Those who have known us for the last 20 years possibly know us as "First Presbyterian Church of Rowlett." In June of 1986 the Lord graciously gave a small group of wanderers a building on Schrade Road in Rowlett, TX together with four acres of land surrounding it. From those days until now we have called ourselves "FPCR."
At the time it seemed to us that we could hardly afford such an investment. And there were indeed months in which it was difficult for us to be sure we were going to pay all our bills, but the Lord is gracious and always provided for our every need. He often stretched our faith and our patience in those days as he taught us to depend solely upon him for all our needs.
The church called me to be its pastor fifteen years ago, in April 1991. Although the church had adopted many of its present practices by that time, I asked as a condition of accepting the call that the church "officially" declare itself in use of exclusive acappella Psalmody (singing only metrical Psalms and without instrumental accompaniment) and of using a common table for the celebration of the Lord's Supper (going forward to a table). Up to that time the custom of FPCR had been to celebrate the Lord's Supper monthly. Upon my ordination we began celebrating the supper weekly.
The first six months of my pastorate at FPCR was regarded by the North Texas Presbytery of the PCA as an internship: I was licensed to preach, but was filling the pulpit as supply rather than as a minister. As a result we did not have the sacraments for the first six months of my pastorate. My ordination to the gospel ministry took place at the fall meeting of the North Texas Presbytery of the PCA in 1991 and my first baptism was in November of that year.
We had a crisis in the history of the church in 1994 when we were at a presbytery meeting in which there were images of one of the persons of the holy trinity used. The image looked to me like a bearded lady, but we were informed that it was purported to be of the Lord Jesus Christ. We attempted to have our consciences settled for several meetings of North Texas Presbytery, but when that did not happen we requested dismissal to the newly formed denomination that would come to be known as the American Reformation Presbyterian Church.
One by one and sometimes two by two the other churches and ministers in our fledgling denomination either resigned to independence or returned to the PCA or other denominations from which they had come. By 1997 we were the only church left in our presbytery -- which was small to begin with. Since that time we have established relations with other congregations in New England, the mid-Atlantic states, Virginia, and the mid-west.
The small building -- a former bank building -- that the Lord provided for us in 1986 became "too small" for us several times. A church that is tied to physical facilities as most American congregations are has the problem of not being able to outgrow its facilities. We remodeled on several occasions and one of the local Lutheran ministers even told us at one point that we have the only building in Rowlett that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. We did literally take advantage of every square foot inside the building. Living in such conditions for 20 years did teach us how to make use of facilities in the most advantageous way.
But the problem of a building of any size is that when the congregation reaches a size that fills the facilities it really cannot grow without either building, moving, or dividing. So for several "cycles" FPCR reached a size in which we could lose members, but we could not gain them. But over a period of twenty years, even with remodeling, it is still possible to build up a fund for purchasing or building greater facilities.
We contacted an architect about seven or eight years ago who did a great job of designing additional facilities for us here on the Rowlett property. As I mentioned above, we have about four acres here in Rowlett (well, for a few more hours anyway). But the city of Rowlett was quite unreasonable in its building restrictions. The building we had in mind would end up costing about twice as much to build in the city of Rowlett as it would cost us to build it outside the city limits in Dallas County. So short version, we began keeping our eyes open for church properties for sale that would still be somewhat centrally located for the members of FPCR.
The Lord brought the Peachtree Road property to our attention in January 2006. The property was formerly owned by a full-gospel (Pentecostal) congregation so some remodeling was going to be necessary. We removed the stage and replaced it with a pulpit, boarded over their baptizing tank, replaced the lighting, painted, put in new floor coverings, restriped the parking lot, etc. There are still some changes and upgrades we hope to make, but we hope to have our CO (Certificate of Occupancy) this week and begin meeting in the new building as of 30 April.
This afternoon we are scheduled to close on the property in Rowlett, because the Lord also brought us a buyer for the old property without us even having to list the property with a realtor. The finances have been such that we have purchased the South Peachtree property "free and clear," i.e. unencumbered by a mortgage and now the proceeds from the sale of the Rowlett property can go back into the general fund or a building fund or whatever direction the Lord leads the session of the church. God has blessed us greatly in these past four months.
So FPCR is now the initials of "Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed." Although we are in Mesquite Texas, it was determined that "First Presbyterian Church of the Rodeo" would not be appropriate. That's a joke, son.
The next MP3s that we upload to SermonAudio.com will be from sermons at the new building. As a result of this move, I have been preaching through the month of April from the period of the restoration in Judah (particularly from the book of Zechariah). The response of the listeners of SermonAudio has been very encouraging to us for the six or seven months we have been uploading sermons.
Note that we have a new mailing address in Rowlett. Do not write to us at our physical address. The mailing address is: 6702 Dalrock Road Ste 126 PMB 214 Rowlett, TX 75089-2662 Our toll-free order line remains the same: 1-866-635-7328
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