TEACHINGS
God gives us vision or insight into His plans for our lives. We often watch that vision turn to dust, at which point we intensely engage God. After awhile the vision is fulfilled (often not quite as we saw it). Along the way, God has drawn us into deeper relationship with him.
About Us
Understanding Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay
A Global/Local Church
“Our church and our lives are like a coconut tree dropping coconuts which sprout in other locations— reproducing until we fill the world with God’s love and power…”
Global Mission: To win the world to Christ through God’s power in us
Local Purpose: To equip God’s people to do his work
More About Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay
As you get more involved in a big church, you can use a roadmap to find your way around. We borrowed this tool to help you learn more about how we look and feel.
(Click on each circle of the roadmap to read about each subject!)
These seven circles represent the organized life of our church. Our Shared Values are central to our understanding of God’s plan for a church, more specifically, for our church.
The lower part of the figure includes the heart functions of the church. They are foundational to the others. Staff includes every member because God called all of us into the ministry. Our paid staff coach and equip our volunteer staff as we do God's work, together. Our Style develops over time as we interact with the Bible and the world around us. These two are reflected in the Skills God builds into us as we repeatedly and continually seek to do his work in a broken world.
The upper circles in the figure represent the parts of the church that bind us together outwardly. Most noticeable is Structure, including our services, MiniChurches and other ministry functions. Strategy is simply our best (prayerful) understanding of a roadmap into God’s future for us as a family. And Systems become necessary as our family grows and we need to stay in great communication with one another.
Shared Values...
Our Core 5 values drive every other element in our church. These are Worship, Fellowship, Disciple-making, Ministry and Multiplication.
Worship is best defined in Romans 12 where we are asked to dedicate our entire being to God which is “spiritual worship.”
Fellowship involves hooking up with other people. We do it through our myriad small groups and in one-on-one relationships. We believe that “all ministry is relational.” Membership in a local church identifies you as a genuine follower of Christ. Romans 12:5; Ephesians 2:19
Disciple-making is a response to Jesus' call in Matthew 28 that we make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything we’ve learned of the Lord. The call to make disciples grips us with the need for personal discipleship along the way. We are always learning God’s love while we teach it to others.
Ministry is simply the way you obey God the best. Jesus said the most important commandment is to love God (worship) and quickly added that the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. That love may drive you to mentor little kids on Sunday mornings or to mow the lawn of a shut-in. Either way, Jesus said “when you do it to the least of these, you are doing it unto me…” The Bible tells us that leaders are to equip members to do God’s work—ministry. Every follower of Jesus is called into ministry of some kind. The trick is discerning your own unique calling.
Multiplication includes personal evangelism, multiplying your MiniChurch or other small group by “hiving off” to start a new one, and planting new churches down the road or in another country. It always costs us when we multiply and reproduce. But, the benefits far outweigh the costs.The cost of new ministry usually involves the pain of separation and is much like what we (and our parents) felt when we left home to start our own families. Many fail to understand it, but responsible reproduction is the major sign of maturity in a church as it is in a human being.
Staff...
"Everybody plays" at Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay. God calls leaders to equip the rest of us “to do his work and build up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13)." This makes every member a minister.
A healthy church is like a huge football team. The most visible leaders are the coaches—everyone else plays. An unhealthy church is like a stadium filled with players watching their coaches struggle against a strong adversary.
Read Acts 1 and 2 and notice the flow of a church from only 120 believers to more than 3,000 in a single day. Think of the strains that would put on any leadership structure. But, as you read it, there is no mention of difficulty. You kind of need to read between the lines to get it. But you soon find that they continued in every form of ministry both in the 'temple' (church building) and from house-to-house. Who do you think led those 300+ house meetings? It had to be some of those brand new followers of Christ. Everybody played!
Our goal is to be the kind of a church where we give away as much responsibility as possible. Where you take on a task and the coach is there to back you up, not to tell you what you can’t do. We trust the Holy Spirit in every follower of Christ to help us win the world to Christ through God’s power in us.
God has a strong destiny for our church. We are affecting the entire world with his love and power. But, we can´t fully accomplish his plans without you!
This means you cant choose to serve God, ¨If I have time.¨ His claims on your life must rise to the level of high priority. You and I need to be more like Isaiah who responded to God by saying, ¨Here am I, send me!¨ He´ll send you to your friends, to little kids in our children´s church. He may even send you on an overseas mission trip. But, he will send you to someone, somewhere.
So, when it comes to naming "Staff" at Hope Chapel, you are on the list!
Style...
We are a mix of serious intentionality and a laid back style. We are very serious about our mission and purpose. But we achieve them in a relaxed manner.
The pastors like humor and surprise. Worship bands fully intend to pull on your heartstrings. And testimonies should move you deeply. You are liable to find the pastors in jeans just about any time. We live in Hawaii where life is supposed to be kind of 'kick-back.' The church reflects that culture.
Hope Chapel is foremost one big ohana. Aunties, uncles and kapuna set a tone of aloha for everyone to emulate. Love is the word that people use most when describing our church.
And, each service has a style of its own. It’s usually the worship band that sets the tone of the service. Each has its own distinct personality and style of music. The congregation usually ends up reflecting the tastes of that particular band.
We do this deliberately. Friday nights are geared toward the needs of younger, single adults and college students, though folks of all ages love the service. Saturdays are a little mellower with a band sporting lots of gray in their hair—but these guys still rock. Again the crowd includes people of all ages. Sunday mornings bring out the most families. The worship is lively at 8 AM and it really rocks at 10 AM, complete with smoke and colored lights. The Sunday evening “Stoked” service aims to meet the needs of high school students, though some adults choose this time to worship and are welcomed as elders.
