Review of the Bethany Community Church in Tempe, AZ.

The Bethany Community Church is located at Bethany Community Church, Mail: 6240 S Price Rd (Directions: 6101 S.. River Dr.), Tempe AZ, 85283. Phone: 480.831.5005, Email: info@bethanycc.com. It's on the NW corner of the 101 frontage road and Guadaloupe. When you drive into their parking lot, you'll see guest parking immediately to your right.

I reviewed this church on Sunday, Nov 25, 2007. They have 2 services every Sunday. One at 9am and one at 10:45am. When I got out of my car, I realized that I was lost. There were buildings all over. This is one of the largest churches I've ever seen. But they made finding the service easy. Right by the parking lot, Ray Wallace and two other women welcomed me to the church and offered me a bottle of water. Ray walked me to the 'worship center', which is the biggest building directly north of the parking lot and close to the 101 frontage road.

Although I arrived at 10:35 there was someone already speaking. He was giving a testimonial about how he found Jesus. His final comments were to trust in the Lord for everything. Turn control over to him. This leads to contentment. To me it sounded like I arrived at the wrong time and the service might be ending. But this wasn't the case.

After this, they announced their Thanksgiving donation to the Phoenix Rescue and Salvation Army. When they dropped off the food, someone at the Salvation Army was quoted as saying that they gave more food than any other church in a long time. It's easy to understand why. Firstly it was obvious to me from listening to the sermon, that this church believes in being generous when helping the needy. But also it's humongous! I estimate that the worship center is most likely well over 20,000 square feet and there are 8 other good size buildings on the campus.

Maybe I don't get around much, but this is the first church I've been to where they have a baptism pool built into the wall of the worship center so everyone can see. The pool is about 20' above the first floor. Through plexiglass you can see the water. Today three people got baptized by being completely submerged in water. The pool is normally hidden behind one of the giant projection screens. There are two screens on either side of the stage.

On the stage I saw all kinds of instruments and band equipment but the only music I heard was at the end of the service. A piano player and singer sang a beautiful song during communion. The worship center is theatre style with the floor sloping down towards the stage. There was theatre style lighting, a huge projection room on the 2nd floor. Everything from the sound to lighting to the presentation was professional quality. On the sides of the church and above the stage, I noticed beautiful stain glass windows. The pews were padded and quite comfortable. There was nowhere to kneel in front of the seats, but it's just as well. No one was kneeling anyways.

The sermon was interesting. It was delivered by a dynamic, very articulate young man who spoke on 'living like Jesus: achieving real Godliness' His first statement was, 'don't do what God told you to do. Do what God is telling you to do now.' He quoted many bible passages including Ephesians 1:17-21 and 3: 20. Mark 11: 1-2. Luke 19, etc. Then he got down to the meat of the presentation. He said that Jesus met the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of people. Jesus moved towards the broken and oppressed. He related a story where a friend approached him about another friend he was hanging out with. His friend said, 'don't you know he's a homosexual?'. 'Don't you think you should talk to him about that?' His reply was, 'he won't listen, until he knows how much I love him unconditionally as a brother in Christ.'

After the sermon, as the music played, people were invited to 'respond' as they feel led. Communion tables were set up in the middle of the worship center. Some people took communion, some raised their hands to God, some sat, some sang, some hugged their significant other, some prayed, some did al of the above.

After the service I noticed a huge information center, so I decided to check it out. I walked in as if I was lost, - and I was. Someone noticed me and said, 'Can I help you?' I didn't know what to say. After being to a church the same morning where people were hugging me and excited that I was there, it was hard to shift gears and fit into a more 'normal' environment. Instead of asking for information, I commented that I was impressed with her church and wondered if I could review it on my website. She quietly said that would probably be ok. I commented that this was such a big church with a lot of buildings and a lot going on. She said that with such a large church it is important to have smaller gatherings so people could get to know one another. I thought she might offer to show me around or give me some additional information but there seemed to be a lot of silence and lack of excitement in our conversation, so I thanked her and left. Perhaps she was new and nervous, or just shy. Not sure. I'm sure there must be other people at the church who are more passionate about welcoming visitors. If I had more time to spend with them I would have no doubt bumped into them.

Overall this was a positive experience. If you're searching for a large bible based Christian church, you might like what you see. I would recommend attending some of their smaller events and classes in addition to their Sunday services to get a better sense of what they're all about. It's not easy even for an outgoing person like myself to meet people in such a large crowd. That would true for any large church. They wouldn't be here today and with so many members if they didn't care about people and I sincerely believe that they do.

Bethany Community Church a busy calendar with many events and things to do.

Back to the top