gbck download: Parental Guidance week 2
great week at gbck.
-great staff meeting. pushed us forward into 2nd half of the year. definitely excited about stuff we got planned.
-unreal word meeting. digging into James and uncovering some solid stuff that we will use as a starting point for sermon series for the back half of the year.
-weekend was off to a great start with a bunch of new people at xchange. gotta love this.
-definitely learning a lot about parenting as we walk through this series.
-super blessed with Pastor Camille Omo as she unpacked learning to let go as our kids get older. Seriously love this woman’s love for Jesus.
-definitely learning a lot of stuff from our parenting series.
-Join us this coming week as we launch our “rock the doc” segment featuring Dr Hale Akamine.
gbck download: PG wk 1
gearing up for our weekly big meeting day here at gbck. thought I would download some of the stuff that has been going on around here.
-essentials is moving forward. feed back has been good so far. really praying that we have at least 15 people complete this first round of essentials. love the fact that people are growing closer to Jesus by reading His word.
-working on the launch of our encounter weekend. super excited about this. God help us make strong, healthy disciples.
-having tres chere around the leadership table has been great. seriously stepping up our game in worship, specials, and media.
-simple church discussion over the past few weeks has been mind blowing.
-preached last weekend. thought it went pretty good. always an honor to preach the gospel.
-launched PG: Parental Guidance series this past weekend. Nancy Young did an outstanding job with the word. We got 
some cool stuff planned for this series. you seriously dont want to miss it.
-bought a 4 ft x 15 ft banner that hangs as a back drop and visual reminder the big idea behind this sermon series. love the look.
-really making some good ground on upcoming sermon series and let me tell you i am seriously excited about what we have coming up in the next few months.
-even nailing down weekly big ideas so that our creative team can go for it. by the way we are forming our creative team so if you are interested let me know.
well thats it for now. there is seriously so much more, but some stuff I just cant share yet. got to get to these meetings as we continue to move forward.
PG: Parental Guidance
Super excited about our Parental Guidance series that we will be kicking off tomorrow morning.
There is no doubt that Kapolei is full of young families. Parenting is definitely a hot topic as many young parents work hard to raise their children well. Our goal is to provide a compelling and comfortable environment where people can discover what the bible has to say about parenting.
Over the course of the next 4 weeks we will looking at 4 big ideas relating to parenting with a bunch of special guests to help us learn. Here is an overview:
February 7: Good Foundations
-special guest Dr Nancy Young.
February 14: Letting Go
-special guest Pastor Camille Omo. Former youth pastor at GBC Pearlside. Camille has also raised 5 children whom are all grown adults as a single parent.
February 21: Communication
-featuring Dr Hale Akamine in our special “rock the doc” segment. Dr Hale will facilitate the toughest questions our congregation has to offer.
February 28: Discipline
-featuring Dr Hale Akamine in our special “rock the doc” segment. Dr Hale will facilitate the toughest questions our congregation has to offer.
Believing for God to do some unreal stuff over the course of the next month. Check out this short trailer as a preview to our upcoming PG series.
diaper gene pride
Babies go through a lot of diapers. I remember when we first brought Benaiah home we would go through 10-15 diapers
a day.
We bought a diaper gene to hold all of the dirty diapers and surprisingly found that this device worked pretty well. For those of you that don’t know the diaper gene is a container that is designed to keep the dirty diaper smell enclosed. For the most part this product works pretty well.
As the diaper gene begins to fill though the smell starts to seep out. Without warning the stench begins to fill the room and if that bag is not changed the dozens of diapers quickly begin to take over the room causing a serious odor to do some damage to anyone who comes near.
The dirty diapers is kind of like pride. It is in us, but as it continues to grow the pride in us releases a stench that affects those around us. People all around us can see and smell the pride in our lives. The only way to deal with pride is to smell it early before the stench takes over the room.
