HeartBeat—February 2021

LCH Office Hours During COVID-19 Precautions

The LCH office and church campus are generally closed to in-person meetings and gatherings as cases of covid-19 in the state continue to rise and as a precaution in accordance with the CDC, Hawai‘i State Governor’s Office, and Honolulu City and County Office of the Mayor’s recommendations regarding covid-19 virus safety. We recommend that you do not leave a phone message on the office voicemail. It is preferable that you please email LCH@LCHwelcome.org to contact the administrator, pr.jeff@LCHwelcome.org to contact Pastor Jeff, or scott@LCHwelcome.org to contact the LCH music director. If you prefer to leave a brief voicemail message, your call will be returned when someone is able to check in at the LCH office. Please visit the LCH website at www.lchwelcome.org for more information about weekly events and ministries, and to access the public LCH Facebook page for online worship services (you do not need a Facebook account to access the LCH Facebook page).

The Blue Zones Project

Blue Zones Project is a community-wide well-being-improvement initiative that helps make healthy choices easier for everyone in Hawai‘i. When our entire community participates, the small changes contribute huge benefits for all of us: lowered healthcare costs, improved productivity, and a higher quality of life.

While many traditional health initiatives focus on diet and exercise programs, Blue Zones focuses on comprehensively changing a community’s environment so that individuals are nudged into making healthy choices. It takes a systematic approach to improving well-being through policy, building design, social networks, and built environments. By optimizing the places where we live, work, and play we can make healthy choices easy choices, so we can naturally adopt healthy behaviors.

With the help of the Blue Zones Project, Power 9—including moving naturally, eating until you are 80 percent full, and knowing your purpose—you can take steps to live a longer, healthier life today. To learn more, please visit bzphawaii.com.

Thank you to those who have turned in your personal pledge forms. Your personal pledge forms will be submitted to Blue Zones Project Hawai‘i. A welcome email from Blue Zones Project Hawai‘i be sent to you.

For those who have not yet submitted your personal pledge forms, you can submit them electronically at hawaii.bluezonesproject.com/pledge. Please be sure to click on “I’d like to enter my organization info” and enter “Lutheran Church of Honolulu.”

Your pledges will work toward LCH becoming a Blue Zones certified organization.

God Comes Down: Stewards of God’s Creation

Last month we celebrated Jesus’s baptism. It provided an opportunity to remember our own baptisms and be reminded that we too, have been graciously claimed as children of God at our own baptisms; that we belong to God and all that we have also belongs to God. As Vicar Bree reminded us in her sermon, we have been washed in the waters of baptism, transformed, and made new. In response, the team sent out notes and wallet sized cards for people to carry with them as a reminder that we are all children of God.

The stewardship theme for the current year is “Stewards of God’s Love,” which comes down, works in us, and moves out into the world. During February, we continue to explore the ways we are stewards of God’s love, which comes down to us in the person of Jesus Christ. The focus for February is on being stewards of God’s Creation.

One way the LCH community is stewarding God’s creation on the LCH grounds is by creating a Community Garden, Vicar Bree’s internship project, which has been adopted by your Stewardship Team as a focus activity for February.

You can’t get much further down than the soil, microbes, and humus on which human life depends. This connection is so deep that they share the same root name—human and humus or, in Hebrew, adam and adamah. We are born of each other—the Creator breathing life somewhere in the midst. God indeed comes down, and God rises up from here.

On Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, also the National Day of Service, seven of us gathered amidst the blustery and rainy weather to sow seeds, to bury possibility, and to trust the work and service of the created world—eventually this possibility may rise. Life born from decay and faith. Our hands only steward the gift. God comes down and breathes life anew.

Poet Denise Levertov reminds us of stewardship work and hope in her poem Beginners, which begins:

The rest of the poem suggests that though there is much work yet to be done toward justice and mercy, it can be accomplished if we join together. The poem ends this way:

So much is in bud. May we steward the gifts. Watch for ways that you can help grow LCH’s community garden!

As stewards of God’s creation, let us think about these questions: How does “belonging to God” shape the way that we live our lives related to the creation that God has entrusted to our care? How else might we be good stewards of creation? How can we build on ideas offered during last year’s focus on being stewards of creation (Go Green—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—Buy only what you need)?

Vicar Bree and your Stewardship Team
Peggy Anderson, Pam Buckley, Willow Chang, Phyllis Hörmann, Barbara Poole-Street, Bill Potter

First Mondays Concert: Tradewinds—A Chamber Concert for Winds

Monday, February 1 • 7:00 pm • Via Livestream Broadcast

Tomás Ramos (clarinet) and Brian Kavolius-Matherne (horn) combine forces with pianist Maika’i Nash to present an exciting concert of music for winds and piano written by a diverse collection of composers, some well-known and others under-appreciated. The combination of horn and clarinet will showcase their range, timbre, and lyricism in a First Mondays concert you won’t want to miss.

