For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12)
Collaboration, partnership, and accompaniment are the backbone of Bethel’s approach towards discipleship: we are firmly committed to looking outside ourselves and finding ways to work with others towards the betterment of Creation.
“In-house”, we have created Bethel4All–a joint venture of several of the ministries who operate out of this facility. Locally, we have worked with several sister congregations on a joint youth ministry program as well as having partnered together in areas of caregiving and social needs; due to the current pandemic, we have not been able to do as many things together. More broadly, we are active contributors to the life of the larger organizations to which we belong, and fervent believers in the power of cooperative ministry.
Bethel Lutheran Church is a part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a church body with over 10,000 congregations spread over the United States and abroad and a history that dates back to the European Reformation of the 1500s. The ELCA organizes itself into progressively smaller units: Regions, Synods, Clusters, and individual congregations. At Bethel, we are a part of the ELCA’s Region 1, Northwest Washington Synod, Sno-King Cluster.
Bethel is a member of the Church Council of Greater Seattle and participates regularly with other congregations in the Shoreline area for joint worship services, youth activities, and social concerns. Additionally, several other worship communities meet regularly at Bethel, and we partner with them throughout the year in various ways.