A real gem, and for some reason not what I expected, from driving by…read more
This church seems to be known in the community as "the Chinese church" but in fact, in 1956, they changed their name from the "Hilo Chinese Christian Church" to "The United Community Church" in order to express their openness to persons other than Chinese. The building is an older local plantation style structure with a red chinese-type roof with the curved-up temple corners; inside, it's warm and honest Chinese-flavored early century Christian decor, somewhat worn by many decades of service, but clean and modest and very comfortable.
On my visit, the small congregation was a very diverse mix of asian, caucasian, and polynesian.
I got an AMAZING welcome, where I was warmly led around and introduced to each member of the church in turn. This did not bother me, although I'm somewhat shy, because you could tell how really sincere and warm they were.
I loved this church! I like a church with a sense of humor, and at the service I attended, they laughed a LOT... and cried at tender moments... they showed a very sincere love for their fellow church members and leadership. It was very touching and engaging.
The main pastor is a really dynamic asian woman, who was both really funny, and very energetic in her prayer style... the type of pastor who does not seem to be reciting things by rote, but really speaking from the heart to Jesus.
Another much older male minister delivered the sermon the day I was there... I was a bit skeptical at first because at first he seemed like he was maybe nodding off and pretty deaf, one eye was looking off in another direction, but when he got up to speak he delivered a really terrific, interesting message! One story he included in his sermon was about his time on Guam in WW2 when Guam was captured by the Japanese and they banned all Christian churches! He was great. He said "Christianity is not for cowards!"
I liked that they started their service with prayer, instead of announcements.
I liked that they did not waste time during the service with walking around and hugging everyone and chit-chatting, they did that before or after the service.
They have a pianist who accompanied their traditional hymns... but I didn't see any type of choir. The only thing I didn't like, was that at the end, as soon as she began her postlude, instead of sitting and listening, everyone just jumped up and announced "service is over" and started going off for refreshments. I find that somewhat disrespectful to the musician... I prefer to sit in silence during the postlude, for a last moment of reflection.
They're United Church of Christ, which is the coolest contemporary Christian denomination...a much smarter denomination than the "Christians" you usually hear spewing hate on the evening news. On the national level, UCC was the first Protestant denomination to ordain an African-American pastor in 1785, the first woman pastor in 1853, and the first openly gay minister in 1972.
This is the first church I've been to on the big island that made me really excited to go back.