(1) About the CPRC
(Chinese 中文) (Nederlands/Dutch)
Welcome to the website of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church (CPRC) in Ballymena, Northern Ireland! We are a congregation of Reformed believers that bears a clear and distinctive witness to the biblical and Reformed faith as summarized in the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dordt—our official creeds. We believe in the glorious doctrines of God’s sovereign, unconditional and particular grace, in the tradition of Augustine, Wycliffe and the Reformers, such as Luther, Calvin and Knox. In our day of apostasy and compromise, we and our children confess God’s truth and worship Him according to His Word through Jesus Christ our Lord. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised” (Ps. 48:1)!
In the summer of 2010, we started worshipping in the church building we erected at 83 Clarence Street in Ballymena, Co. Antrim. We hold two worship services on the Lord’s day (which can be watched or listened to live), various catechism classes and special lectures, as well as two mid-week Bible Studies on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings, plus a fortnightly ladies discussion group and a semi-monthly on-line discussion group on Saturday nights. We also deliver speeches in S. Wales and elsewhere. Visitors are always welcome!
We are a sister church of the Protestant Reformed Churches in the US and Canada, and the Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church in Singapore.
(2) About the CPRC Website
The CPRC website presents our Reformed and ecumenical creeds, and a brief summary of our beliefs on its Faith page. It provides details and maps of our various meetings in Ballymena—our Sunday services and special lectures are broadcast live in video and audio—and our speeches in South Wales and elsewhere.
Our website contains many written resources on biblical, theological and church-historical subjects. The Covenant Reformed News page has about 500 short pieces. (Contact us, if you would like to receive the Covenant Reformed News free each month in English by e-mail or post, if you are in the British Isles; or in Hungarian or Spanish by e-mail.) There are about 250 items on the Articles page, ranging from a few paragraphs to many chapters, on such subjects as sovereign grace, Jehovah’s covenant, the apocrypha and the image of God in man. Over 100 Quotes cover “free will,” lay preaching, the duty of pastors, etc. Almost all of the 130 or so free pamphlets can also be read on-line.
The Audio section has some 2,400 free sermons, speeches, interviews, debates, etc., including a special series on Romans 9, “The Most Avoided Chapter in the Bible.” New additions are typically made about 3 times a week. Usually, the “Notes” on the Audio page contain the Lord’s day CPRC bulletin. Do let us know if you would like to receive our weekly bulletin free by e-mail.
The 400 or so audios of our Belgic Confession classes have proven especially popular with those wanting to grow in their understanding of the rich teaching of God’s Word. Covering the doctrines of Scripture, the Trinity, angels, the devil, creation, providence, original sin, double predestination, the incarnation, Christ’s atonement, justification, sanctification, the Old Testament ceremonial law, ecclesiology, the sacraments, the end times and many more, they practically constitute a free course in systematic theology!
The Radio section includes the schedule for upcoming Reformed Witness Hour broadcasts every Sunday morning on Radio North (846 AM or MW) from near Londonderry.
The CPRC is the main distributor for Reformed Free Publishing Association (RFPA) books in the UK and Europe. Dozens of their titles and some from other publishers (in total about 180) are for sale on our Books page. Over 25 of the books can be read on-line. Free pamphlets, as well as 130+ attractive box sets of sermon series, doctrine classes and conferences on CD and/or DVD, may be ordered on-line.
To facilitate study of specific subjects, we have created a special topical Resources page addressing about 40 issues. From there, one may access various pages which draw together articles, audios, books, Covenant Reformed News, pamphlets, quotes, etc., that deal with a particular topic (e.g., Assurance, Cessationism, Christian Education & Child-Rearing, Covenant & Baptism, Eschatology, God’s Effectual Saving Desire, Irresistible Grace, Israel, Marriage, Psalm Singing, Reformation and Uncommon Grace).
At various places on the CPRC website, there are links to translations of our Reformed and ecumenical creeds, articles, books, pamphlets, quotes, etc. We have some 4,300 pieces in audio, video or written form in more than 200 foreign tongues (from Afrikaans to Zulu) on our Languages page. The Italian and Portuguese translations grew so much (now over 500 items each) that we now have separate pages for these two languages. We also have specific web pages for our hundreds of Afrikaans, Burmese, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Polish, Russian and Spanish translations. If you are able to assist us by locating on-line any of the ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, Chalcedonian or Athanasian) or the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism or Canons of Dordt) in any language in which we do not already have them, please contact us. Perhaps you are interested in spreading the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ around the world by translating materials from our website? Are there, for example, any of our pamphlets or Covenant Reformed News articles that you would love your fellow countrymen to read in their mother tongue? Do let us know. We post free books as a thank-you to willing and capable volunteers!
We have about 3,400 videos, including 4 debates on Calvinism, Charismaticism, Psalm singing and “The Passion of The Christ,” that can be watched free on our CPRC YouTube channel, and most of them are also accessible through various pages on this website. This webpage explains how to enable subtitles in many different languages for our YouTube recordings, though not for a church service while it is being livestreamed. (Since the subtitles are created by YouTube, they may not always be fully accurate.) Our CPRC YouTube channel also contains a growing number of videos in various languages (French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish).
We are active on two Facebook pages, those of our congregation (the CPRC) and our pastor (Rev. Angus Stewart), sharing articles, audios, books, bulletins, CD and DVD box sets, conference information, confessions, debates, forms, interviews, livestreams, magazines, newspaper cuttings, pamphlets, photos. quiz questions, quotes, radio broadcasts, reviews, speeches, translations, upcoming meetings, videos, website statistics, etc. Feel free to “Like” and/or “Follow” either or both of these Facebook pages.
We provide Links to various Protestant Reformed websites, and those of Reformed churches in Singapore and the Philippines, plus the British Reformed Fellowship (BRF), which contain fine articles and audios, and the BRF YouTube channel.
We greatly appreciate comments and corrections to our website. What did you find helpful? Any constructive criticisms? We would love to hear from you. Please feel free to contact us:
Rev. Angus Stewart
7 Lislunnan Road
Kells, Ballymena
Co. Antrim
BT42 3NR
Northern Ireland
United Kingdom
[email protected]
(028) 25 891851