Tonight I will be talking to our youth about pride and unpacking a few warning scents that we can identify to keep ourselves from becoming stink with pride.
xchange * 7pm * chun wah kam * Jan 29 * Friday
gbck download: fresh start wk4
another great week at gbck. always amazed to be blessed with the job that I have. here is the latest from gbck.
-very productive tuesday meetings.
-super excited for the start of our parental guidance series starting NEXT week. this week we have a series break. gonna be talking about what to do when we face uncertain times.
-great meeting with family counseling guru Hale Akamine who will be hosting a question and answer segment in the final 2 weeks of our parenting series.
-TC (worship director) joined us for some of our meetings. excited about some of the stuff we have brewing in our music department.
-steve murrell was in town this week. always good to here steve’s thoughts on discipleship and leadership. seeing steve makes me miss manila though.
-Rosarios (operations directors) had their 1st week off in 3 years this week. really missed them, but love the idea that we value people more than task.
-Catans, Baitlons and a few others stepped up big time to provide this much deserved break to some very deserving leaders.
-Mike did a fantastic job with the word. solid close to a great series.
-a bunch of new faces at church this week. gotta love that. 2nd service starting fill out. not enough space is definitely good problem
-day 2 of our seek week (7 days of prayer and fasting) happening now. hate fasting, love Jesus. love out ways hate.
-God is definitely starting to do some great stuff at gbck.
-really believing that our seek week will help us focus in on what He wants us to do in 2010.
gbck download: fresh start wk3
havent posted one of these for a while. been a little busy with the move.
here are some of the stuff that has been happening recently:
-launched our essentials course on Jan 10. we have a total of 76 people participating in this. 26 of these are newer believers being established in their faith. making disciples never gets old.
-slight a bump in our morning service attendances. praying that we see this trend continue.
-some great transitions happening within our leadership team that will help us get to the next level
-ongoing discussion about Christ-centered preaching has really begun to change the way I see the bible and preaching.
-loving our fresh start series. here are some thoughts from this past week:
quitting turning to myself for answers is the beginning of salvation
religion is mans attempt to get to God
light comes from an outsides source
the gospel drives us upward to Jesus and outward to others
-starting Jan 25 we will kick of 7 days of prayer and fasting…… hating fasting but loving seeking Jesus…. believing for great stuff in 2010, none of which can happen without HIM.
-PG: Parental Guidance series starts in February. Some unreal guests slated to help us become the parents God wants us to be.
Fresh Start
GBCK is in a series called fresh start. the big idea behind this series is looking at what the bible says about overcoming hurts, habits, and hang ups.
Whether you struggle with some form of addiction or have areas in your character such as your pride that need to be worked out we all have stuff in our lives that need to be overcome. If you don’t you are either lying to yourself or your name is Jesus.
Here is a recap of what we are unpacking in this series:
week 1: A fresh start begins with an all in commitment to Jesus
week 2: Change begins with dealing with our pride
week 3: When you feel like quitting
week 4: Keeping momentum
Check out the intro vid for the series:
Join us this week as we unpack what to do we feel like quitting. Super excited as we see how one family was able to refuse to quit when faced with a huge challenge.
gbck download: 1 service Sunday
Christmas this past week meant a short work week. Wrapping stuff up for the year and gearing up for next year.
-super productive staff meeting as we took a huge bite out of our sermon series for next year.
-sundays is definitely one of our fly wheels that we will keep on pushing on. constantly working to create a compelling and comfortable environment where people can meet Jesus.
-scored some new calendars that we put up on the wall. we had a graphic design create custom 2ft x 3ft calendars that sit
on our walls. we use post-its to label upcoming corporate events and message series.
-walking through a few staffing situations. remembering that pruning typically precedes progress. excited about some additions that we will be making in 2010.
1 service Sunday was a huge success. Here is a recap:
-we decided to give our volunteers a break by scaling down our service.
-smaller sound system, no road signs or banners, smaller stage, no connection table, no welcome area, smaller worship team, no kids church, and a few other adjustments = honoring our faithful volunteers that usually set up at 6am every Sunday.
