Church number ninety-nine! It's a bit hard to believe we are coming to the end of this journey.
Today we worshiped at Bethel Church in Redding, California. We always knew that a visit to Bethel would be part of this journey of one-hundred churches. This visit to Bethel is the farthest we have traveled inside the United States to visit a church, which says something about our dedication to making this journey. Our time at Bethel was well worth the long journey, as Bethel is a very interesting and different kind of church.
Beth and I have a friend named Martin in Charlotte who spent years at Bethel in Redding before he returned to North Carolina. His experience at Bethel was profoundly impactful to him and we love his stories that relate back to his time at this church.
Bethel is especially relevant in the global church landscape primarily because of its music. Bethel is undeniably one of the biggest labels in Christian music. They are up there with Hillsong, UPPERROOM, Elevation Worship and Maverick City Music. Bethel collaborates with musicians around the world through what is called the Bethel Music Collective. Big names in the Bethel Music Collective include Brandon Lake, Cory Asbury, Dante Bowe and Melissa Helser.
So that you can understand more about their music, here are a few links to videos from the artists named above:
In addition to the music, Bethel is very well known as one of the world's largest prophetic and charismatic churches. Bethel is prophetic in the sense that the gatherings are filled with people giving each other something called "prophetic words" or "words of knowledge." You will see this in the videos that are part of this post. Bethel is also what many call a hyper-charismatic church, which means that the spiritual gifts of Holy Spirit are very much seen when one attends a Bethel Church service. We did encounter quite a bit of that.
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We first arrived at Bethel on Saturday, after we made the lengthy drive north from Sacramento, enjoying the farmland and open spaces of Northern California. Since Beth and I have only been in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and many places in between, this part of California was a whole new experience for us. We cannot say enough about how different the Northern part of California is.
Once we got to Redding and then Bethel itself, we saw a church that is very much like the other churches of the contemporary ilk - a large, white and expansive building that looks like a box from the outside.
Bethel Church is on a massive tract of land and has a very beautiful campus. Despite its massive size, Bethel Church and the Redding City Council have agreed to a plan that will build an even larger campus in the next year or two.
Below is a picture of the proposed campus (wow!):
We don't know much more about Bethel's new campus, but we did drive past the expanse of land that has been set aside for this new development.
Bethel's plan for a new campus reinforces the idea that while some churches are currently experiencing a demographic free fall, other churches like Bethel are experiencing growth that is proving a bit hard to keep up with. The Christian church around the world is undergone a massive demographic shift and the US is part of that.
After we drove around Bethel's campus for a few minutes, we decided to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is north of Redding. It was absolutely beautiful and we enjoyed the fantastic vistas of Mount Shasta.
Sunday morning, we got up early and went to Bethel's 8 am service. We entered the huge church and quickly figured out how to navigate around. We were gratified to find the coffee shop, which was named Hebrews - surely some sort of play on words was intended.
He Brews.
We got coffees and did some people watching. Before long, the church had a huge number of people in it.
We navigated the childcare situation with ease. Everything was well-organized. We got MC to her class and then headed into the main auditorium. We found good seats and settled in. We talked to the two women behind us. One had a son who used to live in Charlotte. Nice people. A good chit chat with people that go to the church always makes us feel welcome.
We found out that this was Bethel Weekend, a full three days where Bethel had something going on each day. The day prior, Saturday, had apparently been an inner tube ride down the Sacramento River. Friday night there was a speaker at Bethel that apparently made a big impact. As has happened before in other churches, such our visit to The Belonging Co., we found ourselves visiting Bethel during a weekend when the church was on a collective reflection of where they had been in the past, where they are now and where they will be going in the future.
Before long, the band came out to perform. The music was great, as we expected it would be. It was really interesting to see the music that we have enjoyed from afar for years right there in front of us. Really enjoyable!
After the band played, Prophetic Ministries Director Ben Armstrong [leadership link] came onto the stage. He spoke for a bit, then invited three other people on stage. This is where the prophetic part of the service took place. The four people on the stage scanned the congregation and then called out specific people to receive a prophetic word.
