About the RPCUS

OUR ORIGIN The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States, (RPCUS), was born in 1983 out of the continuing struggle to uphold the all-embracing, inerrant authority of the Bible as the Word of God, to maintain the purity of the church, and to proclaim the truth of the Reformed Faith “in all openness unhindered.” We believe that God has called us into existence to glorify him by being faithful to the Word of God. OUR FAITH Without hesitation, mental reservation or embarrassment, we hold to the (original) Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, which we believe are the system of revealed truth taught in the Bible. We are called of God to defend, expound, and apply that system of truth, and the worldview based on it, with all of its distinctives, in an age of synthesis and apostasy. We emphasize our sincere commitment to the Westminster Standards, not because we place them on par with the Bible, or because we slavishly follow the doctrines of men, but because those Standards are truly our confession of faith. We believe them to constitute a true and accurate statement of the teachings of the Bible. Only the Bible is infallible and unamendable. The Westminster Standards are amendable, and are not inerrant or closed-ended. However, we believe that, because these Standards assert the very system of revealed truth of the Bible, we require of all our ministers, elders and deacons strict subscription to the Westminster Standards. OUR TRAITS Our churches can be identified by four traits: The faithful and vigorous preaching and teaching of the whole Word of God. The administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The loving and patient practice of preventive, corrective, and restorative discipline. The zealous carrying out of the mandate of Christ to “MAKE THE WORLD’S NATIONS CHRIST’S DISCIPLES.” OUR GOVERNMENT We believe that Christ is the Head of the church and the state, and that he has appointed a government in the hands of church officers, which government and jurisdiction are distinct from civil government. He has called his church to plant, nourish, equip and reproduce Presbyterian churches, i.e., churches shepherded by elders elected by the congregation to represent Christ and to administer His Word. When the elders of a local congregation meet officially, they are called the Session. When the elders from each church in a certain locality meet officially to shepherd the churches committed to their charge, they are called a Presbytery. And when the elders from all the churches in a denomination meet officially they are called the General Assembly. This connection between our churches manifests the unity of Christ’s Body in the world with our common confession of faith and our common government, Acts 15. OUR ECUMENICITY We believe in the unity and catholicity of Christ’s Church. Therefore, we seek to fellowship with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ and his Bible. We seek fraternal relations with all churches who sincerely hold to the historic Reformed and Presbyterian Confessions and Catechisms, such as the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, Covenanter; the Reformed Church in the United States, Eureka Classis; the Presbyterian Church in America; the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Free Presbyterian Church; etc. We welcome into our membership any church or minister who shares our distinctives and our strict subscription to the Westminster Standards. We welcome into our churches all who can make a credible profession of faith in Jesus Christ, with their children, Acts 16:31. One of our greatest joys is working with churches, groups and individuals who are “on the way” or in transition between synthetic brands of Christianity and the authentic  Christianity of the Reformed Faith. We recognize that there are churches and groups of families around the nation and world, leaning for the first time in our direction, who are being attracted by the truth and power of Reformed Christianity. We long to be of any assistance possible to them. Many of our strongest members and churches came out of non-Calvinistic backgrounds.

OUR MAKE-UP Our people come from a variety of races and backgrounds, from one end of the economic, intellectual, social spectrum to the other. We are a multiplicity of peoples, languages, and races, woven by the Holy Spirit into one united body in Christ. And we praise God for what he is making of us; so we work and pray diligently “to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” OUR FOCUS The focus of our church’s life, fellowship, worship, work and mission is GOD IN CHRIST, who is the “Savior of the world” and “the King of kings, and Lord of lords.” We strive, with the help of the Holy Spirit, not to be doctrine-centered, law-centered, church-centered, or man-centered, but to be Trinity-centered in all we are and do, because ” of Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. to Him be the glory forever.” As Augustine said: “let God be all in all to thee, for in Him is the entirety of all that thou lovest.” We are “determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” OUR MISSION We believe that the mission of the church is the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, Matthew 28:18-20, which involves person-winning (evangelism and discipleship), family-winning (church planting and Christian education), and culture-winning (world mission, world evangelization, and Christian reconstruction) — “MAKING THE WORLD’S NATIONS CHRIST’S DISCIPLES.” OUR WORSHIP AND PRAISE We believe in the joyful singing of God’s praises with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, which are expressions of biblical truth, with all the musical instruments made available to us. We place a high value on the singing of the 150 Psalms and other portions of the Bible in our worship services. We also firmly believe in the Westminster Confession’s regulative principle of worship that only what God commands in the Bible can be done in our worship of him. our churches use such songbooks as THE TRINITY HYMNAL, the Covenanter’s THE BOOK OF PSALMS, and the Christian Reformed Church’s THE PSALTER-HYMNAL. OUR LOCATIONS AND MINISTRIES Our ministers have been involved in evangelistic endeavors throughout these United States, and in world missions in El Salvador, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, South Africa, Germany and Scotland. We are closely identified with Whitefield Theological Seminary in Lakeland, Florida. We have a monthly magazine of twenty-four to forty-eight pages, The Counsel of Chalcedon, which goes into homes, churches, schools, and businesses of thousands of people around the world. We have an extensive pro-life ministry through such projects as the North Georgia Reformation Center, which includes a home for unwed mothers, and which offers loving care discipleship and vocational training. Our particular churches and mission works are involved in a wide-range of ministries in their efforts to win the world for Christ by serving others, Mark 10:45. At present our influence far exceeds our numbers. We praise God for that, while at the same time working, praying, and strategizing for extensive and intensive church growth — spiritually, numerically, geographically, and heterogeneously. OUR FUTURE We believe that God in his covenant has promised his church a glorious future in Jesus Christ, Isaiah 2. We look forward to the future, knowing that it, with all its struggles, afflictions, and progressive, victories, belongs, not to the humanists, but to the faithful people of God, I Cor. 3:21-22. We are future-oriented in our present responsibilities. Our vision for life and the future is determined by the promises of God’s convenant and of Christ’s kingdom. We pray that God would use usto bring the covenantal blessings of salvation to all the families of all the nations of the world, Psalm 22:27f; Galations 3:7-29. We believe that the kingdom will leaven the whole loaf of human life and society, as it advances toward total victory, Mark 4:21-32. We work, pray and hope for the day when “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” Isaiah 11:9.