Featured Composers are Madeleine Dring (1923–1977), Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835), Robert Kahn (1865–1951), Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), David Maslanka (1943–2017), and Brad Edwards (b. 1963)

The concert will be livestreamed on our Worship Services page and the LCH Facebook page and then archived on the LCH Facebook page. The concert is free; donations to support the concert series are gladly accepted.

Leadership Roundtable

Tuesday, February 2, 6:30 pm • Via Zoom Meeting

Committee chairs and team leaders, please plan to gather for a short (45 minute) meeting. This month’s meeting will be conducted via the Zoom online meeting platform. Please refer to your email for the Zoom Meeting details. This is an opportunity for us to sit down together and share information on what is happening with all the ministries at LCH. If you are a committee or team leader, you will receive an email from Pastor Jeff, via Zoom Meeting, regarding login information. Please be prepared to share a little information on your activities with the group. Mahalo!

Angel Network In-Gathering

LCH is not collecting donations for Angel Network Charities until further notice. However, Angel Network is accepting donations at the Calvary-by-the-Sea Lutheran Church location in east O‘ahu: 5339 Kalaniana‘ole Highway, Honolulu 96821.

For those who are able and interested in donating, they accept donations on Thursdays and Fridays, from 8:30 am to noon. They will only accept packaged, unopened dry goods (e.g. cereal, flour, sugar, pasta, etc.) and canned goods.

Angel Network requires that donating drivers identify themselves and remain in their vehicle. Volunteers will offload donation items from your vehicle with protective gloves. Over 2,500 individuals are served monthly through this program. Mahalo for your generosity and support.

Book of Faith Bible Study

Thursdays, 10:00–11:45 am • Via Zoom Meeting

The Book of Faith Bible Study meets on Thursday mornings via the Zoom online meeting platform for the duration of the pandemic. All are welcome to join this lively discussion of the Biblical texts, relevant current events, and historical foundations. Please contact Pastor Jeff at pr.jeff@LCHwelcome.org to receive an invitation to the next Zoom Bible study discussion.

Restorative Yoga

Thursdays, February 4, 11, 18, and 25 at 6:00 pm • Via Zoom Meeting

Explore the restorative and ancient practice of yoga, led by LCH member Willow Chang. As a yoga practitioner for over 30 years, Willow shares the joy, wonder, and enthusiasm of a beginner. She emphasizes the origins, cultural context, and safe practice of yoga for all. In this 4-week session, she’ll share various aspects of yoga, from pranayama (breathing exercises) and yogic philosophy (ahimsa), to poses, referred to as asanas.

Join for one, two, or all four sessions from the safety of your own shelter-in-place. These unique classes also provide an opportunity to answer your questions about yoga practice and form. You don’t need yoga pants, previous experience, youth, flexibility, or any real-life experience in India to learn about yoga. Bring your amazing self to be in wonder of your abilities! Please contact Willow Chang (willowchang@hotmail.com) to be included in the weekly Zoom meeting invitation. Let’s learn and find a new center, together!

Godly Play

Sundays at 9:00 am • Via Zoom Meeting

We have Sunday school via a Zoom meeting each Sunday, before service. This class is geared toward children in kindergarten through fifth grade. A story will be followed by a craft which we can make together. Each Saturday, the link for the meeting will be sent via email to all who want to join. Please contact the LCH office (lch@LCHwelcome.org) to be added to the invitation list. All are welcome!

Below is the schedule of Godly Play stories for February:

• 2/7—Parable of the Good Samaritan
• 2/14—Saint Valentine
• 2/21—The Faces of Easter I and II
• 2/28—The Faces of Easter III and IV

Adult Forum

Sundays at 9:00 am • Via Zoom Meeting

Adult Forum continues the rich conversation exploring the similarities and differences between the origin stories or creation myths of the first chapters of Genesis and the Hawaiian Kumulipo. We consider such things as: What does each story say about good and evil or about human nature? What does each story suggest about the Divine? How does each story situate humans relative to other life around them? We may also engage the origin story of evolution, digging into its own stated or unstated values, assumptions about human nature and any expectations for how life is to be lived.

The overall exploration invites the question: How might learning about these different traditions both challenge and strengthen our own journey of faith?

All are welcome to join the Adult Forum Zoom meetings, live Sunday mornings. Participation in Adult Forum via Zoom works best if you download the free Zoom app beforehand. You may need to enable your microphone and video capabilities. If you are not already on this list for the Adult Forum, please contact Dr. Stephen Miller at stevedmiller.sm@gmail.com to receive an invitation to join the next Zoom Adult Forum discussion.

