RELIGION
Event lets IT'S PART ARENA CRUSADE, with famous speakers and live musicians bringing the crowd to a crescendo of fervor.
Christians see
variety of faith
The Hawaiian Islands Ministries
>>Who's who at Honolulu 2001
annual conference
opens Friday
By Mary Adamski
Star-BulletinIt's part reunion, common-interest fellowship and products-on-sale marketplace. It can be a personal time of sharing problems and questions with a lecturer or expert.
More than 3,000 island Christians will immerse themselves in things spiritual, religious and consciousness-raising next week at the annual Hawaiian Islands Ministries conference. Honolulu 2001 will open Friday for a two-day run at the Hawaii Convention Center. The avid sign up for preview "intensive workshops" Thursday, too.
"It really is trying to have a drink of water with a fire hose," said Honolulu financial services agent John Seth, who will attend with "my natural family and my church family" from Calvary Episcopal Church in Kaneohe.
Like two out of every three attendees, Seth is a repeater. He missed only one of the events since First Presbyterian Church pastor Dan Chun and his wife, Pam, launched Hawaiian Islands Ministries in 1983.
"The diet for worship has changed. ... The rock concert ambience of the plenary worship sessions reflects a formula that works for the "new" nondenominational congregations that draw thousands on Sundays.
Particularly for younger individuals,
there is a desire for something
that is more experiential."Paul Edwards,
New president and CEO of
Hawaiian Islands Ministries"It is experiential," said Paul Edwards, who will be introduced as the group's new president and chief executive officer. "The diet for worship has changed from what might be a private devotional life only, and experience of that on Sunday with my community of faith. Particularly for younger individuals, there is a desire for something that is more experiential."
Edwards comes with a Fuller Theological Seminary degree, a background at Stanford University in fund raising and marketing, and mileage as an executive in other Christian movements, Promise Keepers and Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Echoing HIM marketing, he underscored the variety of Christians that attend: Fifty denominations were represented last year, including mainline Protestants and Catholics.
Coming from Colorado, Edwards sees Hawaii's cultural mix as a foundation for this successful ecumenism. "We see the expressions of Christianity in those cultures, very different than we would on mainland. This is more the way the rest of the world really is." He said people here are more open to seeing "Christianity play in the larger marketplace of ideas."
Their variety is reflected in the menu of 80-plus small seminars, which he describes as the backbone of the conference. "To that end an evangelical Christian has much to learn about reflection from a Catholic priest," Edwards said. "That evangelical Protestant is running so fast and driving so hard and attempting to succeed in the world and doesn't have time for his soul, doesn't have space for God. The Catholic contemplative speaks into that sense of void.
"The same is true of the charismatic pastor who understands that God is worshipped with a full heart, and we are people designed to worship. He has something to say to the average congregant who may have a much more personal, but perhaps a drier, experience and there's a thirsting in their soul. So they have much to teach each other."
Teacher Suzanne Maurer said: "The thing that means the most to me is the ecumenicalness of it, that so many different churches come together, all these people singing the same songs together. It is just a wonderful high; everyone is up." Maurer chooses workshops for personal spiritual growth but also seeks resources for her profession as a Kamehameha Schools teacher.
Edwards said much effort goes into building the workshops and the speakers. Headliners though they may be, they are told, "You must impart knowledge but must give of yourself; otherwise, they could have just bought your book."
Edwards said there is a deeper reason that brings people to spend three days talking about faith, prayer and relationships. "I think the sense of a lack of a shared moral consensus troubles many people, and it troubles them beyond their parochial, denominational view," he said.
HIM now sponsors 85 events during the year, workshops for ushers and music ministers, retreats for pastors and "Straight Talk" breakfasts where businessmen explore their spiritual and ethical grounding. It is slated to grow further, with plans to develop programs specific to each island.
"One of my metaphors is that, if your task was to walk with a lit candle down the hall and outside, how would you walk?" Edwards said. "You could leave it out there for the wind to blow it, or you could cup your hand around it. With your eye both glancing at the flame but looking where it's going, you tend the lit candle.
"To create and maintain space for God is a matter of tending as you go out in a breezy world."
Who's who at Honolulu 2001 Special guests
>> Tony Campolo, Eastern College sociology professor and author, speaks internationally on God in the modern world.
>> Gordon MacDonald, Gordon Conwell Seminary lecturer, writes and speaks on executive development for political leaders and pastors.
>> Philip Yancey, award-winning author of "What's So Amazing About Grace" and editor-at-large of Christianity Today magazine.
>> Colleen Evans, board member of World Vision, International Justice Mission, Women at the Well.
>> Melinda Tuan, managing director of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund.
>> Archibald Hart, author and former dean of Fuller Theological Seminary school of psychology.
>> Dr. Melvin Cheatham, recipient of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Humanitarian Award, teacher at UCLA Medical Center.
>> Catherine Weber, marriage and family counselor.
>> Paul Sheppard, senior pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship, Menlo Park, Calif.
>> John Pearson, Christian Management Association chief executive officer.
>> Jim Burns, president of Youth Builders.
>> Jane Van Antwerp, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church associate pastor for children's ministries.