Values

“…Blessed are those who are invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb…” [Rev. 19:9]
“…Pōmaikaʻi ka poʻe i hea ʻia i ka ʻahaʻaina mare a ke Keiki hipa…” [Hōʻike 19:9]

Our Values name some key characteristics that find a unique expression in our life together at All Saints. Other churches may also value these things —indeed we think all churches embody these values in some degree. For us, however, they are key emphases that give shape and form to our life. They are also more lasting than the ways in which our values take shape. This or that particular practice may change over time, but our values remain.

Feasting . Bible . Family . Table . Mission .
ʻAhaʻaina . Baibala . ʻOhana . Pākaukau . Pahuhopu .

Feasting

God calls us to a life of feasting together. This happens weekly at the Lord’s Table, happens in our individual lives throughout the week, and occurs at the End of All Things. We are created for feasting. Feasting gives birth to mission. Mission draws a hungry world into the festivity of the Kingdom.

Bible

We want to not only be a people who are instructed by the Word of God, we want to be a people whose lives are marked by a deep and jubilant delight in the Word of God. It is not merely some textual “ball-and-chain” to which we are of necessity bound. It is the light by which we see all things, the Master Narrative which makes sense of all narratives, the joy of our shared life together, and the common idiom by which we reason together.

Family

The ancient churches used the Greek expression “Oikos,” and in Hawaii we have the concept of “Ohana,” here we use the wide expression “Family” to name the value of the local church being a spiritual family —really and truly. In baptism we are reborn into the life of the Family of God; in that Family we grow-up; it is among this family that those of us who get married, say our nuptials; it is also among the People of God that we are returned to the dust to await our common resurrection.

Table

“Table” here is a catch-all term for the value we place on prayer and worship —which flows from the Table of the Lord. Singing, praying, lifting hands, playing instruments, vesting the altar, holding candles, lighting incense, clapping hands, kneeling —all of it, our whole selves— is a worshipful response to the Goodness of Jesus. While every church worthy of the name of Jesus worships, we place a particular care and emphasis on cultivating an ethos of glorious and gladsome worship. Our God is glorious. Our worshiping life should reflect that glory.

Mission

Our life is animated by a missional hope: we want to see the all tribes tongues and peoples gathered to the Lord’s Table. We want to see all the ends of the earth filled with his glorious worship. We want to see our kingdom ‘ohana swell with all the inhabitants of all the islands the stud the Oceans. At All Saints we want to unite the worshiping life of the local church with the evangelistic fire of a missions base. We are a church-planting church.