ABOUT US
Belong, Discover, Engage
At Pawaʻa Community Church, we exist to help individuals know they belong here, help them to discover an authentic relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and become His equipped and engaged followers to bring glory to God and bless others.
We meet in a house which fosters authentic community, intimacy, and a space to be the church.
Pastor Arjay Gruspe
808.330.5877 | hiarjay@gmail.com
Arjay Gruspe, our Senior Pastor, planted Pawaʻa Community Church in 2007. Vision, strategy, preaching, raising up leaders, and a desire to send out faithful followers of Jesus Christ to love, serve and share the gospel are at the heart of who he is. Growing up in West Virginia, Arjay came out to Hawaii to finish college. That is when his journey with Jesus began. A graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and married to Tara, they have two adult, married children, a cute grandson, two dogs, and a tortoise. Arjay also directs Baptist Collegiate Ministries for the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention. In his down time, Arjay enjoys surfing, sports and coaching varsity girls basketball at the Hawaii Baptist Academy high school campus.
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The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.
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There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the creator, redeemer, preserver, and ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all-powerful and all-knowing; His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To him, we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals himself to us as Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
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Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them, male and female, as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning, man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. by his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherits a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.
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Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
A. Regeneration, or the New Birth, is a work of God’s Grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.
B. Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in Him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.
D. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.
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Item descriptionA New Testament Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are the elders and ministers. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. The New Testament speaks also of the church as the body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.
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Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in the newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is a prerequisite to the privileges of church membership.
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The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the elements, memorialize and remember the death of the redeemer Jesus Christ, and anticipate His second coming.
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It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations. The new birth of man’s spirit by God’s Holy Spirit means the birth of love for others. Missionary effort on the part of all rests then upon a spiritual necessity of the regenerate life, and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has commanded the preaching of the Gospel to all nations. It is the duty of every child of God to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the Gospel of Christ.
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God is the source of all blessings, temporal and spiritual; all that we have and are we owe to him. Christians have a holy trusteeship in the Gospel, and a binding stewardship in their possessions. They are therefore commanded by God to serve him with their time, talents, and material possessions; and should recognize all these as entrusted to them to use for the glory of God and for helping others. According to the Scriptures, Christians should contribute their means cheerfully, regularly, systematically, proportionately, and liberally for the advancement of Jesus Christ's work on earth.