-used our message time to rewind on 09 and take a look at what God has in store for us in 2010.
-super excited for our upcoming series Fresh Start.
-launching essentials material in January
-some great testimonies and sermon series for the 1st half of the year moving into Easter.
thats just some of the stuff happening at GBCK. Super grateful for 2009, but even more excited for what is happening in 2010.
Kapolei Pastors
Every month pastors from different denominations gather in Kapolei to talk story and pray for each other. Beyond our
differences we come together on the common ground that we want Jesus to be famous in Kapolei. We stand on the idea that there are people who need Jesus and we are willing to do whatever it takes to see them meet Jesus, even if it means that they meet Jesus in another church. I love this mentality and believe this kind of philosophy is biblical and absolutely necessary in the Kingdom of God.
Today I had the unreal experience of watching a room of pastor honor a man who has given 18 years of faithful service to Makakilo Baptist Church. Pastor Ray Viliamu has served the ministry for a total of 43 years. The race of ministry is not an easy one to finish, but this man has done so. On December 31st Pastor Ray will retire from the pastorate to help with missions. This is without a doubt a spectacular example of faithfulness.
Sitting in this room with men of faith is absolutely humbling. God has blessed me and my family with an incredible opportunity to build His church in a full time capacity, and like Pastor Ray I pray that I will be able to finish the race.
gbck download
bunch of stuff happening at gbck. wasnt able to post this blog on time, but thought id still do it. here are some highlights from the last 10 days at gbck.
-youth sermon planning meeting was unreal. love working with these guys.
-youth will talk about Jesus for the 1st quarter of the year then see if we will want to continue. the title of our January series is “my family is messed up” we will look at some messed up people in the lineage of Jesus.
-went Christmas Caroling on thursday with some folks from the small group. never did this before, and I think the people who had to listen to us are hoping we never do it again.
-wk3 of Christmas Conspiracy was another great one. “building margins brings breakthrough in our lives”
-passed out a bunch of food boxes to families in the surrounding neighborhood….. helping the poor never gets old.
-the big win was seeing some new people get involved.
-great meeting with Al yesterday talking about some really cool community projects we have planned for 2010 that will allow us the opportunity to devote our lives to Jesus’ mission.
-staff is currently walking through “simple church” read this book twice already and still learning. super good read for our church in this season.
-finalizing our essentials material. super excited about this material that hopefully will help our members make disciples.
-essentials launch is going down on Jan 10.
more stuff but no more time. hot date tonight…… gonna charge ala moana…. might not be a good idea but going for it anyways. pray for us.
gbck download: Christmas conspiracy wk2
here are some thoughts from another great week at gbck…..
-continued our ongoing talk about 3 major areas of focus we will be pushing forward. 1.Sunday 2.Discipleship 3.Leadership
-made some good progress on our essentials material. design and layout looking great. working on final edits getting ready for our January 10 launch.
-essentials is our way of depositing basic biblical foundations into the lives of the people in our church.
-week 2 of Christmas Conspiracy talked about how giving presence can help us put meaning back into Christmas.
-here are some thoughts:
“without God’s presence we face 2 huge problems 1.being disconnected 2.being discontent”
“the most meaningful gifts aren’t always expensive”
“the greatest gift we can give anyone is the presence of God”
-presented our discipleship process at small group leaders meeting. love seeing this process begin to gain traction. praying and believing for discipleship to begin to gain more momentum.
gbck download: Christmas Conspiracy wk1
launched our Christmas series today. In a time when Christmas has become over run by consumerism we
will be talking about 4 keys to our conspiracy to bring meaning back into Christmas. Join our movement as we conspire to see Christmas change the world.
Here are 4 keys to our conspiracy to change the world:
1. remembering the reason
2. giving prescence
3. building margins
4. loving all
Here is a 59 sec clip from today looking at some what we can expect later in this series:
Super excited about what God will do through this series. Praying and believing a ton of people will begin a relationship with Jesus as we walk through these next few weeks.
gbck download: FAQ wk 4
good stuff happening at gbck. here is the latest…….
