Bethany Community Church

This summer we are, once again, offering Community Groups here at Bethany. These groups will likely look a little different as they will be offered for a shorter duration—July and August—and will include some opportunities that can accommodate larger numbers of people.

Have you thought about leading a group in the past? Have you, your spouse, or friends talked about something that you would like to see happen as a Community Group at Bethany?  Have you thought about leading a group, but weren’t sure what you’d focus on? I’d like to invite you to consider leading a group this summer. For information about what is required of leaders go to churchbcc.org/connect. In the same place you will find a form that allows you to complete a group description, and you will then be contacted by the Pastor of Groups.

The beauty of this model is that it provides you an opportunity to share your gifts and passions with the community. More often than not, if it is important to you, then it is important to others around you. These groups also provide a meaningful way to minister to one another. Whether a study, activity, or service group, these are critical ways for people to grow in their faith in Christ and relationships with one another.

Need some ideas for possible groups? Here are some that have been successful:

Everyday Justice
Beth Moore Study
Soup & Scripture
Pub Trivia Night
O2: Breathing Out
Refugee Outreach
Bike Around Mercer Island
Why Business Matters to God
Sermon discussion
The Prodigal God Dinner Group
Will of God as a Way of Life
Thanksgiving for the Community
Dinner & Devotions
Golf for Dummies
Half Marathon Training
K-2nd Grade Family Fun
P90X
Rock Climbing
Swing Dancing
Tea & Toddlers

We’re just a couple of weeks from Easter and there are multiple spots open to pray for 40 Days of Prayer. To sign up for open spots, visit churchbcc.org/prayduringlent.

Bethany West Seattle is celebrating our one year anniversary on Sunday, March 20 by holding a Public Open House worship service for our West Seattle neighbors!  If you’ve ever wondered what worship is like at Bethany West Seattle, check out our video or join us in person any Sunday, 9:30am at High Point Community Center (6920 34th Ave SW)!

In a recent post, I told the West Seattle blog “Bethany’s mission is to connect people to God, to community and to wholeness.  Our strong sense of purpose has grown out of our deepening relationships with Christ, with each other, and with our community.  We’ve already engaged in supporting High Point Community Center and Navos Mental Health Solutions, and look forward to participating in Navos’ “Planting Day” in April.  It is our greatest joy to ‘pay forward’ God’s love, grace and transformation—the wholeness we receive through Christ—by actively loving each other and our local community. We’d like that to include you as well!”

Shonnie Scott
West Seattle Campus Pastor

On Sunday, Feb. 27, Bethany North moved from its original location at Richmond-Highlands Recreation Center in Shoreline, to Spartan Recreation Center at Shoreline Center. Below is an excerpt from a blog post by Scott Sund, Bethany North campus pastor, that appeared on their blog earlier this week.

We all love the sense of growth and it is exciting to be part of something that seems to have such energy and trajectory and momentum behind this.  This is the stuff of dreams.  And this is also the story of the Gospel…Jesus tells us to GO and MAKE DISCIPLES.  Definitely, as disciples of Jesus, we hear the call to move and grow and advance His message.  We are meant to grow God’s kingdom by spreading the Good News.

BCC North from Bethany North on Vimeo.

For five years, Tabitha volunteers and guests have seen God’s guidance and provision–and for five years, the Tabitha inbox has been filled with notes such as these:

October 14, 2005
Thanks so much for organizing this training for such an important ministry! I’m interested in being one of the shelter overnight staff once it’s up and running…I won’t be able to be on the other teams, but will be able to attend some meetings…
Rachel

January 20, 2006
…The women who stayed with us last night seemed to almost “parent” us through the evening; they affirmed and encouraged us, coached us, informed us, not to mention were grateful, gracious, and respectful. Everything you could ask for in a guest.  It was easy to get to know the women, easy to read their body language if they wanted to talk or not to talk.  There was a lot of laughing that evening, and the next morning.  I felt very safe that night before I fell asleep. Some observations/comments that I heard from the women:
-They thought the space was inviting and nice to be in.
-The mattresses were SO comfortable.
-The snacks were great! They could taste the freshness in the vegetables and fruit, and liked how delicious and well made everything was. They were also flattered to know that they had a Nutrition Team. “We have our own nutritionists?!”
I appreciated all the work that the hospitality/nutrition team put into the snacks. Everything was good to eat, and easy to get ready the next morning.
Great job, Tabitha volunteers!
Hilary

