Visit our church website at www.covenant-opc.com.
Our Motivation for Ministry
At Covenant we are motivated by a four-fold commitment to take seriously God, the Bible, prayer and people.
God – Our desire to take God seriously is seen most clearly in our approach to worship. Since God is uniquely present with his people in corporate worship we seek to approach Him reverently, making Him the focus of every part of worship, whether in our psalms and hymns, prayers and offerings, the sacraments, or the reading and preaching of his word. We believe that Christ speaks to his people today through preaching. For this reason preaching is central to our worship.
The Bible – We believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God. We accept the Bible as the final authority for all matters of faith and practice. It teaches us all that we are to believe concerning God and all that God requires of us. The message of the Bible is central to our worship, preaching, counseling, a yearly theology conference, and the classes for all ages offered through our Christian Education program.
Prayer – We believe that the power of the church and its effectiveness is dependent upon congregational prayer. Our weekly prayer meeting is devoted exclusively to prayer, during which we offer requests not merely for the needs of our local congregation, but for home and foreign missions of our denomination, and for the expansion of God’s kingdom among his people of all true churches of Jesus Christ among all the nations.
People – Taking people seriously involves shepherding the flock of God, which our pastor and elders seek to do through family visitation. It involves facilitating fellowship among God’s people, which we seek to do through hospitality, monthly fellowship luncheons, men’s and women’s study groups, and several yearly social events. It also means that we see Covenant as an extended family, brothers and sisters in Christ, caring, encouraging, comforting and holding one another mutually accountable.
Our Purpose in Ministry
Our goal is to glorify God through biblical worship, preaching, teaching and evangelism. We desire to proclaim God’s word to as many people as possible, calling the unconverted to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, and teaching believers the Reformed Faith, which we believe to be the biblical faith.
We seek to carry out this purpose by:
Leading our congregation in worship that is regulated by Scripture.
Instructing our members in the whole counsel of God so that they might be conformed to the image of Christ.
Teaching and encouraging our members to evangelize the lost.
Motivating and encouraging our members to utilize their spiritual gifts both in the ministry of the church and in their vocational and kingdom responsibilities.
Showing mercy through our diaconal ministry.
Our Denomination
We are a member church of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, established in 1936. ‘Orthodox’ means “straight teaching,” indicating that our teaching comes straight from God’s word. ‘Presbyterian’ means that we are ruled by elders of mature Christian faith. Our denomination has churches from the east to the west coast of the United States as well as in Canada. Our missionary outreach extends to the countries of China, Ethiopia, Haiti, Japan, Korea, Suriname, Uganda, Ukraine, and Uruguay, as well as the province of Quebec. You can learn more about the Orthodox Presbyterian Church at www.opc.org.
Our Doctrinal Standards
We hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as a clear and consistent summary of what the Bible teaches. We understand these doctrinal standards to be subordinate to Scripture, always appealing to the Bible as our supreme rule and authority.
Our History
In April of 1997 the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic (PMA) of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) received Covenant Presbyterian Fellowship as a mission work of the PMA. In June of that year, seventeen members were received and recorded on the charter role of Covenant Orthodox Presbyterian Church (COPC).
On May 22, 1998, Dan Fincham and was ordained and installed as the organizing pastor of COPC.
January 1, 2000, marked the birth of the Presbytery of the Southeast (PSE) of the OPC. The new presbytery was at that time composed of eleven organized congregations and seven mission works, one of which was COPC.
At a congregational meeting called on August 16, 2002, the members of COPC, New Bern, voted to petition the PSE to organize it as a new and separate congregation of the OPC. At that meeting two ruling elders and one deacon were elected to serve alongside an existing ruling elder. Dan Fincham was elected to serve as pastor of the organized church.
A meeting of the PSE was called for September 20, 2002, for the purpose of hearing and approving the petition to organize, to ordain and install officers, and to install the pastor. At the time of organization COPC had 71 members (49 communicants and 22 non-communicants).
The believers who began meeting as Covenant Presbyterian Fellowship gathered for a short time in homes. After being received as a mission work COPC met in several different rented facilities for the next seven years. In late 2003 the Lord wondrously and unexpectedly provided substantial funds toward building its present worship facility. Construction began in May of 2004 and was completed in time for the congregation to begin worshipping in its new facility in December of 2004.