-great discussion at our staff meeting about momentum.
-also talked more about what it takes to break the “missional code” in kapolei.
-learning more and more how to contextualize stuff we are doing for our community
-great meeting with some other guys building financial partnership teams for their ministries. super encouraged by the faith and commitment of these guys as they pursue what God called them to pursue.
-preached this past week at xchange. love talking to the youth. believing for great stuff with our youth.
-wrapped up FAQ series by answering the question “are we living in the end times”
-answer: NO ONE knows when the world will end, but the bible does tell us to know the signs
-if the world were to end today would you know what would happen to you? do your know what will happen to your loved ones?
-passed out door hangers to people at cambridge apartments. taking sign ups for anyone who would like a FREE box of can goods. love the fact that the church can meet the needs of people in our backyard.
-super excited about our Christmas Conspiracy series starting this Sunday. Talking about 1 of 4 keys to
putting meaning back into a Christmas that has turned into a conspiracy meant to make people spend money.
-over the next 4 weeks we will uncover this conspiracy for what it is and explain what Christmas was supposed to really be about.
well thats it for me for this week. gotta get geared up for another great day of meetings tomorrow as we continue to push the flywheels in Kapolei.
die hard wk 3: love completely
this week is the final week of our die hard series. over the past 3 Fridays we have talked to our youth 
about living life to the fullest.
here is a recap of the past 2 weeks:
week 1: live passionately
week 2: learn humbly
this week we will talk about loving completely.
From love songs to movies like the new moon that is opening today culture has a lot to say about love. Most of it sounds good from the outside, but at the core is twisted.
Love is more than a love triangle between a ware-wolf, a vampire, and a girl. Love at its core starts with and ends with a relationship with Jesus.
Love is not just about hooking up with that cute guy or girl at school. Love is more than some crush that consumes the majority of your thoughts. Love is about understanding that for many of us God has given us families who love us deeply, who we often times take for granted. Our families may not be perfect, but that is what true love is. an unconditional commitment to very imperfect people.
If we want to live life to it’s fullest we must learn how to love completely.
gbck download: FAQ wk3
Been meaning to post this for a few days now. I guess better late than never. Just had to share with yall all the great stuff God is doing in Kapolei. Praying, believing and planning for a breakout year in 2010.
Here is the latest from Grace Bible Church Kapolei…….
-locked down some storage space at Mauka Lani. super stoked be working with a great school and principle that works with us to bring change to Kapolei.
-great meeting with our operations director, mel and share rosario. The commitment and sacrifice that these people demonstrate seriously blows me away.
-met with some of the pastors in Kapolei from different churches and denominations. Although we may do stuff differently you gotta love the effort to find unity in the body of Christ.
-finally was able to meet up with one of the students from Kapolei Middle. love discipleship. believing for great stuff at Kapolei Middle.
-MANNY PACQUIAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Benaiahs first pacquiao fight was a great one. At the top of his game and still living humbly….. gotta love that
-week 3 of FAQ series was great. unpacked “why do we need to go church”
-Mike did a great job of communicating why we need to go to church.
-cant wait for next week…. “are we living in the end times?”
-super excited about our food distribution project coming up in a few weeks. Christmas is definitely a season for giving.
-believing that God will use us to impact some low income housing folks that literally live walking distance from the church.
-a church that does not meet the needs of the poor is missing it.
-dont miss out….. bring a case of can goods with you to church this Sunday.
a compelling and comfortable environment
Recently we have been talking about our vision for Sunday morning. We have been talking about making
improvements to our sunday experience. We have come to the conclusion, though it may be obvious that Sunday has to be great. As great as we are now through the people who have brought us this far, we know that we must always push to become better.
After months of unpacking what we do on Sunday we have begun to land on this statement:
“to create a compelling and comfortable environment where people far from Jesus can meet Him.”