January 23, 2007
Hi Sarah, it was nice to see a gathering of the church serving and worshiping together.  My kids LOVED putting the gift bags we made on the Tabitha beds.  It was really good for them to visualize where the women would sleep.  I really appreciated seeing all the special touches that show you care, from the lamps, to books, to the pretty paint on the wall to make it a soft and meaningful place.  I really see how God uses the Bethany body, SO many people working together to make this run.
Love, Karen

March 17, 2008
I am a recent grad of SPU who has never belonged to a church family in Seattle. I’ve done a lot of church hopping and that is another story (which I can tell you, if you are interested). I have been back in Seattle for about three months after studying abroad in Russia, and I just moved into a house with Amy, who goes to Bethany Community. She and I have been friends for a while, and I’ve asked her to take me under her wing, in a way, and take me to church with her. She mentioned that Katie is involved in the Tabitha ministry when I told her that I was interested in it. I really want to attend a church that ministers to people outside of its congregation, and where I can be involved in a ministry. I have read about the Tabitha ministry on the church’s website, but could you tell me more about it? I’m interested in volunteering (if I can).  I know this email is very random, and that I am not a church member yet, but I really hope that Bethany Community can be the home that I’ve been looking for in a church, and that I can contribute. That said, I hope you had a good weekend!
Theresa

October 29, 2009
I recently have been getting involved with the Tabitha Food Bank and in talking to Geoff and Karen, heard that eventually they’d like to have some regular community dinners in conjunction with the open hours.  I know it’s sticky with food handler’s cards and such, but I have one, and I might be able to find more folks who have them who are willing to help make the food.  Do you have any thoughts about this?  I’m definitely willing to plan, organize, recruit, and execute
Thanks!
Alison

October 24, 2010
I sat in the Bethany service this morning and was compelled to inquire more about volunteering with Tabitha ministries. I am very interested in volunteering with Tabitha Community Meals once a month and am willing to help out in any capacity. Please let me know what the greatest need is around this ministry and I will fill out the volunteer application.
Thanks,
Alisha

January 20, 2011
Hi Overnight Team,
This week marks the 5th birthday of Tabitha Shelter! Tuesday the 18th to be exact. I’m very grateful to have been a part of this shelter and I’m so proud of our community for sustaining this amazing service to the vulnerable among us in Seattle solely with volunteers. Incredible! We thank God for giving us the vision, determination, and heart to keep it going. Here’s to 5 more years!
Hilary

Tabitha Ministries exists to shine a light in our community by meeting people in their place of need and walking with them along the way to freedom and healing.
Learn more at tabithaministries.org.

On a cold December morning in Seattle, thirteen travelers began a mission trip to Baja, Mexico.  We began gathering and preparing as a Community Group back in November started by Megan Dobrasz.  Now it was time to experience what God prepared for us.  To leave our comforts behind, cross a border and join the on-going work of Foundation for His Ministry located in Vicente Guerrero.

Our group was a mix of a few Baja veterans, and others beginning their first ‘missions trip.’  We were ready to work, serve, encourage the FFHM staff in its efforts and, as they say at the mission, to have our lives changed forever.  Our two white vans moved down Highway 1, first picking up Chad and Erin Fransen (Bethany-supported missionaries in La Mision, Baja).   By the time of our arrival, the weather was warm, the sun out, and our anticipation growing.

And it soon began with the children.  Those who were abandoned, abused, left behind and missing God’s love and hope.  Of note are the many disabled/handicapped children receiving individual care and training, the work of the day care staff to educate migrant children, and long-term work with children in various house settings, living as family with house parents.  We helped in all these settings.

Other opportunities came in the medical clinic, the harvesting of macademia nuts, in the print shop, doing landscaping and just plugging into the mission’s daily schedule of prayer, worship, service and relationship building.  One morning we spent time with a dozen men at the rehab facility, north of town.  We labored along side them in building housing for their ministry and praying with them at the end.

Seven days later, these thirteen travelers were now friends and co-laborers in God’s work in the Baja.  A mission accomplished and new life opportunities opening up.

Submitted by Jim Underhill, Baja Team Leader

Interested in upcoming trips? Contact Elli Oswald, Director of Missions, or Megan Dobrasz, Pastor of College & Career.

Thank you for your generosity this Christmas season! We were able to provide over 500 gifts to local children and youth, Bagley families, Bethany families, and Tabitha guests.