This went something like this -
From the stage, one of the leaders would say something like this, "I see the gentleman standing in the middle of the auditorium in the Boston Celtics tee shirt. Hi, yes, you. [smiling] I am getting that you are on the front end of a huge period of trial and growth, that God is going to bring you to a place where He will both test you and sustain you against one of the five things in your life that..."
And it would go on for a while like this, until multiple people throughout the auditorium had received a prophetic utterance from one of the leaders on the stage. This was seeing Bethel Church do what it is best known for and it was very interesting.
Of note, that all of the people giving these prophetic statements were Australians. The entire staff at The Belonging Co. was also Australian. There is something about big evangelical churches in the US and Australians. Not sure what that is all about, but it is a big observation from these church visits.
Then there was a message given by Chris Cruz [link]. It was a great message, filled with interesting anecdotes and personal stories. Beth is great at taking notes on the messages at the churches we visit, it helps for reflection later.
Here are those notes that Beth took at Bethel:
The part of the sermon that really jumped out at related to 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 and how different the response is between believers and unbelievers when they encounter the same thing - what is called "the fragrance of Christ."
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
This addresses the phenomenon of how different people respond to Jesus. For some, His words and presence are a source of joy and sustenance. For others, the same words and presence are a source of anger, accusation and tension. That is because for those who know Him, His fragrance is a reminder of their eternity and hope. For those who don't know Him, His fragrance is a reminder of their sin and impending death.
It explains a great deal about how society and the world are divided.
After the message, the women who sat behind us handed Beth a note. The note was a prophetic word for us about the vision she had had during the service.
The vision was about us.
This was an encouraging thing to us. We wanted to have someone speak over our common life and marriage, so we were happy to have this word.
Zoom in on the note and read it.
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As the service started to wrap up, there was an option to go up front and pray with people from Bethel and have more exposure to prophetic words.
We walked up and met a guy named Rich Sprenkel.
Rich experienced a radical healing in 1984 on the other side of a car accident that left his spine severed in two places and him in a coma. During that comatose state, Rich stopped breathing three times, each time it lasted for multiple minutes. The means Rich was effectively dead three times on that fateful night nearly forty years ago.
Doctors told his parents that he was almost certain to die, but that if he lived, he would be unable to walk or speak. Despite this assessment decades ago, Rich was standing right there, praying for us and with us.
His story was really amazing, the kind of thing we wanted to get close to at Bethel.
We spent time learning more about Rich's journey later. We do think what happened to Rich qualifies as miraculous.
Rich has a website, here it is.
Watch this video, it is about Rich's accident and his healing.
Here is his testimony that Rich gave us, something he has to give to people that he meets. As always, this makes for a good read, if you zoom in and spend some time with it.
And here we are with Rich.
After we were done praying with Rich, we worked our way to the classroom where MC had just spent the last couple of hours. The young people that had taken care of her had written a note saying how much they had loved her presence in class this morning. This also made us smile. As sometimes happens, she got the nickname MC Hammer.
Before we left Bethel's campus, we stopped into their prayer chapel. It had a koi pond out front and a water feature inside. A very placid place. MC felt like dancing and touching everything, so we didn't spend much time there.
The three of us drove off of Bethel's campus.
Earlier in the morning, we had set aside the breakfast sandwiches from the hotel. We often give them to homeless people, so we didn't eat them. When we drove out of the Bethel property, we quickly saw a couple that was clearly homeless.
Rich and Renee are their names. Renee composes gospel music and asked if she could sing some of her work.
I told her I'd love to hear it and then asked if I could film it.
She agreed, so her video is below. I also prayed with and for Rich and Renee, they appeared to have a great many headwinds in life.
Then we spent the rest of the day exploring Sacramento, which has a great historic section that goes back to the 1848 Gold Rush.
As a result of this trip, Beth and I learned that the three of us can travel great distances successfully, something we plan to do a great deal in our life together.
We had a great time at Bethel. We enjoyed the community, the music, seeing the vitality of growth that Bethel is experiencing, the message, the prophetic words, the inspiring story of Rich's survival and flourishing under prayer in the face of certain death.
In every way, this was a great, great visit to a very fascinating church.
Our next and final stop will be in Boston. We are both excited to visit the 100th church, as well as a little bit sad.
Stay tuned!
