Our Mission, Beliefs, and History
We are a member church in a denomination called The Christian Reformed Church (CRC). This is a denomination that has about 250,000 members in about 1,000 congregations across the United States and Canada.
Our local congregation was organized in 1947 and seeks to glorify God, build His kingdom, and prepare His people in the Edgerton area for works of service.
We call ourselves "Christian" because we confess that we belong to Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son and our savior, and seek to follow him.
We call ourselves "Reformed" because we stem from the historic branch of the Christian church that arose from the Protestant Reformation. We follow the doctrinal teachings of 16th-century reformer, John Calvin. The distinctive teachings of the Reformed community emphasize that our God reigns over creation yet he calls us into a covenant with Him to show the world what the kingdom of God looks like by the way we live. We profess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That means all of our life is lived under his leadership: our worship, work, relationships, and recreation. In addition, we emphasize that God continues His process of reforming the world. We recognize that God, through His Holy Spirit, continues to change us and enables us to be agents of reconciliation and renewal in this world as we await the consummation of God's kingdom.
We call ourselves "Church" because God has called us together to be a community of believers who belong to him and live for him, empowered by the Holy Spirit as we represent His love in this world.
We believe that the Holy Bible is God's infallible written Word contained in the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. We also subscribe to the following Reformed Confessions: The Belgic Confession, The Canons of Dort, and The Heidelberg Catechism. In addition we hold to the following Ecumenical or Universal Creeds: The Apostles' Creed, The Athanasian Creed, and the Nicene Creed.
Bethel's Vision: To Glorify God and Build His Kingdom
Bethel's Mission: Love God, Love Others, Make Disciples