Below is a note from a mother who received Giving Tree gifts this season:

I want to  thank you and the family of Bethany church for the amazing support our family was blessed with through the Giving Tree. The gifts our son will be blessed with on Christmas morning are ones that we could not have provided for him ourselves. Through those who were moved to give, we are now able to fulfill our sons wishes for Christmas. The gift card to Fred Meyer completed the package, we intend to use it to get gifts for each other. Words cannot explain our appreciation for the generosity, more so my husband and I were both moved to tears by the generosity of others and the faithfulness of our Lord.

A big thanks those who coordinated this year’s Giving Tree, as well as the volunteers who came in to sort, transport, and distribute the gifts!

My prayer during this Advent (capital “A”) season is that we would continue to be a people of advent.  During this four-week period we celebrate and prepare for the “coming” (Advent) of Christ at Christmas.  Over the year that I have been at Bethany I have been amazed at the various ways in which this church is working to be a community that comes to people, a church that seeks to bring Christ into various worlds.  Yes, we celebrate the coming of Christ, but we have also been entrusted with the power of Holy Spirit to help us be bringers of Christ into every nook and cranny of creation.

I would ask that we pray, this month, for some of the various ways in which people here at BCC will be ‘bringers’ of Christ.  This is not an exhaustive list, but I trust that you might know other places that you can be adding in prayer as well.

*Over the last three months we have seen hundreds of people connect with Bethany through our Community Groups model.  Our intention in creating these groups was to provide places with various levels of commitment, and relatively easy means of entry so that more people could access the Bethany community in meaningful ways.  We have been hearing some fun success stories as we prepare for a new catalog of groups that will come out on January 2.  Please be praying for these groups as they finish up this week and next; pray that people are being transformed in relationships with Christ and each other.  Also, please pray for the new groups and their leaders that will be forming in January.

*Small Groups continue to be a means by which people are encouraged and blessed.  Nearly 600 people are in ongoing discipleship relationships in which they are learning to share life together well.  Pray for the continued growth and health of these groups and that more and more people would gravitate towards this kind of community.

*Students are heading into finals here in the next couple of weeks.  Whether high school, college, or grad school students- these people are feeling higher levels of stress.  Please pray that the Lord would be multiplying their efforts (and their sleep), helping them to be less anxious and remain balanced enough to continue to pursue Christ, and other relationships, during their daily lives.

*Pastor Richard is currently travelling in Germany and Austria, and will be there for the first two weeks of December.  Please pray that his ministry (teaching bible students) would be a blessed time for both the students and him.  Richard not only teaches while he is there, but he also provides a pastoral voice in the life of the students.  His days are long and full of both teaching and deep conversations- pray he is able to rest and reflect to students his love of Christ that we witness here throughout the year.

*A group of 15 people are heading to Baja from December 11-December 18 on a trip to an orphanage and community center there.  These people will be “coming” in a very real way to help support practical needs (construction) while also maintaining relationships that have been built with the residents over the last several years.  Pray for this team’s safety and for their witness as they both share and receive Christ’s love.

Advent is a strange kind of waiting.  Collectively, we wait for something that has already taken place; the coming of God to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.  We listen to the story, but we already know how the story goes.  My prayer is that during this season we would wait with anticipation;   that we would long to celebrate the ‘coming’ miracle of God stepping into this world to dwell among us.  Christ entered in, not merely as a tourist, but as a humble savior.  During this next month may we be reminded of who Christ is, and what he has done for us.  Also, lets remember ways (both small and big) that we might be able to be ‘Little Christs’ (literal meaning of Christians) in the worlds in which we walk.   Our neighborhoods, our schools, and our work places should look forward to our ‘coming’ in–as we live into the Good News that Christ has come, and the even better news that Christ will come again.
Blessings,

Joe Springer
Pastor of Small Groups

by John Thompson

I was reading (or I guess, re-beginning) Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, when I noticed the “Author’s Note.” Most times I skip past it, the forward, and another pieces that I deem extraneous, but I stopped to see this. I am realizing that this is a word for the reader, from the person that wrote the whole thing, and most times, from perspective of having written the book and thinking, “Wait, this needs just a quick beat to get them started.” I’m glad that he left this simple, yet profound piece of hope and understanding (my paraphrase):

In life, in order to love something, we have to see someone who has already learned to love that thing that we desire to love. In that showing, we see a mentor, a counselor who can guide us, even if we never converse with them. It is as if they are giving us a time tested, visual map.

God has been showing me this in various ways. The one that stands out the most was watching a friend dance.

