5600 Old Collinsville Road, Fairview Heights, IL 62208  618.632.6906

Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church is a confessional Lutheran congregation with rich, liturgical worship, enveloped in the ancient Christian mysteries; we’re a people who gather weekly to receive God’s precious gifts of faith and forgiveness, as God gives them to us in very perceptible ways.

As such, we’re not caught up with all the latest spiritual trends, with all the flashes-in-the-pan vying for your attention. We’re committed to preserving and passing on what matters most. If you only like new things, if you crave something cooler than the old-fashioned things your grandparents used to do, if you want your Sunday morning worship to feel like your Friday night rock concert, if you want your children shuttled away during the service, sheltered from the worship life of the congregation, if you want to listen to sermons that teach you how to be a better you, if you think a congregation should be made up of a bunch of holy people, Bethany won’t give you any of those things.

If, however, you want to experience the patterns of worship the Church has used for millennia, if you think Sunday morning should be like nothing else in the rest of your week, if you’re willing to admit that there are things that cannot be completely comprehended by the mind, that must be apprehended by faith, if you’re tired of self-help sermons, if you think screens and video clips are for movie theaters, if you want your children to worship beside you and receive the same gifts you do in Church, if you know you need God’s precious gift of forgiveness, here we are.

We’re not here to tell you to come be holy like us, but rather to invite you to come be a sinner like us. Here, in a little brick church, set at a strange angle to Old Collinsville Road, next door to Centerfield mini-golf and go-carts, Jesus gathers His people together to deliver to them what they cannot live without: His forgiveness.

We’re a community of diverse people who nevertheless have one thing in common: our shared need for forgiveness. Even if you don’t yet know that’s what you need, it’s exactly what you’ll find here. Every week. For you.

Divine Service

  November 24, 2024

The cornerstone of the week, the Sunday Divine Service is the chief opportunity to receive the gifts God delivers to His people.

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Bible Class & Sunday School

  November 24, 2024

The Sunday morning educational hour. Something for everyone from age 0-99 (sorry, centenarians). Dig deep into God’s Word to hear the truth of Jesus crucified for  you.

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Private Confession & Absolution

  November 27, 2024

Want to know what God thinks about your sins? Come tell your pastor “Please hear my confession and pronounce forgiveness in order to fulfill God’s will.” It’s God’s will to forgive you through the words of His servant, your pastor. Absolution is sweet comfort to sinners of every type.

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Catechetical Divine Service

  November 27, 2024

An ordinary Divine Service (as if there were such a thing) except catechesis in lieu of an ordinary sermon (as if there were such a thing). We work our way through the Catechism over and over again. Martin Luther (the guy who wrote the Catechism) quipped that he would remain a student of the Catechism his […]

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