As we talk about this more this statement it has become very helpful in bringing clarity to the management team, volunteers, and church what our vision is in regards to Sunday. Although seemingly obvious and elementary this simple statement helps us make this idea stick as a part of our culture. We know we must constantly remind people what we are trying to do. We must remind people until everyone knows that this is what we are targeting on a Sunday morning. Then we must remind them again and again.
gbck download: FAQ wk2
super busy week at the church. super slow week on this blog. as I sit here I am thanking God for the opportunity
to have the job that I have. we definitely have a lot of work to do, but I am super excited about where GBCK is going.
Here are some updates from the past week:
-i love my tuesdays. prob will blog on this later. in general we focus on 2 areas; sunday stuff and discipleship. these are the 2 main “fly wheels” that we are pushing forward
-locked down some storage at Mauka Lani. love our working relationship with the administration at this school.
-great meeting with some super smart people talking about what Hawaii will be doing with short term missions in 2010.
-our thursday word meeting is turning into my favorite meeting of the week. seriously love the commitment to quality preaching.
-xchange officially held their grand opening at chun wah kam. wade and the team are doing a unreal job.
-moved out of the church house. this really feels like a step of faith….. I know God is going to do something huge in the area of facilities and our church.
-Big time props to the set up team for adding a second team of volunteers. Mel, Adam, Cal and the rest of the team are doing a unreal job.
-week 2 of FAQ was tight. “why do bad things happen to good people?” Here are some notes from the word:
“true love is never forced love”
“Jesus experienced every pain that we would every experience”
“when it come to pain we do not need and explanation we need an incarnation”
there were a bunch of other stuff that went down this week, but thats it for me. next week we will be answering the question “why do i need to go to church?”
gbck download: FAQ wk1
got home from church, said hello to the fam, went for a run, and now am trying to unwind and download the week.
this definitely was a good one. I am constantly amazed that God allows this to be my full time job.
Here are some thoughts:
-made some huge progress in bringing more clarity to our discipleship process
-absolutely cant wait to roll this out to the church. I know the stuff we are working on now will take us to the next level later
-found out we are moving our offices this week.
-Jesus hooked us up with an unreal deal for storage and office space. the favor is seriously unbelievable
-attended the hawaii pastors cluster with some of my heroes. rubbing shoulders with our hawaii pastors is always a good time to learn and grow.
-preached at xchange. love the momentum we have with the youth.
-SUPER EXCITED FOR XCHANGE GRAND OPENING HAPPENING THIS FRIDAY AT 7PM AT CHUN WAH KAM.
-launched FAQ series in our morning services
-super stoked that benaiah and mommy made their 1st appearance at church.
-can i say our new bulletins are seriously hot. and we worked it out so that we can print customized bulletins for each message series.
-family zone in the back of the cafe is looking pretty good. keiki section, diaper changing table, coloring books, and a few more stuff that we will roll out in the upcoming weeks.
-Mike did an unreal job answering the question “how can there be one true religion?”
“every belief set and world religion in itself at some point is arrogant and exclusive”
“Jesus died for all people not excluding anyone, making this act the most inclusive act of all time”
“Christianity is not about excluding others, it is about including all people in the love of Christ”
“Jesus is the only religious founder to claim to be God” We are saved not by what we know, but because of what He did”
-super excited for next week. we tackle the question “why does God allow bad stuff to happen to good people”
-awesome meeting with small group leaders after church
-seeing discipleship in action is always a great thing
-the reports from the small group leaders seriously challenged me to do a better job of focusing on making disciples
-God is definitely doing something at GBCK….. I am super privileged to be apart of this work.
bourne identity pt2: find your destiny
Preaching in about 30 minutes at xchange at chun wah kam. Here is the final step of my sermon prep.
Problem:
-what will we do with our life?
-what is our purpose on earth?
-how am I supposed to figure this all out?