Virtual Coffee Talk with Pastor Jeff

Online Coffee Talk, Sundays, 11:15 am • Via Zoom Meeting

You are invited to join with your LCH ‘ohana on Sundays for a virtual coffee talk following online worship. This discussion time will be via Zoom Meeting, and will run for approximately 20 to 30 minutes.

In order to avoid “Zoom bombing” (surprise visits from unsavory folks), you will need to contact Pastor Jeff, via email at pr.jeff@LCHwelcome.org, for a meeting number and password to log into the meeting. While these are not ideal gathering circumstances, we can at least enjoy a chance to commune together briefly.

Compline

Sundays, February 7 and 21, 7:30 pm • Via Livestream Broadcast

We warmly invite all people in all places of faith and life to Compline. Offered on the first and third Sundays of each month, this beautiful candle-lit service is a meditative experience of a cappella singing and chanting to commemorate the day’s end, featuring the LCH Men’s Schola. Musical selections include Gregorian chant, Taizé chant, Renaissance polyphony, and more.

Compline will be livestreamed on our Worship Services page and the LCH Facebook page.

Mary Magdalene Society

Online Happy Hour Saturdays, February 13 and 27, at 5:00 pm • Via Zoom Meeting

We continue to invite LGBTQI members and friends of LCH to prepare their favorite beverage and pupu and gather for an online happy hour every other week. Those who are already on the Mary Magdalene mailing list will receive an email with directions for accessing the Zoom meeting by the Wednesday before the scheduled meeting. If you don’t receive your invitation or want to be added to the mailing list, please contact Bill Potter, group facilitator, at bill.potter808@gmail.com to be added or for more information.

For February 13, we will share exceptional take out we have been enjoying from favorite restaurants in addition to our usual convivial conversation. A suggestion for February 27 will be included in the invitation for that evening.

LCH OFFICE CLOSED for Presidents’ Day

Monday, February 15

LCH Women’s Book Club

am, • Via Zoom Meeting

LCH Women’s Book Club will meet via Zoom online meeting. The group will discuss Artemisia by Alexandra Lapierre. Connecting to Zoom meeting works best if you download the free Zoom app beforehand. You may need to enable your microphone and video capabilities. If you are not already on the Book Club list, please contact Juditha Murashige at jcmurashige@earthlink.net to receive an invitation to join the next Zoom online Book Club meeting. All are welcome.

Writers’ Workshop

Tuesday, February 16, 4:30 pm • Via Zoom Meeting

Writers’ Workshop will meet via Zoom meeting since restrictions on group meetings at LCH are still in effect. All are welcome! If you would like to participate, please contact Peter Flachsbart at pflachsbart@hawaiiantel.net for information on how to connect remotely.

Ash Wednesday Worship

Wednesday, February 17, 7:30 pm • Via Livestream Broadcast

The season of Lent begins with a very special worship on Ash Wednesday. This beautiful evening service begins the Lenten season of reflection, prayer, and preparation as we hear the words from Genesis 3:19, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Physical distancing keeps us from receiving ashes, a sign of mourning and repentance, on our foreheads this year. But we are reminded of our mortality through the cross, a sign of promise, and life, and hope. Ash Wednesday—and the whole season of Lent—calls us to reflect and remember the precious gift of life and love that God has given us in creation and community and to re-center our thoughts and spirit on what truly matters. We recall that our mortality is joined to God’s forever in Christ, and remember that together we share the joy of life with all of God’s world.

While we are not able to gather for our traditional Lenten soup and salad suppers this year, we look forward to a time when we will be able gather in person again.

The Ash Wednesday Liturgy will be livestreamed on our Worship Services page and the LCH Facebook page.

IHS Brown Bag Meal Prep

LCH continues our commitment to IHS to assist with feeding the homeless during these difficult times. Although stay-at-home orders may have relaxed a bit, we anticipate that all the requirements of social distancing, masks, sanitizing, etc. will still be in force. Therefore, only a small group will be asked to make sandwiches, and those individuals will be contacted directly by phone or email. We will keep you updated about when we can be back to our regular group. Thank you for your patience as we navigate our way through the uncertainty.

Midweek Lenten Vespers

Beginning Wednesday, February 24, 7:00 pm • Via Livestream Broadcast

Please join us for streaming midweek Lenten services. Holden Evening prayer will begin at 7:00 on Wednesday evenings during Lent with the theme “From Darkness into Light.” Each service will approach the theme from a different perspective including spirituality, care of earth, and mental health using music, imagery, art, and proclamation to draw us deeper into God’s presence. Members of Writers’ Workshop will provide much of the proclamation texts.

You are encouraged to prepare for the service ahead of time by setting your worship space with a candle to light during evening prayer. We pray you will join us each week as we prepare for the joy of Easter.