Now, being a man that has been in the church for some time, I’ve read most every book that John Eldridge has written, save for Captivating (‘cause that’s the one for chicks, right? Just kidding, it’s on my shelf to read- I promise) which he wrote with his wife, specifically for women. After reading these books, I’ve found that the common thread that runs underneath all of them is that the glory of God is man fully alive.

However, what that means has always eluded me- does it mean that I go out and do what God desires me to do? Then by means of my own effort and praying and going to church I get fully alive, right?

Thank God, no.

It was this seeing of my friend dance- It was her last show, she was moving to London to go to a very exclusive dance school that it is close to impossible to get into. She is going to this place on passion and prayer, as the school doesn’t allow for scholarships to international students. Anyway, this last show- she made it Dr. Seuss themed and had her talented friends accompany her in this dance routine that she had choreographed. It was about a girl that had been tossed about by life and seen and met many different things, pain and beauty and friendship and loneliness. In all of this, with narration guiding, she danced. And I have to tell you, that even though I’ve watched So You Think You Can Dance, I’ve never seen passion poured out like this ever in my life. It was as if she had been unhinged from this world and in a sense, left, and this spirit was left to move around in this body, lifting and falling with a movement that resembled animated flame.

I left there saying that was the first time I had really enjoyed seeing dance. Something so intentional, so raw and honest and specifically done for God’s glory. Then I heard a voice:

“That’s what I mean when I want see you alive. I love you and I love the things that you love, I desire the things that you desire- because I put them there. I love you, my guy.”

After was this huge moment of “Ohhhhhh,” and I haven’t been the same since. I think that’s the thing that we forget- that while we go about our lives, there is a God in heaven with his heavenly host, cheering on the stands of our lives, louder than any soccer mom. He leans over to the angel next to him-

“You see that girl? She’s my girl! I sent my Son so that she could live and live like no one else! I love her so much! She so talented and so beautiful, I love to open doors for her and surprise her with things she didn’t expect. She is my wonderful and glorious treasure, and I love her, hang on-

(Stands up)

YEAH! You are doing so well! I am so happy for you! Keep going! You are my kid; I’ll never let you go!

(Sits back down)

Anyway, that’s my kid. She was going to go to hell, but I couldn’t let the happen. She’s too important to me.”

That’s the God that’s, well, on our side, if you couldn’t tell.

How do these all correlate? Good question.

Well, I needed to see my friend, Annie, dance her most passionate, her most heart poured out, to see how I could start making inroads to my own understanding of what and how I was to seek God in my own life. I can’t tell you how much knowing that sometimes we need to see someone else do something before it becomes accessible for us to love has helped me. Because sometimes faking it till you make it still leaves you a fake. Seek truth and seek people who are further down the spiritual road than you. Read some C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, or John Ortberg. Be on the lookout for moments where you can see someone fully alive, even though they might not be a Christian, or your idea of what a Christian might be. Indulge getting lost in the passion that’s on display. That in that indulgence, your excitement for what God can do in your life can be challenged and redefined.

“You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of the dust,

You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.”

Remember: He’s not done yet.

Nick Steinloski, Pastor of Youth Ministry

This month’s Watching the Wall is focused on the Youth Ministry at Bethany. This fall, things have been like a roller coaster. Several new commitments to Christ and great attendance and growth at Veritas (our weekly big-group meeting for high school and middle school), but we are also dealing with some high school students and choices they are making–students who don’t see the problem with lying, and even students dealing with running away from home. Really high highs and some pretty low lows. As we continue to reach students in our city, we also get to walk with them through some of their challenges. Below are some of the prayer requests we have received over the past few weeks as well as some about the youth ministry.

• One young man who lives in a group home for foster students who has been on his own for a few years. He has just committed his life to Christ and is now bringing his friends from the group home and Garfield High School where he attends.
• A High School female who is struggling with self-esteem: “I am having a lot of trouble with jealousy and lust. I don’t know what to do to make it go away. I have prayed but nothing seems to help. Please pray for me. Thank you.”
• “I have a friend who is having a rough time right now and is thinking about killing themselves. I need God’s help to help them.”
• “My birth dad needs help with his drug addiction.”
• A number of our students have parents who are unemployed.
• For our leaders to continue to have an impact in the lives of the students.
• We have four interns who are doing a fabulous job and would appreciate your prayers (Michael, Nick, Daniel and Chael).
• Winter Camp for both middle school and high school this February.
• For all the “church” kids who attend BCC; that they would see the value of getting connected and coming to Veritas.

Thank you for your continued prayers for the Bethany community as a whole, as well as our Youth Ministry specifically.

Pastor Nick Steinloski