What a gorgeous little church. The interior was all hand painted. Father Damian is a historic…read morefigure in Hilo. The church has been moved several times due to volcano eruptions to save this historic structure. The termites are busy as I day evidence on the wooden benches etc. A nice historic site. Recommended.

While driving we saw the cutest tiny church so we stopped. It's totally adorable…read more Church doors was open. I was able to get on my knees just to say thank you God for everything.

First time that I went to church services and I join with all of my friends and I enjoy come to…read morethis church because I love meeting new friends and everyone that attend this church services and I enjoy it!!!

New hope is a seeker friendly church that has good music and sound teaching. Although the teaching…read moreis not expository, I often come away having heard that I need to deepen my reliance upon the only true God.

Holy Rosary Church is a small, intimate, and basic Roman Catholic church in the heart of Pahala…read moretown. I have attended mass there many times and have always enjoyed meeting the kind and friendly local residents. The church is fairly old, and features a very basic decor, but if you want to experience a truly local Catholic mass in Hawaii where the parish members celebrate the lord, then there is no better place to go. If you go on Sunday make sure you get there early as sometimes the church can fill up. Also, there is a very cool thrift store in the building across from the church with some fantastic bargains. Even better, the proceeds go to supporting the church!

Engage Church is a vibrant community of families and young adults seeking to love God and serve the…read morecommunity. The earlier service at 4:30pm draws many young families, and the 6:30pm service has mostly college students and young adults. Located in a strip mall at the corner of Lanikaula and Laukapu, Engage really does seek to engage people with the love of Jesus. Services have energetic worship with contemporary Christian music in English, and sermons feel very relevant. They are directed mostly toward the millennial generation, but people of all ages can benefit and relate. When I visited recently, Pastor John was going through a series from Francis Chan on his book "Forgotten God." The message felt clear and challenging, and the pastor really encouraged the congregation to consider how to put scripture into action in our lives rather than just hear what's being said. We had an opportunity to write down our thoughts on a response card. Engage Church feels very welcoming to newcomers! They take a break after the first worship set, and people can grab snacks, which included chili nachos and watermelon when I visited. Surprisingly, the church encourages people to use their phones during service, whether to look up scripture or even post their thoughts to social media using a church hashtag. I work with college students, and this is a church in encourage my students to attend.

A very welcoming and happy fellowship, celebrating God and Christ's love. The service was about 80%…read moremusic with a very good band and excellent singing. The music volume is pretty loud though. Wish there was a bit more sermon, and less music. Otherwise a delightful warm friendly church.

Welcoming, warm congregation and sermons are in a quaint historic building. Everyone there has the…read morealoha spirit!

A real gem, and for some reason not what I expected, from driving by…read more This church seems to be known in the community as "the Chinese church" but in fact, in 1956, they changed their name from the "Hilo Chinese Christian Church" to "The United Community Church" in order to express their openness to persons other than Chinese. The building is an older local plantation style structure with a red chinese-type roof with the curved-up temple corners; inside, it's warm and honest Chinese-flavored early century Christian decor, somewhat worn by many decades of service, but clean and modest and very comfortable. On my visit, the small congregation was a very diverse mix of asian, caucasian, and polynesian. I got an AMAZING welcome, where I was warmly led around and introduced to each member of the church in turn. This did not bother me, although I'm somewhat shy, because you could tell how really sincere and warm they were. I loved this church! I like a church with a sense of humor, and at the service I attended, they laughed a LOT... and cried at tender moments... they showed a very sincere love for their fellow church members and leadership. It was very touching and engaging. The main pastor is a really dynamic asian woman, who was both really funny, and very energetic in her prayer style... the type of pastor who does not seem to be reciting things by rote, but really speaking from the heart to Jesus. Another much older male minister delivered the sermon the day I was there... I was a bit skeptical at first because at first he seemed like he was maybe nodding off and pretty deaf, one eye was looking off in another direction, but when he got up to speak he delivered a really terrific, interesting message! One story he included in his sermon was about his time on Guam in WW2 when Guam was captured by the Japanese and they banned all Christian churches! He was great. He said "Christianity is not for cowards!" I liked that they started their service with prayer, instead of announcements. I liked that they did not waste time during the service with walking around and hugging everyone and chit-chatting, they did that before or after the service. They have a pianist who accompanied their traditional hymns... but I didn't see any type of choir. The only thing I didn't like, was that at the end, as soon as she began her postlude, instead of sitting and listening, everyone just jumped up and announced "service is over" and started going off for refreshments. I find that somewhat disrespectful to the musician... I prefer to sit in silence during the postlude, for a last moment of reflection. They're United Church of Christ, which is the coolest contemporary Christian denomination...a much smarter denomination than the "Christians" you usually hear spewing hate on the evening news. On the national level, UCC was the first Protestant denomination to ordain an African-American pastor in 1785, the first woman pastor in 1853, and the first openly gay minister in 1972. This is the first church I've been to on the big island that made me really excited to go back.

