Tucked into the slopes of Honolulu's Nu'uanu Valley, Community Church of Honolulu has anchored a tree-lined stretch of Nu'uanu Avenue for more than six decades. The historic campus, with its white-columned mansion and stained-glass sanctuary, is home to a United Church of Christ congregation that prides itself on welcoming anyone, including its newest members of any age or background, into the full life of the church. In 2025, after a year of prayerful study, the congregation formally adopted an Open and Affirming covenant, becoming one of only three UCC churches in Hawaii to hold that designation.
From a Chinatown Mission to a Nu'uanu Congregation
Community Church of Honolulu did not begin in Nu'uanu. Its roots reach back to 1906, when Mr. and Mrs. Elijah McKenzie launched the Beretania Mission to serve Chinese immigrants in downtown Honolulu. By 1925, a former YMCA worker named Leigh Hooley had expanded the work to more than 400 young people, and on February 11, 1934, thirty-one young members asked to withdraw from the parent church and form their own congregation. They met at the corner of Keeaumoku and Lunalilo Streets, taking the name Keeaumoku Church of Christ, and were accepted into Congregational fellowship the same year.
Rev. Stephen Mark, the church's first pastor, was called in 1936. Within two years the young congregation purchased a property on Emma Street for $29,000 and adopted the name Community Church of Honolulu - and a creed that still shapes the church today. The creed declared the church to be "democratically Christian," "supra-racial and supra-national, open to all, regardless of race, class or caste," and committed to "render a real service to the community in the light of its needs." The Emma Street mortgage was burned at the tenth-anniversary celebration in 1944, and the church became self-supporting with a budget of $4,924.
Growth eventually outgrew the Emma Street site, and in 1962 the church purchased the E. Faxon Bishop property at 2345 Nu'uanu Avenue for $350,000 - including a 62-year-old mansion known to generations as "the White House." Rev. Richard Wong and church secretary Violet Fong moved into the mansion, and its downstairs living rooms were pressed into service as a temporary sanctuary while the new sanctuary and education buildings were designed. The new sanctuary was dedicated in 1965, featuring artist Hon Chew Hee's striking "Tree of Life" mural. The Stephen Mark Hall multi-purpose building broke ground in 1983 and was completed in 1989, expanding space for ministry and fellowship.
A Sunday at CCH
Sunday morning at Community Church of Honolulu centers on a single 9:00 a.m. worship service held in the sanctuary and livestreamed on YouTube. Parking is plentiful, with handicapped-accessible spaces leading into the worship space. Visitors are greeted at the door, offered a printed worship guide, or pointed to a QR code for the online bulletin, which contains the order of service and the words to every song and reading.
Services run about an hour and include the reading of scripture, a roughly twenty-minute sermon, prayers, an offering, and an invitation to share the peace with those seated nearby. Music is a defining feature of the morning: Sacred Arts Coordinator Roslyn Catracchia - a two-time Nā Hōkū nominee and Poʻokela Award-winning composer - shapes worship that draws on a wide repertoire, and the Keiki Choir regularly contributes. On the first Sunday of each month, the congregation celebrates communion by intinction; worshippers come forward to receive bread and juice, or simply cross their arms over their chest to receive a blessing. Everyone is welcome at the table, regardless of membership or background.
Children may stay through the entire service, begin in the pews and then migrate to the Prayground - a space at the front left of the sanctuary designed for young families - or attend Sunday school. After worship, the Aloha Hour gathers the congregation at 10:15 a.m. for coffee, conversation, and the easy warmth that has defined the church for generations.
Becoming Open and Affirming
In 2025, the congregation undertook a year-long discernment process led by lay leaders Gwen Murakami and Bobbi Lum-Mew to ask whether God was calling the church to formalize a welcome it had long practiced informally. After months of telling stories, studying scripture, and listening to the experiences of LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors, the members voted overwhelmingly on October 12, 2025, to adopt an Open and Affirming covenant and seek UCC designation.
The covenant names a clear welcome: "We welcome and affirm all people into the full life, ministry, and leadership of our church, including people of every race, color, ancestry, sex (including gender identity or expression), sexual orientation, marital status, familial status (including hānai status), disability, age, and economic status." The congregation pledges to regularly review and reaffirm this commitment. In worship each week, members and visitors alike hear the phrase, "Wherever you are on your journey of life, you are welcome here," and the church states plainly that it means it - no exceptions.
Children, Youth, and the Keiki Choir
Programming for young people runs from infancy through high school. Toddlers and preschoolers are always welcome in the Prayground during worship, where they can play and listen at the same time. Sunday school classes for lower elementary (grades K-2) and upper elementary (grades 3-5) meet from September through May, and the youth group for grades 6-12 follows the same schedule. Youth serve in worship as candle lighters, greeters, and lay readers, and may sing with the choir.