Solution:
-when we want to find answers to anything life going back to the source is usually the most effective form of getting results.
-others might be able to have a guess, but only the source knows for certain.
-where is our source??? gen 1
BIG IDEA: our destiny is only found when we seek Jesus.
-what does the bible have to say about our destiny??????
Jer 29:11
eh! get quarter!?
We are wrapping up our 3 part money series entitled “eh! get quarter!?” Totally loved learning how to move from fear to faith in my finances during this series. Here is a quick recap of the series:
week1: God owns it all
week2: Godliness with contentment is great gain
week3: live generously (join us at gbck this Sun October 25, 2009)
here is our promo vid and my acting debut….
xchange at chun wah kam kapolei
xchange is the name of our youth ministry at GBCK. there is a bunch of stuff that I am super excited about that is happening with xchange and I thought I would let yall know whats up.
Last week xchange launched into a new location. they are now meeting at chun wah kam in Kapolei. This is without the nicest manapua shop the world has ever seen and we are there every Friday at 7pm. Our 1st week in the new location brought out 37 youth.
We are kicking off a new series tonight we are calling “bourne identity”. The big idea behind this series is
finding a new identity in Christ. This is a 2 week series…..
-week 1: follow the leader
-week 2: find your destiny
After bourne identity we will start a 3 week series called “die hard”. We will be looking at what we would do if we found out that we only had 30 days left to live.
In short chun wah kam kapolei is the spot to be at on Friday nights. You seriously need to get yourself there.
gbck download: eh! get quarter!? wk2
last week was unreal at the church. taking some time to reflect on last week and gear up for this week. so much stuff happening it is crazy.
-preached the sermon live in front of our preaching team and recorded it. practice run through was huge help in prep process.
-working on making sanctuary more family friendly. got some cool stuff planned.
-xchange kicked off new venue…. chun wah kam. 37 youth showed up. praying the momentum will continue in the upcoming weeks.
-banners for next 2 series came in…. super excited for FAQ and Christmas Conspiracy coming up in Nov and
Dec.
-Great management team meeting. Absolutely love a team that is willing to disagree so that we as a team can make the best decision.
-Management team working on some really cool stuff that will help us more effectively make disciples.
-didn’t do so good with the blog last week. gonna try to be more consistent this week.
-click here to listen to check out the first time I had the privilege of preaching at GBCK. Sermon should be loaded up soon.
-super excited for this week. wrapping up our eh! get quarter!? series with Mike preaching on the power of generosity. Can’t wait to see what God is going to do.
gbck download: eh! get quarter!? week
slowly getting back to it at gbck since the arrival of Benaiah Tokushige. I love my son, but I also love my job….. Here is the latest from gbck…..
-great discussion at staff meeting digging into creating a culture of evangelism and discipleship in our context
-some great ideas brewing…. cant share them yet, but love the action in the think tank
-took our first crack at mapping out sermons for 2010. made some huge progress and am super excited for next year.
-kicked off our “eh! get quarter!?” series. love this series
-Al did a great job with the word. “God owns it all”
-Chester was money with his testimony about small groups. gotta love seeing the fruits of discipleship.
-did I mention I am loving our “eh! get quarter!?” series. in this series we are unpacking what the bible says about moving from fear to faith in our finances.
-one of our small groups did a great job helping us put up some stage props and design to help us communicate the word.
-super excited about next weeks service. We will be looking at what the bible says about spending more money than we have.
thats it for now….. will be posting more stuff happening at gbck as I get back work in the next few weeks.
links 10/03/09
Reading blogs written by leaders who I respect allow me to grow my own leadership. Recently I fell behind on reading these blogs, and as I caught up I thought I would post a few links of some good stuff people are doing.
If your organization has a website you need to check out what this marketing genius has to say.
@paolopun has been doing a unreal job providing twitter updates regarding relief effort in the Philippines. Check out his prayer. I am super amazed by the leadership.
If you want to help the relief effort in Manila check out this 89 second video.