Thank you lord for the carmichael family God knows there was many times in my life they where such…read morea blessing to me and my children, i see how they are building a huge new building, wow! How exciting, keep on doing Gods work! Awesome job.

Cute small church situated on a hill. Charming biblical paintings on the walls painted by Father…read moreJohn to help teach the local parishioners because he did not speak Hawaiian. A fun little historical stop if you are in the area for sure. The church is still in active use today. If you walk farther up the hill, there is a Pieta. Plenty of parking and porta-potties on site. Mahalo.

my daughter Roni and I visited there April 2025, We thought it was absolutely beautiful! We sat…read morethere together and cried my sensitive beautiful, troubled daughter and I and cried for her brother and aunt....My son and my sister whom we had lost a 1 1/2 year before {3 weeks apart}Missing them and wishing they were still with us as we listened to a man tell us the story and history of this church and how it came to be{ he did a great job}.It was very spiritual & cool to us & for us.Then we donated a little $$ for some very cool memontos.On Oct 9th 2025 I lost my daughter...I am devested and a lot of other things but I am so grateful for that time with my daughter and that memory...I plan to visit there again someday soon i hope

My husband and I attended the 9:00 am service, sitting outside. Enjoyed the worship and friendly…read morepeople around us, grateful the message was from the Word and very impacting! First time we visited (20 years ago!) We enjoyed it, wonderful to see how it's grown and that the Word is still being taught! May the Father continue to bless you!

On the outside it looks like a great church, it's beautiful, crowded, great music... but people…read morethere don't really know much about it when you ask what their beliefs are. We went to the Alpha group and were surprised that the Alpha "leaders" didn't know the answers to many of our questions about what exactly the church's theology. We were able to talk to the associate pastor, Andrew, later that night and asked him a lot of the questions. We found out they are a very charismatic church. We were told by the associate pastor they believe in speaking in tongues, he prefers with interpretation, prophesying and raising the dead back to life in this day and age. The reason I gave it a 1, is because you really have to ask someone who is actually running and working for the church and do some digging to find out exactly what they believe, not the "volunteers or worshippers that go there". Unfortunately, I think many people just go there to get their Sunday worship on and truly do not know the root theology of this church. They also have a female associate pastor, Jody. So if you are looking for Reformed Theology this is not the church for you. It is definitely on the Pentecostal side which is not advertised nor do a lot of their church body realize IMHO.

Thank you Open Arms Metropolitan Community Church for bringing an energy of diversity back into…read moreworship, and reminding me of dear friends from the past. I've known about Open Arms MCC for a while, but today was the first time I've attended a service. They meet on Sundays at 10 am at the Ainaloa Longhouse, which is a temporary worship location while they grow towards a permanent home. Basically the Open Arms MCC premise is "Serving ALL God's children with Aloha!!" .... a church for people who can't take the rank hypocrisy of so much organized religion; a church for people who have been actively pushed away from other churches because they demanded equality for themselves, for women, and LGBT minorities. Wikipedia has a good read about Metropolitan Community Churches and all their "firsts" in equal rights here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me... . "No matter who you are you are welcome -- and equal--- here." THIS is the teaching of Jesus. So easily overlooked by the divisive haters who call themselves Christian in our nation today. Pastor Pressley Sutherland arrived recently to lead the church, and he delivered a thoughtful and powerful service.... he preached, he played keyboards, and he sang--- he's got a great voice and seems like a really good musician in addition to being a good preacher. His message --- like all the good messages--- somehow seemed to speak directly to me and the issues I am currently struggling with participating in the music program of a much more conservative (and discriminatory) local church. Overall the service was comfortable contemporary Christian, yet also included beautiful poetry from an Islamic woman poet and an amazing India Arie song. The message topic today was "Cynical and Tired of Religion? Me Too !" A man I chatted with after the service told me they're about 50% heterosexual and 50% LGBTQ. So basically it was a super diverse congregation. I could feel a real sense of caring and welcome and community.... and concern for social justice.... EXACTLY what you SHOULD find at a church. They don't have all the formality and assets of your more established churches, but guess what, neither did Jesus, and it didn't hinder his message. My only minor criticisms are that I'm a bit of a germophobe, and while I applaud their open communion, I would probably prefer if there were less people touching my bread as part of that ritual. Also, plenty of bibles but no hymnbooks in sight at all (I would prefer a hymnbook over just trying to guess the melody of unfamiliar praise songs). Anyway, overall I LOVED the service, and am really looking forward to going back. You should check them out also. FINAL NOTE-- MAKUU MARKET IS RIGHT DOWN THE STREET SO AFTER CHURCH YOU CAN HIT THAT UP FOR SOME AMAZING FARMER'S MARKET FINDS AND GRINDS. A PERFECT PUNA SUNDAY MORNING.