Bethany United Church of Christ
Share our Blessings…Live to Serve
Here at Bethany we are striving to grow into the understanding that God has called us together as a community of faith to Share our Blessings…Live to Serve.
What this means to us is that life is a blessing and all that we have in life is a gift from God. God has given us people, places, things, and talents as gifts for us to share with one another in build up community and our relationship with God.
We also believe that as followers of Christ we are called to live our lives in service for others just as Jesus lived his life in service for us. We do this not because we have to but because we can, because of the freedom we have found in the grace of God knowing that we are forgiven by our faith in Jesus Christ.
Faith: We believe that Jesus Christ is the living savior, messiah, Christ, lord of all, including our lives. We believe that through faith we are saved by grace, a gift of God in response to the blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. We believe that we are united with Christ in our baptism and in the breaking of the bread and drinking of the cup in communion. We believe that God is the triune God striving through the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to continually create, redeem, and sanctify all of creation and that we are called to bear witness to God’s work in the world through out lives and through our witness as a community that is a part of God’s Church.
Scripture: This Church looks to the Holy Bible as a testimony about God and the faith proclaimed by God’s followers, each in their own time and place. It looks to the scriptures for revelation of God, guidance, and insight into who God is, who we are, how we are in relationship with God, and what God hopes for in and from us.
Worship: We believe that worship is for God. Worship literally means to attribute worth too. The most common words used in the New Testament for worship are, Proskunien (Greek), which means to attribute worth too, bow down too, be submissive lowly to showing deep respect; and Latreuo (Greek), which means to serve or minister, a participatory act of service and involvement. Worship has nothing to do with what we get out of it but rather what we give to God during it, how we serve God and one another. Worship is us giving to God what God deserves, credit for giving us all that we have. Worship is also us serving God through our praise and adoration; and us serving one another by encouraging each other in faith with our presence, our confessions, our prayers, our singing, and our blessings.
In worship we use traditional elements and music as well as more contemporary elements and music. In some service we use piano, some guitar, in some organ but all with the goal of bringing praise, glory, and honor to God.
The Sacraments: This Church, in accordance with the teaching of Jesus found in scripture, and the prevailing practice of Evangelical Christians, recognizes two sacraments: Baptism, whereby one enters the church, and the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Communion), whereby one experiences the presence and grace of God in their life.
Baptism: We baptize infants through adults claiming God’s promises given to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We see baptism as an act of God’s grace where by the person baptized is made a part of God’s church; the Holy Spirit is gifted to them and their sins are declared forgiven. It is a public act where by the promises of God are claimed, where the parents, sponsors, faith community, all involved, publicly covenant to be are part of helping the baptized to grow into their Faith.
Communion: In the United Church of Christ, we believe that the communion table is not our own, it belongs to God. In faithful response to the belief that all are one in Christ, we practice open communion. The table is spread for all who seek a deeper knowledge of God and who desire an honest relationship with God, with others, and with themselves. Here at Bethany we have said that it is the Lord’s Table and all are welcome, we ask that parents with children that would like them to partake in communion to ask the minister and together decide if they would like to participate.
Creeds: The United Church of Christ is a non-creedal denomination, which means that we take the historic church creeds very seriously but do not make them binding to people. Here at Bethany we claim the historic Christian Creeds and insights to the faith of the Church reclaimed in the reformation by the Protestant Reformers as guides in enabling us to give name to our confession of faith here in our own time and place. We believe that it is the responsibility of each generation of Christians to give confession to their faith and proclaim the living God through word and deed.
As each generation changes and has its own unique character, we are open to people striving to find new expressions for what we believe. What is important is that we are on a faith journey together and living a spiritually vibrant life.
Covenantal Polity: The United Church of Christ as a denomination functions with a Covenantal polity, which means that all churches are seen as equal and that the denomination does not function in a top down hierarchy. Instead the denomination speaks to all the church expressing the collective wisdom for each church to listen to and struggle with while providing a ways for each church to be heard by the denomination as a whole.
What this means here at Bethany is that we are a covenanting community that God has called together to share in a faith journey where we committee to listen, to respect, to pray for, to nurture, build up and support each other as the church whole, while still allowing each of us to be our own unique individual. We are covenanting to journey together in faith as we struggle to be a people and community who reflects God and God’s love in everything that we do.