Central Union Church of Honolulu

🌲Get your greens for the holidays!🌲

Support Central Union Church Preschool Cups Keiki by ordering your Christmas trees, wreaths, and door charms through Habilitat. They will be available for pickup on December 7 at your choice of six locations around the island, including Central Union.

Order online by November 12!
https://www.hawaiichristmastrees.com/

This Sunday, October 27, is Stewardship Sunday. On that day we are invited to share our Estimate of Giving Cards for the year ahead.

Our stewardship theme this year has been "Imagine Together" and we have begun the exciting work of dreaming and thinking about the future of this vibrant faith community.

At 10 AM on Sunday, all are invited to gather in the Women’s Building for a special Learning Tree session facilitated by Pastor Rushan as we continue to "Imagine Together" the ways in which we can strengthen and grow our faith and our mission and ministry as we journey into the future.

Surely you have many dreams, hopes and ideas for our church. Come to the Learning Tree and share them! Spend some time praying and discerning what you are willing to share of your time, your talent and your treasure to make our collective dreams a reality.

In preparation for this Learning Tree, you are invited to reflect on these questions:

🔹What is one dream you have for our church for the next five years?

🔹What do you imagine our worship services would look like? What could we do to make them more inclusive, engaging and meaningful?

🔹What are your dreams for our church's physical space and facilities?

🔹What do you imagine we could do to help deepen our spiritual growth as a congregation?

🔹What imaginative and creative ideas do you have to help us strengthen and build the community of Central Union Church?

If you can't make it on Sunday, please feel free to email us and share! [email protected]

Happy 4th Birthday to Serving Aloha, our weekly food distribution! 🎉🎊 We’ve kept it going thanks to the many volunteers who come out each week, not only from the church but also the wider community!

Martha, a CUC member and one of our lead Serving Aloha coordinators, shares:

How time flies when you’re having fun!! We started Serving Aloha in October of 2020 in response to the pandemic, trying to get much needed groceries to our kupuna and other neighbors in need. We anticipated the program would run through February. February 2021 rolled around and we were still going strong, even seeing increases in those coming to our campus looking for help. We decided to extend to May of that year. And you know how the rest of the story goes.

Four years later we are serving more than two and a half times the households than when we started and our volunteer force has grown accordingly. Today in celebration of this milestone, Pastor Mary talked about vitality and Pastor Rushan talked about transformation. This vital and vibrant ministry is transforming lives, of those who receive food each week, but equally for those who serve. Thank you!!

We served 738 households today, 325 through the drive and 413 through the walk. We had eggs, chicken, frozen pizzas, sheet cakes, papayas, bananas, bread, canned drinks, and an assortment of dry goods. I felt with this birthday, that as a program we may be a little older and a little wiser, but we still experience the full-on joy of a 4 year old. I hope we never get too old for that!!

Worship with us today! We continue to "Imagine Together" with our stewardship sermon series as Pastor Mary shares a message on "Vitality"!

Friends, we had some technical difficulties with our online service (it froze in the middle of streaming) so you may view the livestream of our 9AM worship service:

Live Worship from Central Union Church - Sunday, October 20, 2024 Aloha!Mahalo for joining us for live worship here at Central Union Church! We are glad you are with us and want you to know that no matter who you are and w...

Happy 96th Birthday to Central Union Preschool! 🎉

Cups Keiki celebrated their 96th birthday this week (October 16) in their chapel service led by one of the preschool classes.

Since CUPS opened in 1928 with its first class of 14 children, it has continued to grow and develop as one of the premier Christian-based early childhood programs in Honolulu.

CUPS provides a vibrant program that promotes the spiritual, cognitive, socio-emotional and physical growth of children in a nurturing environment that provides a solid foundation for early learning. (CUPS is now accepting applications for the coming school year: https://www.centralunionpreschool.org/admissions/)

Our preschool is an important part of our church ‘ohana and we rejoice with CUPS in this celebration!

Do you like to sing? Consider joining our community ensemble, The Hawai‘i Nui Chorale, for this year's presentation of Messiah!