The Keiki Choir, directed by Roz Catracchia, rehearses for four Sundays leading up to Christmas and sings during the Christmas Eve intergenerational service. Each year, the youth group takes on service projects through the Missions Ministry and travels on a mission trip every three years, supported by periodic fundraisers.
A Campus Built for Neighbors
The Nu'uanu Avenue campus also houses a network of nonprofit and community partners whose work extends the congregation's mission of caring for neighbors. Partners include Quicksets Volleyball Club, the Assets School athletics program, Family Hui Hawaii, Hawaii Meals on Wheels, Kaimana Sports Club, Aoakoa Volleyball, and the PIDF Tutu and Me program.
Worshippers at CCH regularly support these partners through drives and offerings. During the Give Aloha month each September, the church participates in Foodland's annual matching-gift program; the CCH code is 78480. In November, a peanut butter drive collects donations for Hawaii Meals on Wheels, and a special November offering goes to the same organization, responding to the high cost of food and the end of SNAP aid in the islands. The campus also opens its doors to other community groups, with members, friends, and partner organizations invited to reserve event space.
Forming Faith Together
Christian formation at CCH extends well beyond Sunday morning. An Adult Bible Study meets on Zoom every Tuesday from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., exploring the scripture texts used in the upcoming Sunday worship. Pastor Amy also hosts occasional Zoom study series on Monday evenings - recent offerings have included four-week deep dives into lectionary texts.
Retreats have become a regular rhythm. Past retreats have included Dance with the Divine, an embodied-faith day led by Rev. Annalise Hume that drew twenty-five participants into movement, reflection, and storytelling; the all-church Camp Mokulēʻia weekend over Independence Day, when members gather at the camp's North Shore lodge for three days of fellowship, shared meals, and the rare luxury of time away together. A men's retreat is held on campus each fall.
Children's programming during the summer months shifts shape: keiki remain in worship with their families or in the Prayground while Student Christian Ed classes are on break. Throughout the year, the church fills its bulletin boards with listings for choir practice, adult study, and special Advent and Lenten observances, including a Christmas Eve service of Lessons and Carols with a brass quintet.
The Senior Minister and Staff
Rev. Dr. Amy Butler was installed as the eleventh Senior Minister of Community Church of Honolulu on October 26, 2025, in a service of covenant between pastor and congregation. Raised in the islands, she returned to Hawaii after serving four prominent faith communities on the mainland: St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, DC, The Riverside Church in the City of New York, and National City Christian Church in Washington, DC. She is the author of Beautiful and Terrible Things: Faith, Doubt, and Discovering a Way Back to Each Other and Holy Disruption: A Manifesto for the Future of Faith Communities, both of which are available through the church.
Working alongside Pastor Amy is Rev. Melissa A. Martin, an ordained Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister who joined the staff as Executive Director. Her role focuses on stewarding the church's physical and financial resources and supporting the pastoral team. Roz Catracchia, who has written the songs and scores for more than forty productions in Hawaii and musically directed over a hundred more, brings her craft to CCH as Sacred Arts Coordinator, shaping weekly worship and working with the Keiki Choir. Longtime staff members Glenn Bolosan (Campus Caretaker) and Ardis Gomes (Church Administrator) retired in 2025, and Brittney Oguan now serves as Coordinator of Community Life and Administration.
Membership and the Covenant
Visitors and friends are warmly welcomed at CCH, regardless of formal membership. For those ready to take a deeper step, the church invites membership on an annual basis. Members reaffirm a covenant that has guided the congregation since its earliest days: "We covenant with each other to seek and respond to the Word and the Will of God... to walk in the ways of Love, made known to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ... to build a community of justice, love, and grace in line with the teachings of Jesus."
Membership opens the door to leadership on the Church Council, as a Deacon, or on the Endowment Committee - and gives members a vote at the annual congregational meeting, which is held each February in the sanctuary immediately after worship. The church's annual budget, bylaws, and pastoral leadership are all shaped through these gathered decisions.
A Place in Nu'uanu
Community Church of Honolulu has been shaped by the valley it calls home for more than sixty years, and by the islands even longer. Pastor Amy often names the Hawaiian values that animate her work: Aloha (love and respect), Lōkahi (harmony and unity), Mālama (to care for and honor), Pono (goodness and morality), and Poʻokela (the call to excel). They sit alongside the Christian conviction that communities of committed people can change the world to be more just, more loving, and more grace-filled.
On any given week, that vision plays out in Sunday worship, in Tuesday Bible study, in a peanut butter jar carried to the front of the sanctuary, in a child singing in the Keiki Choir, and in neighbors meeting for the first time over coffee at Aloha Hour. The doors at 2345 Nu'uanu Avenue are open, online and in person, to anyone ready to share the journey.