Bethany UCC members participate in service opportunities within the congregation, in our community, in our country, and throughout the world. Click on the links to the left to get more information on Bethany missions and service opportunities.
The Bible is the story of God’s love for us, expressed in steadfast love and faithfulness and abundant blessing.
That love and faithfulness was expressed when God heard the cries of the Hebrews when they were slaves in Egypt, had compassion, and acted to set them free. That blessing was shown in guiding them in the wilderness, providing for their every need, and bringing them to a rich and fertile land. God does this so that they can serve, serve him, serve one another, and the world. That’s why, when Moses, wonders what he should say, when Pharaoh asks why he should let God’s people go, God’s response is, “So that they can worship (serve) me in freedom.” That’s why, when they are about to enter the Promised Land, they are told to “remember, the widow, the orphan, and the outsider in your midst.” Service to God and others is what God’s people do! And they do it by showing gratitude for and sharing the blessings God has given.
That love and faithfulness was shown again when God heard our cries in our captivity to sin, had compassion, and came to set us free in Jesus. That blessing was given in the gracious, welcoming, teaching, healing ministry of Jesus, in the self-giving of his death, and the victory of his resurrection. God does this in Jesus so that we can see what it means to be God’s child. That’s why, when Jesus tells his disciples who he is, he says, “I am among you as one who serves;” and, why, when he washed his disciples feet, he told them, “What I have done for you, you must also do for one another.” That’s why he told us that we’ll always find him in “the least of these;” when we show compassion to the poor, lonely, and outcast, we do it to Jesus. God’s people are servants, serving others because they love the one who first came to them as a servant.
That love and faithfulness was shown to us once more when God came to a group of fearful disciples and filled them with the Holy Spirit. That blessing was given in the courage they received to go out and share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, in the ability to reach across divisions and create unity that they found, in the generosity that inspired them to give freely “so that no one was in need,” and in the variety of gifts they received. God does this so we can truly be Christ’s body in the world, a servant people, to all humanity. That’s why, when describing the many gifts given by God’s Spirit, the Apostle Paul, makes a point of saying that they are all given by one Spirit, for the building up of the one Body, the church, in its service to Christ, its one Lord.
That’s why the most common comment about the early church was, “See how they love one another.”
All this tells us that we become God’s people together and individually become the person God created us to be, by doing what God calls his people to do, by being what God showed us in Jesus: by serving, and becoming servants as we do. We do this because we want to honor God’s purpose in the world, which is that all have what they need for life. We do this because we love Jesus, want to be like him, to meet him, and know him, which is what happens when we serve “the least of these.” We do this because, when we do – truly meet Jesus in serving others – our hearts are changed, and we become new people, “more like Christ” (to quote the song).
We find amazing things in the process. We discover gifts that we never dared to share or even knew we had. We find the desire to give, the trust to take risks, the strength to bear burdens, the courage to confront evil, and the grace to forgive. We find that knowing others and their gifts as well as their needs, teaches us about what is important and what we need to live for. We find ourselves becoming a “new people,” because compassion and care are leading us to live for a different purpose - for God and others, rather than for ourselves – leading us to what Christ said must happen if we’re to find eternal life, dying to ourselves, so we can live for God and others.
We come together so that we can better serve God and others. We need each other’s gifts so that we can truly be “Christ’s body” and serve on his behalf in the world. We also need each to nurture each other as servants, to discern each other’s gifts, invite each other to share them, trust each other as we seek to share, support, bear with, and forgive each other as we do. We need each other to challenge and inspire one another to give.
Bethany Church offers a host of opportunities to serve. We need your gifts. Just as important, if what Jesus has taught and shown us is right, you need to share them. There are so many ways to get started, from greeting, ushering, lay reading, singing or playing in a choir, or sharing with a class on Sunday morning, to working with the Property Committee to maintain our facilities, to serving meals at Bethany Kitchen or Miller Avenue Mission, or welcoming guests from the Interfaith Hospitality Network. The list goes on and on. Whatever way you might want to serve, you can trust that you’ll be welcomed, encouraged, and supported. You can trust, too, that you’ll meet Jesus, and become a real part of his body, doing his work in the world.
