WHAT WE BELIEVE

In spite of the mess we have created, separating ourselves from God and finding ourselves empty -- the ugly reality we Christians call "sin" -- God has a wonderful plan for each of us -- it is called the Good News and it is about God reconnecting us to himself  as we experience God's forgiving love by a living faith in the work of Jesus Christ.  This is what Christians have proclaimed as Good News throughout history....and it is alive and wonderful today!

We continue in the faith of God's people from New Testament times affirming one Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We rejoice in God's gift of salvation through the sacrificial death and triumphant bodily resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.  We celebrate God's gift of forgiveness and eternal life through a Spirit-given faith in our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

We share God's grace as it comes to us through the Word and the Sacraments (Baptism and Communion).  The Bible is the authoritative Word of God for our faith and life.  At the same time, we recognize diversity in interpreting the Scriptures and respect and value differing emphases while celebrating the unity of the Church in the essentials. 

In Baptism, we die with Christ and share his resurrection.  This new life of faith is to be nurtured in the life of those (including infants) baptized through discipleship as the Gospel is taught and experienced and believed personally.  In the Lord's Supper, as we eat of the bread and drink from the cup, we share the body and blood of Jesus Christ and receive the forgiveness of sins, a strengthened faith, and the power for a new life.

As God's people, we now seek to honor and glorify God and to serve the needs of others, to work for justice and peace, to care for God's creation and creatures, and to reflect our Lord's living presence as the "body of Christ" in today's world.   

With much of the Christian Church throughout the world, we use the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds as summaries of our faith.  We use the United Church of Christ's 1959 Statement of Faith as a contemporary restatement of the basics of our faith.  We value the insights and expression of the Protestant Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries as they rediscovered the Good News and brought renewal to the Church.  Where these vary, Christian love and the unity of God's people shall prevail.

We are affiliated with the St. Louis Association of the Missouri Mid-South Conference of the United Church of Christ.  The UCC was formed by an ecumenical merger (1957) of Congregational Christian churches and the Evangelical and Reformed churches.  The UCC is a congregation-centered body committed to Christian unity.  Each independent congregation establishes its own ministry and theological emphases in covenant with other congregations but with freedom of conscience and respect for the unity of the Church through its diversity.  The 1957 merger brought together liturgical and non-liturgical ; creedal and non-creedal, even anti-creedal; English and German; pietistic and social justice; doctrinal and non-doctrinal strands in the spirit of John 17, THAT ALL MAY BE ONE. 

Bethel continues in the tradition of the Evangelical Synod, a midwestern united Protestant association (1840's) of German congregations that included persons from both Reformed and Protestant backgrounds.  This approach balances personal faith in Jesus Christ with a passion to address the human needs of our world.   We are committed to the historic truths of Scripture while we recognize and welcome seekers and those from other Christian backgrounds to be gather around Jesus Christ and the Gospel as one family.