A Sterling Heights Congregation Built on Three Words
On a wide stretch of Metropolitan Parkway in Sterling Heights, Michigan, Bethesda Christian Church has been gathering believers for nearly a century. The church marked its 90th anniversary in 2024 and continues to define itself by a simple three-part motto: Know the Word, Live the Word, Spread the Word. Pastors Pat and Julie Visger lead the congregation, and Bethesda is a community ready to walk alongside anyone who wants to follow Jesus Christ. The church's calendar, classrooms, and mission partnerships are all built to make that walk concrete.
Located at 14000 Metropolitan Parkway, Bethesda draws from across Macomb County with a rhythm that fills nearly every day of the week. Sunday worship is the anchor, but the life of the church extends through Tuesday Bible study and prayer, a Wednesday evening service with full children's and student programming, a Thursday morning traditional chapel service, recovery and grief support groups, and dozens of small groups meeting in homes and on the church campus.
Sunday Mornings: Worship at Ten, Classes at Nine
The main Sunday worship service begins at 10:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary and is the central gathering of the week. The service is livestreamed on YouTube, with an archive of recent messages available for those who cannot attend.
Before the service, at 9:00 a.m., the building fills with the parallel rhythms of discipleship:
- Connection Classes for adults meet across three rooms. The Word of Life in Room 102 explores the Bible as the infallible Word of God through discussion and at-home study. The Balanced Christian in Dining Room B applies Scripture to everyday life through the stories of biblical characters and the encounters of Jesus. Study to Show Thyself Approved in Dining Room C is designed to help believers understand, defend, and personally own their faith.
- Excursion Hour for kids runs from 9:00 to 9:45 a.m., giving parents a window to attend an adult class.
- Rooted, the church's foundational Christianity class, meets at 9:00 a.m. and is the prerequisite for church membership. It works through questions like who Jesus is, where the Bible came from, what baptism means, and how to live out the faith day to day.
- Rooted Youth meets at the same hour for 7th through 9th graders, with high school students who have not yet taken the class welcome to join the adult version.
- Bethesda Students (6th-12th grade) gather in Room 215 from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
During the 10:00 service, kids worship alongside their families in the Sanctuary and are dismissed at 10:30 a.m. for King's Island Kids' Church, an interactive Bible-teaching experience with hands-on activities designed to help children build friendships and deepen in Scripture.
Wednesday Nights and Thursday Mornings: A Second and Third Service
The church is just as active in the middle of the week as it is on Sunday. Tuesday mornings open with two back-to-back gatherings in different parts of the building:
- Together Through the Bible meets at 9:00 a.m. in Dining Room A. Led by Linda Cadariu and Bill Boyer, the group works its way through a two-year Bible reading plan, discussing the text and answering questions together.
- Tuesday Prayer follows at 10:30 a.m. in the Chapel, lifting up prayers for the church, the pastors, and the community.
Wednesday evenings are the church's other big gathering day. A service in Dining Room A begins at 7:00 p.m., with children's ministry for ages 4 through 5th grade and Bethesda Students (middle and high school) on the Mezzanine meeting at the same time.
On Thursday mornings at 10:00 a.m., the Chapel hosts a more traditional service with worship and a message from one of the ministers. This Thursday gathering is also streamed online for those at home.
Children, Students, and Young Adults
Bethesda invests heavily in its next generations. Children's ministry has two Sunday touchpoints - Excursion Hour at 9:00 a.m. and King's Island Kids' Church at 10:30 a.m. - plus a Wednesday evening program at 7:00 p.m. for kids ages 4 through 5th grade. Every week follows a single thread so children can go deeper on the same Bible theme across all three settings.
Bethesda Students, for 6th through 12th graders, has its own identity: Sundays at 9:00 a.m. in Room 215 and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. on the Mezzanine. The ministry equips every student to live as a disciple in the places God has planted them, and the church maintains a separate Instagram channel for the student ministry.
Young Adults, defined as 18 to mid-30s, gather in LifeGroups throughout the week. The ministry emphasizes life-on-life discipleship and exists to equip believers to Know, Live, and Spread the Word in the everyday places God has placed them. A dedicated young adults group also uses Instagram to stay connected.
Men's, Women's, and Support Ministries
Bethesda runs a robust set of ministries for adults. The Men's Group meets on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in Dining Room A, starting with light refreshments at 6:30 and the teaching at 7:00 p.m.
The Women's Ministry weaves together several smaller groups:
- Coffee, Tea, and Jesus, a small-group Bible study and fellowship that meets monthly in homes and at the church from January through May.
- Yarners, a crochet and knitting group that meets on Tuesday evenings twice a month for craft and conversation.
- Seasons, a quarterly testimony night where a different woman from the church shares how Jesus carried her through a specific season of life.
- Friends and Finds, a casual fellowship that meets throughout the year for friendship, lunch, antiquing, and shopping trips.
