into a body of Christ, at the same time it does present challenging ministry as well.

Being a relatively young congregation from diverse backgrounds, the overall level of commitment and engagement are something we still need to improve. The minister and elders are working out on how best to continually educate and teach the congregation to move toward a maturing church where as members they can have a stronger sense of belonging and higher level of commitment toward their church, IRC.

Activities and ministries

To date, in addition to the regular Sunday Services, Sunday School, monthly fellowship, IRC has also held other major Christian Days (Christmas & Good Friday) as well as joint service with CRCS on Ascension Day. Other events that need to be highlighted include Seminar on family and church growth topics, child/infant baptism (2004,2007,2008), pastor ordination (2005), confirmation (2006), and elders ordination (2007).

Commitment

We are very pleased and thankful to God to be accepted into CRCA Synod in the last NSW Classis meeting Feb 2008. We are looking forward to contributing and expanding the Kingdom of God with other church members of Christian Reformed Churches of Australia to lay strong Christian foundation and sound doctines, in particular upon the young generation, to equip them with having to confront the ever increasing challenges living in this secular world and enable the whole congregation to fulfill God's calling and accomplish His plan in their lives.