What is it like to worship in St Peter’s? – what do we do?

a) Singing –  I think it would be fair to say that you will find a mixture of styles of sung praise in St Peters.  We follow the biblical pattern of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.  The psalms are the song book of the Bible and we sing at least one at every service.  Often when we sing the psalms we do so in the traditional Free Church way, accapella. We also sing hymns – traditional and contemporary songs of praise that are sung throughout the church – the principle here is that we sing good biblical theological praise.  Likewise with the spiritual songs – more local and contemporary.  And with both of these we use a variety of instrumental accompaniment – everything from piano to drums, guitars and violin.   We operate on the principle of making a joyful and tuneful noise to the Lord.   We do not believe that sung praise is primarily entertainment…we believe in collective congregational praise where the emphasis is on the band leading us to praise, not them praising and us joining in as though we were at a concert.   We have a wide variety of very talented people – musicians, singers, sound and projector people.   But we could always do with more!

b) Prayer – During the service as well as our silent prayers and meditation, we have various people lead us in prayer for the congregation, the community, the country and the spread of the gospel throughout the world. At St Peter’s we have a large international awareness and seek to uphold the work of Christ in other countries before the throne of grace. In prayer we also seek to praise God and to confess our sins.  Each Sunday morning we also collectively confess our sins together.   In addition we have specific prayer meetings – the regular ones being on Sunday at 10:15 am and Wednesdays at 7:30 pm – (except when the fellowship groups meet on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month).   Finally if you want to  pray after any of the services there are people who will pray with you.

c) Scripture reading – It is important that we listen to God speaking to us through his word.   As well as reading the passages that we preach from, each Sunday we systematically read through a book of the Old Testament and a book of the New Testament. The version of the Bible that we use is the New International Version.

d) Preaching – This is the explanation and the application of God’s word. I hope that this is done in a way which applies the timeless truths of the word of God to the current situations that people find themselves in. It is intended to be applicable for both believers and unbelievers – building up and bringing to faith. The preaching is usually systematic – working through a book of the Bible. We hope that the preaching is biblical, relevant, contemporary and life changing – as Christ is proclaimed.

It is difficult to describe exactly what happens in public worship in St Peter’s – in the old Scots phrase. ‘its better felt than telt’! On a typical Sunday you would find about 150 people at the morning service.  We also have an evening service.  We believe this is important because it is another opportunity to learn, praise and have fellowship, as well as encourage those who are not yet Christians and seeking.

We are a young congregation – 90% are younger than yours truly (who at time of writing, is a youthful 49) and a relatively new congregation – only a handful of people have been here for more than a decade. We are also a mixed congregation in terms of background – there are people from different countries, different religious and social backgrounds and with different gifts and abilities.   We have everything from Charismatic and Catholic, through to Calvinist.  And we encourage agnostics, atheists and people of other faiths to come as well.  We want everyone to know about Jesus.  All this makes St Peter’s an interesting place to be!

Pray for us, visit us and above all pray that God would be glorified through us.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at or the church offices – 01382 807 004.

May God bless you,

Yours in Christ
David