Although we live a continent away from Bethel Church in Redding, California, we feel an ongoing connection there. We have attended talks on the East coast when Bethel staff members have traveled out this way, and we benefit from their ongoing presentations on podcasts and YouTube.
We made a month-long pilgrimage to Redding in 2018 to check the church out in more detail. I tend to be somewhat skeptical (“Is this too good to be true?”), so I made a point while I was there to schmooze with lower-level staffers to try to get the inside scoop. I found a consistent picture of integrity and good-willed service at all levels. I wrote up my 2018 visit on this blog here: Prayer for Healing at Bethel Church.
One thing that Bethel is known for is a hopefulness about supernatural healing. Managing expectations for answers to prayers for healing is tricky. I do not claim to have found the perfect balance here. In most churches, when prayers are offered for someone’s healing, there is a (spoken or unspoken) caveat clause of, “If it be thy will.” That lowers expectations, which in turn mitigates disappointment when (as so often happens), the ailment simply runs its natural course. I think that is reasonable theology, and as a practical matter everyone, even the holiest saint, eventually dies of something; that seems to be just the way things are.
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