Membership is open to all singles, couples, and families, regardless of religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

[5] In 1978, the congregation elected members of its Board of Directors and began holding weekly worship services, using rented spaces in Washington, D.C.

The following year, the congregation received a Torah scroll, rescued from The Holocaust, on permanent loan from the Westminster Synagogue in London.

The scroll (a Sefer Torah, in Hebrew) once belonged to a small 500-year-old Jewish community in Dolní Kounice, a town destroyed in 1940, in the former Czechoslovakia.

[6] In 1985, the congregation hosted the Ninth International Conference of the World Congress of Gay & Lesbian Jews.

It was written in 1917 in Czarist Russia, but never mounted on Etzei Chaim, the wooden poles to which the parchment is attached, and never used in synagogue services.

[9] For example, in the revised siddur, the Amidah refers to a term without gender, dorot (generations), rather than avot v'Imahot (fathers and mothers).

[9] In March 2022, Joshua Maxey, a Jew of color, was hired as Bet Mishpachah's first Executive Director.

At special times, such as the High Holy Days, when larger spaces are needed, services are held elsewhere in the Washington, D.C.

[citation needed] Music is an integral element of Bet Mishpachah, and its choir, Tach'shitim (Jewels),[16] originally formed as a trio in the 1980s, has added to worship services and special events for the congregation, and has also been featured in Jewish and interfaith services and concerts at other settings within the D.C. and Baltimore areas.

Additionally, the choir released the recording, "Family and Friends," in 2000, and in 2004 it participated in the 7th International GALA Choruses Festival,[17] in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The participation of Bet Mishpachah in Keshet Ga'avah, the World Congress of GLBTQ Jews, is an especially important and ongoing effort, to create a structure of networking among national and international communities, including those in Israel, and to promote the organization's vision of "an environment where Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Jews worldwide can enjoy free and fulfilling lives."