A Sending Congregation on the Front Range
Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church gathers on a busy stretch of West 112th Avenue in Westminster, Colorado, a northern suburb of Denver set against the front of the Rockies. The congregation belongs to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA), a historic Reformed denomination that traces its roots to Scottish Presbyterianism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Locally, Westminster RPC is known as much for what it has sent out as for what it does on a Sunday morning. Over five decades, members, elders, and three of its former pastors have planted daughter or mission congregations in Colorado Springs, Longmont, and Laramie, Wyoming.
The church meets at 4455 West 112th Avenue. Worship on the Lord's Day follows a steady rhythm - morning worship at 9:50 AM, a Christian Education hour at 12:00 PM, and evening worship at 5:30 PM, with the evening service set aside on the first Sunday of each month.
How the Congregation Came to Westminster
Westminster RPC grew out of the disorganization of the original Denver RP Church, an inner-city congregation that began around 1890. In February 1970, a presbytery commission dissolved that older body and authorized Rev. Paul McCracken to begin a new work in the growing Denver suburbs. After surveying the area, McCracken chose Westminster and moved his family there in September 1970. A year later, in January 1971, morning worship and Sunday classes began in a local school gymnasium. On March 31, 1973, the Westminster Congregation was formally organized with thirty-six charter members.
By 1974 the small flock had purchased a ranch-style house on six acres along what was then a country lane. The three-car garage became the meeting room, and the rest of the home served as classrooms, fellowship space, and the pastor's study. The property opened its doors in practical ways, too - singles, young couples needing a place to stay, and a Laotian Hmong refugee family all found shelter there through the years. A seven-year building project, begun in 1995, culminated in the current building dedicated in 2003, with a community college and city library now standing next door.
The pastoral succession reads like a family tree of the wider work. Paul McCracken pastored Westminster from 1970 to 1986, then moved on to help pastor the daughter congregation in Colorado Springs that the church had begun in 1981. Marty Wilsey followed for five years through 1990 and later became the first pastor of Salt and Light RPC in Longmont, organized in 2003. Bob Hemphill shepherded the flock for sixteen years through 2006 and then took his family to Laramie, Wyoming in 2007 to start a new mission there under Midwest Presbytery; that fellowship was later organized. Shane Sapp served eleven years from 2009 through 2020. On August 12, 2022, Joe Smith was ordained and installed as pastor.
Morning, Noon, and Evening on the Lord's Day
The congregation holds to the historic Presbyterian practice of worshiping twice on Sunday - morning and evening - because that pattern is read from passages such as 2 Chronicles 13 and Psalm 92. Morning worship begins at 9:50 AM and centers on the expository preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, prayer, the singing of the Psalms, and the gathering of tithes and offerings. The Christian Education hour follows at 12:00 PM and gathers adults and children of all ages around the whole counsel of God. Evening worship resumes at 5:30 PM, except on the first Lord's Day of each month, when the day is kept with the morning service alone.
Preaching at Westminster aims to be verse-by-verse exposition through entire books of the Bible, with the pastor explaining, applying, and pressing the text home as though presenting it before God and the congregation. A weekly audio and video archive is carried on SermonAudio, with most sermons posted within an hour of a service's end.
The Singing of Psalms A Cappella
The first thing visitors notice about the worship at Westminster RPC is often the singing. The congregation sings only the inspired psalms of the Bible, drawn from a metrical psalter, and it sings without instruments. The church holds that the New Testament warrants the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs found within the Book of Psalms (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16), and that the use of musical instruments in public worship ceased when the final, once-for-all sacrifice of Christ was offered (Hebrews 9:11-15). The psalter used in the pews comes from Crown and Covenant, the publishing arm of the denomination.
Wider practices flow from what the congregation calls the Regulative Principle of Worship: whatever God has not commanded in His Word is forbidden in public worship, a principle drawn from Deuteronomy 12:32. The result is a service at once simple and weighty - centered on the reading and preaching of Scripture, the sacraments, prayer, and the singing of God's own songbook.
Beliefs in Brief
The doctrinal foundation of Westminster RPC is the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Reformed Presbyterian Testimony. The church teaches that the Bible is the infallible, inspired Word of God and the alone rule for faith and obedience. It confesses the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - sovereign in creation and salvation, and the Lord Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man, the only Savior and mediator, who obeyed the law perfectly, suffered and died as a substitute for sinners, was raised, and now reigns at the right hand of the Father. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and to the glory of God alone. The church looks for the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the eternal destiny of every person in heaven or hell according to repentance and faith. The RPCNA is a member of the North American Reformed and Presbyterian Council (NAPARC), and Westminster belongs to Midwest Presbytery.
Teaching the Whole Counsel of God
Matthew 28:18-20 frames the congregation's approach to Christian Education. Following the morning service at 12:00 PM, adults gather for classes led by the pastor, the elders, or men training for the eldership. These classes run from September through May, with a break during the summer so that teachers may rest. Adults work through either theological teaching or guided discussion of the previous week's sermon, while children and youth receive their own instruction in the same hour.
Church-wide mission is shaped by the same conviction. The Evangelism Committee, chaired by Deacon Chris Johnson, keeps a steady attention on reaching the lost. Youth ministry is a particular passion of Ruling Elder Jonny Duke, who, with his wife Sara, serves the wider church as Midwest Presbytery's Covenanter Youth Sponsors and as a member of the Synod's Youth Ministries Committee.
Pastors, Elders, and Deacons
Westminster RPC is governed by a plurality of elders - both teaching and ruling - along with a board of deacons. Pastor Joe Smith was ordained and installed in August 2022 after graduating from Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity in May of that year. He came to faith in 2015 through the witness of family members, was shaped through the teaching of R.C. Sproul, joined the RPCNA in 2017, and before seminary spent more than twelve years with a local sanitation department. He and his wife have four children.
The session currently includes ruling elders Paul Welander (ordained 2015, after eight years as a deacon), Jonathan Fitch (ordained 2021), and Jonny Duke (ordained January 2024, and the son of charter members). John Duke, a charter member of the congregation from 1973, serves as Elder Emeritus; he was ordained as a ruling elder in 1981 and has served on numerous presbytery and synod committees over the decades, including a long stretch on the planning committee of the presbytery's annual Family Camp and as Chairman of the Board of the Horn Creek Conference Grounds Ministry.
The deacon board is chaired by Alex Greene, who has attended WRPC since 2004 and has served as a deacon since 2015. He and his wife Bailey have two children. Jeremiah Wood and Chris Johnson, both recently installed, round out the board. Johnson also chairs the Evangelism Committee and oversees a robust set of outreach efforts.
Reaching Out Along the Front Range
Westminster RPC sees itself as a sending church. Three daughter or mission congregations have grown from its labors. The first, in Colorado Springs, took root through the Bob Mann and Bob Wager families in 1981 and was formally organized in 1986; it now numbers around 165 members. Salt and Light RPC in Longmont organized in 2003, with Westminster contributing three elders, a deacon, and several seed families. Most recently, the Laramie RP Fellowship in Wyoming was organized as a mission church after work that Bob Hemphill began in 2007.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Reformed Presbyterian Testimony remain the doctrinal anchors for all of this work, alongside the conviction that Scripture alone is the foundation on which the church stands and is sent.