My review, unfortunately, has to match that of Robert S., from 6 years ago. I am married and we…read morevisited Bethany for over 6 months together as a couple. We almost joined. I will get to why we didn't later. First, the positive:
- Bethany DID greet us at the door. In fact, we were developing friendships with those very greeters, and I was sad to leave them.
- The women at Bethany were generally good. Makes sense: the Methodist church has always been very welcoming of women who want to serve in the ministry.
- If traditional, liturgical worship services are your thing (and not modern worship with electric guitars and drums), Bethany has that. It's why most of the people who attend are there.
- Beautiful building. Bethany has clearly seen better days before.
- If you are a senior citizen or a parent with young kids, Bethany has strong communities in those two groups.
- Free coffee
Now, the harder part; where I cannot recommend this church:
- The women were good. The men were not (by that I mean the leadership. Senior, associate, and worship pastors).
- In spite of the best efforts of the women and the greeters, Bethany was only semi-welcoming to first-time visitors. Your second time, and...I'm sorry, what was your name again? It's why we attended for 6 months and then dropped out.
- The church recently underwent a major split (as we were reminded of almost every other Sunday).
- We felt left out a lot because we didn't have young kids.
- Extremely overstaffed (due to aforementioned split), and they only let the staff run the church. The members (who pay for said staff) have no say. They would offer pretend volunteer roles to members at times, but those roles were clearly busy-work which did not fulfill any real church function (for example, they would pour your coffee for you. The coffee dispensers are sitting right there--you could have helped yourself).
Importantly: note that this whole time, I never even mentioned gay ordination (the whole reason for the church split) or liberal theology. I was never even aware of anyone openly gay at Bethany UMC. So as far as I know, the entire fuss was over a purely hypothetical problem. I have heard the argument before, that there are other sins one can commit; not just homosexuality. Such as deceit, hypocrisy, misuse of what belongs to God. Ordained ministers can commit those sins, too. So why single out homosexuality as a disqualifier? And even that argument, I can see some merit to.
The problem is, Bethany UMC is not exactly glowing in those other departments, either. It's not like they're this otherwise perfect church, who just accepts gays as pastors. They're not. Other essentials that a church has to have, Bethany lacks: welcoming, God-fearing, enabling their members to be the best they can be--and do the best they can do--for God. Bethany does not do that. They hoard all the church functions for the paid staff. You are supposed to bring your warm body to sit in the pews every Sunday and write a check.
I cannot recommend Bethany UMC--not because they accept gay/women pastors, not because their worship is liturgical. But because they were simply not welcoming, and because their paid staff (particularly the male staff) sit in these ivory towers who cannot be reached, cannot be touched, who want to run everything. A key function of a church is to equip and empower its members to do good things for God: Bethany does not. They actually stand in the way, preventing you from doing that. Jesus took issue with exactly this in Matthew 23:13.
Finally, to be fair, let me say that I wrote this review only AFTER I brought up my issues directly with them. It's the right thing to do.
P.S. The church who split away from them, apparently, is Austin Global Methodist. I know this not because even one single person at Bethany was willing to tell me that the entire time we were there; but because I tracked them down. They just added 18 new members. Bethany is shrinking.
