by admin | Jul 12, 2017 | News
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!
by admin | Jul 12, 2017 | Message from Kahu
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.
by admin | Jul 3, 2017 | News
OFFICE CLOSED on Tuesday, July 4 in observance of Independence Day!
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 7 & 8 for July 5.
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.
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.
by admin | Jul 3, 2017 | Message from Kahu
“Heaven and Earth”
On Sunday, I shared how the idea of heaven evolved over time in the histories of the Jewish and Christian faiths. Up until about 160 years before the birth of Jesus, there is no indication that the main characters of the Old Testament (Abraham & Sarah, Moses & Miriam, the great prophets…) prescribed to a belief in the afterlife. The word heaven (or “the heavens”) is mentioned a lot, but most likely referred to the skies above us. In the opening verse of Genesis, “God created the heavens and the earth,” the first hearers of those words naturally understood them to mean, “God made the skies and the land.”
About 160 years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Daniel wrote about a time when God’s people would be delivered and all who died would come back to life. Some will awaken from their “sleep” to everlasting life and others to everlasting contempt. Daniel was most likely the last of the Old Testament books to be written.
By the time Jesus was born, a lot of Jewish people (but not all!) believe in an afterlife. We know that Jesus believed in an afterlife. We also know that he talked a lot about the “Kingdom of Heaven.” However, his focus here was not on what happens to people after they die, but what can happen here on earth if we choose to recognize the value in all people and show compassion to them.
For Jesus, heaven was not a distant place where God lived—far away from the earth. Jesus taught that God lives right here among us—in our uncertainty, painful and messy world—and God loves the world, a love which includes all people and extends to all of creation. Therefore, God is not loving us from a distant place called heaven; God is loving us right here among us.
May we recognize God’s loving presence everywhere, and may we love all that God loves—all people and all of creation!
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.
by admin | Jun 26, 2017 | News
Rock’n Bowl
All ages are invited to bowl to Rock’n Roll music!
This Friday, June 30, at 7 p.m.
Come early to get your shoes and a ball!
Lihue Bowling Center
4303 Rice Street in Lihue
The cost is $14.
Please contact the church office to sign up.
______________________
SUMMER BOOK GROUP Kahu Akana will lead our summer book group at the parsonage, 3281 Waikomo Road in Koloa, on Wednesday evenings, beginning June 14. The group will gather at the parsonage at 6 p.m. for dinner and then discuss 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 5 & 6 for June 28.
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…..
July 4, Church Office Closed (Happy 4th of July!)
July 24, Monday: “Plantation-style Living: An Afternoon of Art, Stories and Refreshments” at our Smith Memorial Parsonage, 3281 Waikomo Road. We need volunteers to host and serve refreshments.
July 29, Saturday: Parade, “Many Cultures, One Community” 10 a.m. We need volunteers for decorating, wear and/or carry items representing your family background in the parade.
_______________________
“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!
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