So a little while ago I was talking to one of my friends at work discussing a certain group of individuals that were for all intents and purposes doing the wrong thing. I asked her why she didn’t invite them to church. She replied that we wouldn’t want those kinds of people at church because they were so bad. But, I replied, those are exactly the kinds of people we want in church. Even Jesus said that “it is not…
So about a year ago, I received from my uncle, a nice puakenikeni tree. Actually, it was a little shoot of a tree because as anyone knows, you can’t just grow a puakenikeni tree from a seed. You need to graft it to a tree branch or something (I actually don’t know the full extent of the growings of this tree, but that’s what I’ve been told). So my uncle did all of that and gave us a little treeling…
A few weeks ago while I was in Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to watch some women’s basketball. My friend Raelen (there was recently a nice article about her in the Star Bulletin http://starbulletin.com/2004/02/29/sports/story14.html) plays for Loyola Marymount University so I went to watch her in action. Now if any of you watch sports, you know that it is rare that any one team or individual wins wire-to-wire. That’s part of the fun of watching or playing sports. Watching…
So last Friday I get a call at about 4:00pm from Jaclyn Chavez asking to lead worship for her. This is somewhat unusual since she normally gives me a little more notice, but due to the circumstances she really needed someone to cover for her. Of course I didn’t really have a problem with that so I agreed to help her out. At around 6:30pm I went to the clamshell to sound check and get ready. However when I got…
So last Friday night I had to teach the Jr. High group. I know this doesn’t sound like a big deal to some of you (especially those of you that are Jr. High leaders) but to someone who is really used to interacting with mostly adults, it can be a little hairy. First of all I was given some pretty strict guidelines (“keep their attention and don’t teach over twenty minutes”). I was actually worried about this one because you…
So recently a lot of questions have been asked regarding hearing from God. What does the voice of God sound like? How can I know if he’s really talking to me? How do I even know if he is talking to me? I think these are all very valid questions and to be honest, I don’t have all the answers (I know that may come as a shock to some of you). Therefore I can only answer you from my…
So last night I got invited to a party for my friend Ryan. Ryan was the guy that was in charge of the college group at Moanalua Gardens Missionary Church. However, tomorrow he’ll be on his way to Kona for training for a missions trip and if I’m not mistaken, they train for three months and then go on the mission field for three months. So, before he left, his parents threw him a going away party for him and…
Happy New Year everyone! So, this is 2004 huh? I’ll be honest, it kind of feels like 2003. Not too much has changed other than I have to remember to write the year correctly. However, as this is the time of year to make silly resolutions to be better, I should probably make some too. How are all of your doing with your resolutions? We’re not even two full weeks into the year and I’m not sure if I even…
A few years ago I ran into one of my friends that had just finished her first semester of college. We chatted for a bit and much to my surprise, I discovered that she didn’t want to return to school. Apparently at this moment of her life, she had enough of higher education. So of course I asked her what her future plans were going to be since she had no immediate desire to continue going to school. She responded…
For those of you who didn’t know, when I’m not doing my pastoral thing at Hope Chapel, I earn money working at Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays. I have been working there for many years and have made some great friendships. This story involves one of those friends. There is a girl there called Claire, who I have known for five years. She’s my age, is married, has three kids and comes from a Catholic family. On Sunday morning we were assigned…