Three support groups meet on the church campus:
- DivorceCare meets Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m. in Room 102. The 13-week program combines video, small-group discussion, and a workbook for those navigating separation or divorce.
- GriefShare meets Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. in Room 106. The 14-week program walks participants from mourning toward joy through the same three-part format.
- Overcomers Outreach meets Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. in Dining Room A. It is a Christ-centered 12-step recovery ministry that serves as a bridge between traditional recovery groups and the church for individuals and families affected by addiction.
Rooted, Membership, and the Sacraments
Bethesda teaches that Christian life is structured around practices rather than just beliefs, and the church's forms and classes reflect that. Rooted is the front door: a 10-question study of foundational Christianity that is also the prerequisite for membership. The membership description draws from Acts and 2 Peter 3:18, framing the local body as a place to be established, strengthened, and grown together.
The church practices seven sacraments, listed in its statement of belief: baptism, the Lord's Supper, footwashing, anointing with oil, matrimony, dedication of children, and confirmation. Baptism follows faith and repentance and is administered by immersion, mirroring the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 6:4). Dedication of infants and young children takes place at the altar with the elders praying over the child and parents publicly committing to raise them in the instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Matrimony is a God-ordained lifelong covenant between a man and a woman.
Care Ministries and Local Service
A separate stream of ministries at Bethesda serves the wider community:
- Forgotten Harvest: Volunteers load food from the Forgotten Harvest truck in the church parking lot on the first and third Monday of each month.
- Detroit Rescue Mission: A group travels to the Detroit Rescue Mission on the third Monday of each month to share the gospel with men in the program.
- Macomb County Jail Ministry: Adults can serve as chaplains at the Macomb County Jail under the Gateway to Glory umbrella, providing spiritual care to those incarcerated there.
Bethesda is also part of the local Community Hands Food Pantry in Sterling Heights, which stocks food and household staples for families in financial crisis, and supports Compassion Pregnancy in nearby Clinton Township, a center that has offered pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, education, and confidential peer counseling since 1994.
Mission Partners Around the World
Each September, the church devotes a month to missions and invites guest speakers from its partner organizations to preach. The 2026 Faith Promise supports a wide portfolio of ministries:
- Basket of Hope (Kenya): trains pastors, teachers, and missionaries among the Tana River District's most vulnerable populations, running a feeding program for 2,000 children each school day.
- C.H.E. Uganda: equips volunteers through Community Health Empowerment and Evangelism to lift whole communities out of poverty and disease while sharing the gospel.
- CTEN (Commission To Every Nation): supports Rev. Cesar and Nancy Cortez in the mountains of Ecuador, where they combine pastoral training with freshwater wells and community development.
- Indonesia for Christ: creates Christian television programming and trains local pastors in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.
- Life Challenge (Detroit): a one-year residential program affiliated with Teen Challenge for men and women overcoming addiction.
- Operation Serve International: brings healthcare, counseling, and pastoral conferences to impoverished areas of Mexico and Egypt.
- Reconciliation Ministries (Detroit): helps men and women heal from sexual brokenness through Bible study, counseling, and family support groups.
The Macomb County Jail Ministry operates under the Gateway to Glory banner, which also maintains After Care transitional homes for men and women leaving incarceration, with mentors, transportation to church, and YMCA memberships to help with reentry.
What Bethesda Believes
The church's statement of belief is brief and confessional. Members affirm that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that Jesus is the Son of God who paid for sin through His death and rose again to offer eternal life, and that salvation comes through faith and repentance. They believe in baptism after conversion, in the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the practice of His gifts, in the healing power of Christ active in the world today, in the physical and visible return of Jesus, and in the seven sacraments listed above as acts of reverent worship.
The statement of belief is paired with a clear understanding of marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, a membership process that begins with Rooted, and a giving practice anchored in tithing. Online giving, prayer requests, event registration, and the message archive are all available through the church's app and Church Center portal.
Parkway Christian School and the Internship Program
Bethesda's campus also includes Parkway Christian School, a K-12 Christian school that operates in partnership with the church. The school shares Bethesda's address on Metropolitan Parkway.
For young adults exploring ministry as a vocation, Bethesda runs an internship program. Prospective applicants can learn more about the structure and expectations of a season of ministry training within the church.
Visiting Bethesda
First-time guests can expect a Bible-believing, multigenerational community with a full weekly schedule. Sunday worship is at 10:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary; the Thursday 10:00 a.m. chapel service offers a more traditional experience; the Wednesday 7:00 p.m. service is a third option for those whose week runs differently. Children are welcome in the Sanctuary and dismissed partway through to age-appropriate classes, and students have their own Sunday and Wednesday gatherings. The church livestreams services on YouTube for those at home, and the sermon archive stretches back more than seven years of teaching series.
The BCC App and Church Center portal connect members and newcomers to giving, prayer requests, event registration, groups, and the church calendar. A prayer wall is available online for those who want the congregation to pray with them. To talk to a pastor about next steps in faith, visitors can reach the staff at info@yourbcc.org or 586-264-2300.