The Midweek Lenten Vespers will be livestreamed on our Worship Services page and the LCH Facebook page.

Food for Thought

Saturday, February 27, at 5:00 pm • Via Zoom Meeting

Food for Thought currently meets via Zoom online meeting. This works best if you download the free Zoom app beforehand. You may need to enable your microphone and video capabilities. Please contact Dr. Stephen Miller at stevedmiller.sm@gmail.com to receive an invitation to join the next Zoom Food for Thought meeting.

Family Promise Update

In the January HeartBeat, an article featured Family Promise (FP), describing aspects of the long relationship of LCH with this organization. Their focus is homelessness, specifically keeping families together and assisting with maintaining or finding housing and services.

In an article by Christina O’Conner, published in the Pacific Business News on January 22, Samantha Church, executive director of FP, said:

The additional donations that came in last year enabled us to be flexible in meeting the changing needs of the community. For example, some funds were deployed to provide rental assistance to help families remain in their housing while other funds were used to provide basic necessities like hygiene products and cleaning supplies for struggling families, and other funds were used to help us increase our staffing so we could support the increase in demand for help.

Following the article, Samantha responded to question from LCH about how congregations assist the mission of FP.

In spite of the challenges of trying to operate in a covid environment, Family Promise had a successful year in 2020. In fact, Family Promise served a total of 644 households in 2020, a 407% increase compared to 2019, when it served 127 households.

Regular Offerings

While we are not able to meet in person, you are encouraged to mail your offering check directly to the church: Lutheran Church of Honolulu, 1730 Punahou Street, Honolulu HI 96822. If you would like to set up regular electronic funds transfer from your checking or savings account, forms are available at www.lchwelcome.org/support or can be requested by email to LCH@LCHwelcome.org. If you prefer to make a one time contribution or ongoing pledge by credit card, there is a link in the bottom right corner of each page of the church website or you can go directly to www.lchwelcome.org/donate. Thank you!

Save on Your Taxes!

For individuals taking required distributions from a retirement account, under the new tax law, if you give cash or check donations from your personal funds, you will be taxed on your distribution, and you may not be able to take the deduction. There are two ways to avoid this.

1. Donate directly to LCH from your IRA If you take money directly from your IRA to give to LCH, this increases your income and may increase your tax bracket. You may not be able to use the deduction because of the new, higher standard deduction. Give directly by telling your IRA provider to donate to the church—the account representative will do this easily.
2. Give appreciated stock directly to LCH. If you sell stock and then donate, it increases your tax bracket, and you may not be able to use the deduction because of the new, higher standard deduction. Instruct your broker to donate directly to LCH.

The church’s legal name and address is:

Lutheran Church of Honolulu (Note: There is no The in the title)
1730 Punahou Street, Honolulu, HI 96822

If you need the Federal Tax ID (EIN) or if you have questions, please contact Steve Miller. As always, please check with your tax advisors to determine what is appropriate for you.

An Easy Way to Donate

Did you know you can donate to Lutheran Church of Honolulu while shopping without spending any extra money? Shop at smile.amazon.com and increase donations to Lutheran Church of Honolulu! Any Amazon purchase can be made through LCH’s unique charity-link, which will take you directly to smile.amazon.com in support of LCH. Just type this URL in your browser and start shopping: smile.amazon.com/ch/99-0079975.

Edward Shipwright Memorial Piano Fund

The church has an ongoing need for maintenance of our current piano, which is on generous loan from Mark Wong. We also need to plan for eventual purchase of an excellent, permanent piano for LCH.

Therefore, we have established the Edward Shipwright Memorial Piano Fund. Dr. Shipwright was the head of the piano division of the Music Department at UH Mānoa. Many people associated with LCH were students or friends of Ed. The fund will be a fitting memorial to his 50 years of teaching and playing.

Some of the LCH members participating in the Second Half of the Annual Meeting on Sunday, January 24. (Photo credit: Kathryn Klingebiel)

HeartBeat Deadline

Tuesday, Febrnuary 16, 9:00 am

Alyssa, Arnold, Barbara M.-F., Vicar Bree and her family, the family of Anita B. and Malissa T., Beau B., Billy S., Bruce H., Colleen K., Greg, Judy M., Kathy M., Kathy S., Kawai S., Keahi, Kendra K., the family of Micah P., Michael, Natalie C.-R. and family, Patricia, Pomai S., Resi, William

February Birthdays

02/07	Cheryl Crozier Garcia
02/12	Carolyn Koehler
02/14	Raymond B. Herradura
02/16	Colin Buckley
02/21	Don Johnson
02/24	Teresa McCreary
02/25	Noelani Nitz
02/27	Elijah Kaeo, Sr.
02/28	Roy Helms