Rehearsals start next Thursday, October 24. Visit our website for more info:

Sing in the 75th annual presentation of Handel's Messiah! Invitation to Sing in the 75th Annual Presentation of Handel’s Messiah Aloha mai kākou, On behalf of Central Union’s ministry of music, it is with great excitement that we invite you to sing in our 75th annual presentation of Handel’s Messiah on Sunday, December 8, at 7:00 p.m., as our commun...

TODAY is Pastor Appreciation Day! The whole month of October is Pastor Appreciation Month!

We give thanks for our pastors, their ministry and the ways they share God's love with us. We pray for them, the sacrifices they make and the burdens they often carry alone.

Let's make sure our pastors feel encouraged and appreciated – not just today, this month, but always!

Mahalo, Pastor Rushan and Pastor Mary!

Reminder: Tomorrow is Pastor Appreciation Day! 😉

Tomorrow (second Sunday in October) is Pastor Appreciation Day! The month of October is Pastor Appreciation Month!

How are you encouraging and showing appreciation for your pastor? Need some ideas? Check our website: https://www.hcucc.org/single-post/get-ready-for-clergy-appreciation-month

To all our pastors: MAHALO!!

This month and in the days ahead, let us continue to "Imagine Together"! View October 2024's issue of The Spire: https://bit.ly/oct2024spire

A blessing for pets because life gets RUFF 🐾

It was PAWesome to have so many FURiends join us at church!

In honor of St. Francis of Assisi who dedicated his life to God, serving the poor and caring for creation, we celebrated a blessing of pets this past Sunday. We give thanks for all God’s creatures and the special relationships we share with them!

Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday with our neighbors in Christ around the globe.

Holy Communion (aka the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, the Lord’s Supper) is celebrated around the world in different ways, with different elements, with practices as unique as we are.

At Central Union Church, we practice open communion which means that ALL are welcome to gather at Christ’s table and to share in the bread of life and cup of blessing – a symbol of our connectedness to each other, to all of creation and to God.

In this simple sacrament, we are united as the body of Christ through the act of gathering around the table for a meal prepared by the One who entered a body, taking on the human condition and brokenness of the world.

At Christ’s table, all are welcome and there is enough for everyone! We are nourished and empowered to recommit ourselves to embodying Christ – acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.

We're live from the Sanctuary on this World Communion Sunday!

We'll still have our 10 AM online worship service as usual, but also invite you to join us virtually for our 9 AM traditional worship service.

Live Worship from Central Union Church - World Communion Sunday, October 6, 2024 Aloha!Mahalo for joining us for live worship here at Central Union Church! We are glad you are with us and want you to know that no matter who you are and w...

Bring your pet 🐶🐱🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 (or a pic of your pet or a stuffed animal) to church this Sunday 10/6 for a blessing!

Between the 9 AM and 11 AM services, we’ll also have a potluck for people and pets!

Bring some food to share if you can – and if your pet is coming, you can bring some treats for them and their furiends, too. It’ll be a PAWesome day! 🐾

Among our many amazing volunteers today were these nurses from Kapiolani right next door.

We are grateful that they came to help out at our weekly food distribution! Mahalo!

Be like the moon 🌕 and reflect the sun ☀️ (aka the Son) (aka Jesus) 😎

Pictured: The full moon over our church campus tonight

As we celebrate Aloha Sunday today, during this Hawaiian History Month, we pause to honor and celebrate the culture and traditions of these islands alongside the Aloha Festivals’ Royal Court, representatives of Hawai‘i’s past.

We also remember Hawai‘i’s last reigning monarch, Queen Lili‘uokalani, a woman of grace and courage, who was imprisoned and whose kingdom was forcibly taken from her.

One hundred years after the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, in 1993 here at Central Union Church, an apology was issued to the Native Hawaiian people from our denomination, the United Church of Christ.

In that apology, we acknowledged and confessed that our churches, including Central Union, were complicit in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom; we committed ourselves to the important work of reconciliation.

As we celebrate this island’s native culture, its traditions and art forms, let us not forget that there is work yet to be done to right the wrongs of the past that continue to be felt in the present.

May we “Dare to Dance” (the theme of the day) and move in alignment with the Holy Spirit’s justice and peace!