Weekly News of the Church

FINAL SUMMER BOOK GROUP GATHERING Kahu Akana will lead our final summer book group at the parsonage, 3281 Waikomo Road in Koloa, on Wednesday, July 19. The group will gather at the parsonage at 6 p.m. for dinner and then discusses the book Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most, by Marcus Borg. In this book, Borg reflects on his life and how he developed his most bedrock convictions—and why they matter. This week’s dinner will be a potluck. Main dish, rice, dessert and drinks are already planned; side dishes are appreciated! Kahu suggests that you read chapters 10 & 11 for July 19.

OFFICE HELP We are looking for a volunteer(s) who can sit in the office while Penny will be on vacation this fall and in the future. We are asking the volunteer(s) to pick up and sort through the mail, pay bills when they are due, answer the phone, do light office work and chat  with visitors. Most of the time, Penny will be available by phone or email if you have questions while volunteering.

PRAYERS & SQUARES Contact Angela Dressel if you would like to get involved in praying for people in crisis or helping to make quilt squares for those in crisis.  The ladies have recently made and delivered two beautiful prayer quilts to two church members.

SAVE THE DATES for KOLOA PLANTATION DAYS….

Monday, July 24: “Plantation-style Living: An Afternoon of Art, Stories and Refreshments” at the Smith Memorial Parsonage, 3281 Waikomo Road, from 4 to 6 p.m. We are asking church volunteers to greet, host and make and serve refreshments. Please contact Kahu, Palani Akana or Sherry Hines if you would like to volunteer.

Friday, July 28: We again have access to the large golf cart for the parade, and it needs to be decorated. Please let Penny know if you can donate flowers and can help decorate, 4 pm. at the parsonage.

Saturday, July 29: KPD Parade, “Many Cultures, One Community” at 10 a.m. Meet at the church at 8:30, and let us know if you would like to bring something for our continental breakfast (malasadas, donuts, muffins, orange juice, etc.) We will be asking parade participants to  wear and carry items representing your ethnic culture or one that is part of our church and/or community.

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“Weekly News of the Church” is provided by Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference. Join us at 3289 Poipu Road in Koloa!

A Message from Kahu Alan Akana

listening (1)

Listen Carefully!

On Sunday in church, I talked about the importance of listening deeply—listening to others when they talk, listening for the voice of God, and listening to our hearts when they are calling out for our attention. We focused on the Parable of the Sower in Matthew, chapter 13, where the words “listen,” “hear,” and “understand” appeared 16 times in 23 verses. I suggested that the point of the parable was to help us visualize the importance of deeply listening. I talked about how intently listening can be a transformational experience.

I also shared some quotes on “Holy Listening” that were given to me by my friend Rev. Caroline Miura:

  • “One of the important ways we can love others is by learning the art of holy listening.  Learning to listen is a key that unlocks the door to loving people.” —Morton Kelsey
  • Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person…you listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty their heart. —Thich Nhat Hanh
  • The quieter you become, the more you can hear. —Baba Ram Dass
  • When I say that I enjoy hearing someone, I mean, of course, hearing deeply.  I mean that I hear the words, the thoughts, the feeling tones, the personal meaning, even the meaning that is below the conscious intent of the speaker. Sometimes too, in a message which superficially is not very important, I hear a deep human cry that lies buried and unknown far below the surface of the person. —Carl Rogers
  • For to listen is to continually give up all expectation & to give our attention, completely & freshly, to what is before us, not really knowing what we will hear or what that will mean.  In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear. —Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

May you feel heard this week, and may you be blessed and bring many blessings by deeply listening!

Aloha nui!

Kahu Alan Akana

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Videos of Kahu’s sermons are uploaded onto YouTube most weeks. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to our church. You can also subscribe on YouTube ; that way you can receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.

“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.

Weekly News of the Church

SUMMER BOOK GROUP Kahu Akana leads our summer book group at the parsonage, 3281 Waikomo Road in Koloa, on Wednesday evenings. The group gathers at the parsonage at 6 p.m. for dinner and then discusses the book Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most, by Marcus Borg. In this book, Borg reflects on his life and how he developed his most bedrock convictions–and why they matter. Please pick up your book on Wednesday for $10, and sign up on the bulletin board so that Kahu knows how much food to prepare. Kahu suggests that you read chapters 8 & 9 for July 12.

PRAYERS & SQUARES Contact Angela Dressel if you would like to get involved in praying for people in crisis or helping to make quilt squares for those in crisis.

SAVE THE DATES for KOLOA PLANTATION DAYS….

Monday, July 24: “Plantation-style Living: An Afternoon of Art, Stories and Refreshments” at the Smith Memorial Parsonage, 3281 Waikomo Road, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Saturday, July 29: KPD Parade, “Many Cultures, One Community” at 10 a.m. We will be asking volunteers to decorate our float and also wear and carry items representing your ethnic culture or one that is part of our church and/or community.

_______________________

“Weekly News of the Church” is provided by Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference. Join us at 3289 Poipu Road in Koloa!

A Message from Kahu Alan Akana

tearing_down_walls

On Sunday in church, I talked about the Berlin Wall. It was built in 1961 to keep the people of East Germany from crossing over to West Germany. The wall separated the German people from one another. In some instances, parents could not see their children and grandparents could not see their grandchildren. Brothers and sisters lived a few hundred yards apart but had no direct contact for over a quarter of a century. When the East German government finally allowed people to pass through the wall in 1989, people from both sides climbed on top of the wall in a spirit of celebration and began dismantling it.

People have been erecting walls for as long as we have been able to build. In the first century, many Jews divided the earth’s population in two: the Jewish people and everyone else. When the Christian Church was first forming, some of the early followers of Jesus (who were Jewish) insisted that any Gentiles who wanted to join them had to first become Jewish and agree to follow the Jewish customs and practices. In Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, he described this separation as a wall. After Paul described people on the other side of the wall as aliens, strangers, hopeless, without God and far away, he went on to say that Jesus tore down that wall and proclaimed peace to people on both sides. Paul then wrote that Jesus created one new humanity. As Mary Susan Gast writes in her book, That We May all (Finally!) Be One, “Those who were ‘them’ yesterday are ‘us’ today, and ‘we’ are changed forever.”

Let us recognize and acknowledge the walls in our world which keep people from one another, especially the walls that are built by people who consider themselves to be superior to those whom they wish to keep on the other side of the wall. And let us join with Jesus in tearing down the walls by seeing others as valuable and equal in God’s eyes and in our own.

Aloha nui!

Kahu Alan Akana

 

Videos of Kahu’s sermons are uploaded onto YouTube most weeks. Please share these videos with friends and invite them to our church. You can also subscribe on YouTube ; that way you can receive a notification when a new sermon is posted.

“A Message from Kahu Alan Akana” is provided most weeks by the Kahu (Pastor) of Koloa Union Church, a congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a member of the Kauai Association and Hawaii Conference.