One thing that helps define our style is the courtyard and all the friendships built over coffee between services. Plan on hanging around after church to get to know the rest of the family. You’ll make some lifetime friends!
Skills...
What are you good at? Did you know that the scripture asks that question in Romans 12 of every follower of Jesus?
Just after telling us not to get puffed up with self-importance, Paul asks us to assess our spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit made you good at something when you were born. Now that you have given yourself to God, these skills belong to him.
You are also good at whatever it is that you practice the most. Are you a golfer? A surfer? A champion shopper? Can you help people with everyday problems? Are you good at talking about God without getting too religious? Most of these skills come through repetition. You get better the more you do it.
As a church, we’ve acquired some skills along the way.
We are good at communicating with people outside the family of God. Our worship teams are great when it comes to bringing us into God’s presence. Our pastors surprise people with the humor and down-to-earth practicality of God’s word, the Bible. And we are learning to enter into the power of prayer without getting weird about it.
And, we are good at planting churches. Pastor Ralph, his wife Ruby and Carl (age 6 months) met with nine other people in mid-September, 1971 to start a little church called “Hope Chapel.” That tiny church in Manhattan Beach, California has grown into a movement of more than 700 churches—most of which are ¨churches born of churches born of churches.¨ We are pretty good at multiplying groups of Christ-followers around the world.
Closer to home, we are renewing our efforts to multiply small disciplemkaing groups which we call MiniChurches (8-15 people learning about God in an informal setting) We also run J-Groups and Power Teams of 2-5 people meeting to pray for needs in the marketplace. Involvement in either of these activities will bring you to some of the best friendships you will make in your entire life.
Structure...
Every body needs a 'skeleton' or it will look like a jellyfish washed up on the beach.
Our structure is our skeleton. And we keep it pretty simple. Our church consists of hundreds of small groups which we think are the real church. These tiny churches come together on the weekend in a kind of a church convention. In other words, the small group is the church.
Our MiniChurches and other small groups offer solutions to most spiritual, emotional and healing needs through the Bible, friendship and prayers that get answered. Specialized MiniChurches reach out to people in life crisis such as loss of a spouse, addictions and those suffering in the wake of abuse by another person.
Like we said, Hope Chapel is really a church of churches. It’s all held together by twice-a-month Leadership Training Modules. Pretty simple, huh? Our ongoing plan is to keep you in a close-knit small church experience though you worship with a couple of thousand others every weekend.
The weekend experience is designed to tie everything together as we learn about God’s kindness towards us. We offer services featuring the same teaching on Friday at 7:30 PM; Saturday at 5:30 PM; Sunday at 8 AM, 10 AM and 7 PM (high schoolers) and at our Thursday 10 AM service for people who work weekends.
By the way, did we mention we have a ¨cookin¨ Junior High program Friday and Saturday Nights, as well as Sunday mornings? Our Youth Pastors make life much easier for parents of adolescent children.
Strategy...
We expect to win the world to Christ through God’s power in us by equipping God’s people to do his work.
Along the way, we have some long term plans. We believe they were born in the heart of God. Our 20-year vision looks like this:
Grow until we approximate five percent of the population of Windward Oahu, in our church.
Launch 100 more churches, including at least 10 that regularly reproduce as often as we do (There are 700+ churches born of the original Hope Chapel, and most are born as churches we plant that plant others). In 35 years, Ralph Moore has participated directly in only 65 launches—the rest were born of the original 65. We have a new model that should bring 100 new congregations within reach.
Prepare for the third senior pastor of HCKB. Upon moving home after 12 years (and three church planting projects) Carl Moore fit in so well that people began approaching Ralph with a very hopeful question, “Will he take your place when you retire?” The writing was on the wall as to who would be the second pastor in the life of this congregation. That won’t happen for quite a while, but we are already praying about Carl’s successor. We believe long pastorates make healthy churches so we think that Carl should begin looking at the 20-somethings twenty years from now. He should anticipate passing the baton several years later. (Bet you didn’t know we thought that far ahead!)
Retire all debt and be ready for an exciting future.
Systems...
Systems used to be our weakest point. Hope Chapel was born while the Baby Boomers were busy playing hippy (including some of our most mature leaders). In it’s youth, that generation hated anything to do with systems. They wanted everything organic.
Well, even plants have systems. Organic systems operated long before humans discovered they could build their own. In a tree, there is a system that carries water up the trunk from the roots to the leaves and fruit. Stems firmly attach fruit to the tree until it is mature enough to move off and multiply the original tree. Cells in the leaves gather energy from the sun and communicate it to the root. All life needs systems and a healthy church is no exception.
Systems that don’t link to action by our leaders accomplish nothing. Good systems are leadership tools and nothing more.
We are working hard to build adequate reporting systems into the life of our church. Did you know that the pastors really do care if you are here each weekend—they know that people are sometimes overwhelmed with problems and won’t ask for help. Our MiniChurch pastors and other leaders want to be able to call you when you are in over your heads. We want our church family to be a support-net for every member.
Hope Chapel is a big church, and it is easy to get lost in the crowd. We are trying to build systems to help us pastor more effectively and to be sure that no one falls by the wayside.
Most of all, we hope to build better feedback systems for you to let us know where we can improve the quality of spiritual life you experience as a member of our church family. We want to give God our best by giving our best to each other.