WHAT WE BELIEVE

Our Purpose

Experience God’s Love.  Know Jesus Christ.  Grow in His image. 

Our Core Values

We build loving relationships in Christ
We live a Spirit-led faith journey
We serve in the community
We empower our members to lead

Our Spiritual Practices
WORSHIP + 3

At Bethany we encourage each other to engage in Worship + 3, to actively participate in regular worship plus seek discipleship opportunities to grow spiritually, serve others, and give generously. 

Worship

We gather together to praise God, pray, learn, be blessed by music, and be inspired to grow in our faith. We invite you to join us at our variety of worship styles and experiences.

+ Discipleship 

We meet in small groups to learn more about God, grow in a relationship with Jesus, and support each other in our journey to become more like Christ.  Learn more about discipleship, or find a group.

+ Service

We serve together to use our passions, talents and gifts to make a difference and share God’s love in the world around us.  Come serve with us!

+ Generosity

We practice generosity through financial giving that helps us grow in our faithfulness and invest in God’s work through our ministries.

Our Christian Beliefs

United Methodists share a common heritage with all Christians. According to our foundational statement of beliefs in The Book of Discipline, we share the following basic affirmations in common with all Christian communities:

God

We believe in one God, who is exists in three distinct persons… The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Jesus

We believe in Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully human and came to earth to bring about God’s reign through his life, death, and resurrection. Through faith in Jesus Christ we are able to receive forgiveness for our sin, enter into a relationship with the God who created us, and begin to be remade in God’s image.

The Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is at work in the world around us and lives within each follower of Christ to empower a life that reflects the lifestyle, values, and character of Jesus. When we sense God’s leading, God’s challenge, or God’s support or comfort, it’s the Holy Spirit at work.

The Church

The Church is the body of Christ, made up of all those in a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, who are called to live in fellowship and worship together, as they join in God’s redeeming work in the world.

The Bible

We believe The Bible is the primary authority for our faith and practice, and that the scriptures in both the Old and New Testament are the inspired Word of God..

God's Reign

The reign of God, referred to in the Bible as “The Kingdom of God” or “The Kingdom of Heaven”, is both a present reality and future hope. We are able to experience God’s reign becoming a reality in our lives right now as we follow Jesus and experience the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. We are also invited to be a part of bringing God’s reign to the brokenness of this world so God can continue making things new. We look forward to a future day when Jesus will return and make all things right once again..

Human Beings

We believe that humans are made in the image of God, with an original goodness and a capacity to love God and others, enjoy life, and exercise creativity. After the Fall, all humans inherited a sinful nature that prevents us from fully living into our original goodness on our own and has distorted the image of God within us. This results in a broken relationship with God, other people, ourselves, and all of creation. We are unable to fix this brokenness on our own, so we are in need of a savior who can both forgive us and restore us back to our original goodness. Despite our sinfulness, God still loves us and is at work bringing us back to God so we can live as new creations.

Read More about the beliefs of the United Methodist Church

Our Sacraments

Baptism is a sacrament by which God claims us as His child, washes us clean as the sign of his acceptance of us, and welcomes us into the Body of Christ. It is a public confession of your faith in, and your commitment to, Jesus Christ.

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Holy Communion is a sacrament in which we remember Christ's death on the cross and allow God to sustain us and empower us for following Christ in the world. We use bread and juice to celebrate, and we practice an open table, where anyone who wants to know Jesus and celebrate this sacred meal is welcome to participate.

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