MEETING INFORMATION : FRIENDS
OF THE FPCS IN
Our small group, Friends of the FPCS in
SPECIAL MEETINGS
From time to time our group sponsors special meetings. We shall seek to keep you apprised of future special meetings. Our last special meeting was on April 16, when Rev. Barry Whear preached to us:
Rev. Whear
is a minister with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (FPCS) currently
stationed in
REGULAR MEETINGS
Ordinarily meetings are in a rented room (normally room 13)
at the
Worship meetings ordinarily consist of two meetings on the
Lord’s Day (
The format of each mid-week prayer meeting is:
* People are asked to stand for Prayer.
** The Psalter used is the 1650 Scottish Psalter. Copies may be purchased from Trinitarian Bible Society.
*** From the Authorized Version (also known as the King James Version), copies of which may be purchased from Trinitarian Bible Society.
Anyone and everyone are encouraged and welcome to attend these worship meetings.
Only those men are allowed to lead as well as precent and lead in prayer who are actively seeking membership in the FPCS (or are already members) and agree with the standards of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (FPCS), such as are required of members in full communion (see http://www.puritans.net/news/fpcs062804.htm ). And those who lead it, along with those who either are currently in the membership or who are seeking membership in the FPCS, are asked to conduct themselves in accordance with the doctrinal and worship standards of the FPCS to the best of their ability. A communicant member will lead it when one is present. (It is important to note that these guidelines are simply provisional in nature. Ideally a minister would be leading the services, and only communicant members would be precenting and leading in prayers. But at this stage our group is not a FPCS congregation or even an official FPCS preaching station.) Those standards are the Biblical doctrines outlined in the original Westminster Standards.
So as to try to keep sermon readings in line with Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (FPCS) doctrinal standards, sermons will only be read from previously agreed upon sources. Here is the current list of sources, but this list of sources will likely be added to over time and is in no way intended to be comprehensive of the many excellent available sermon resources:
The current list of devotional readings for the mid-week prayer meeting will come from the following sources:
The Psalm singing must be done in a manner that is reverent and not light or flippant, recognizing that the praise is directed to the holy and sovereign God. The Psalms will be sung to the tunes sung at the psalm singing recorded at http://middletome.com/Psalms/Psalm%20singing%20-%20Barnoldswick.mp3 as well as the following list of tunes, this list being added to over time :
(Most of the tunes above can be heard at http://reformingworship.org/main/scriptures/scottishpsalter/tunes.php or http://www.rpca.org.au/Resources/midi/Alphabetically.html .)
These lists are simply tools to help avoid surprises, especially since there is no resident FPCS minister or elders.
There are certain features of FPCS worship meetings that many people may find different from what they are used to. We have tried in other parts of this website to explain the scriptural rationale for these features and/or to point readers to available resources which explain them (see http://www.puritans.net/questionsandanswers.htm ). Some of these may include:
This information and these guidelines are subject to change as more time permits to have them discussed with and reviewed by FPCS elders.