Back in the early 90s, we attended Calvary Chapel of Honolulu, lead pastor Bill Stonebraker.
I have spoken of that congregation frequently. In all our travels around the country and the world, it is the one congregation we've been associated with that we would unreservedly recommend anyone join.
I've never found any other congregation that was as concerned with the care of the membership and encouraging every member to be active in the fellowship: "Every member has a resource, every member has a need," Stonebraker had said back then, and his staff was amazing in connecting resources to needs.
I've talked about their House of Ruth, a series of safehouses for abused wives, and that they maintained a widows and single mothers list to look after the welfare of that vulnerable segment of the membership.
In Hawaii, Christians face the particular issue of native paganism being an active belief and being explicitly taught as a mandatory state K-12 program, with actual pagan priests coming into the classrooms to do the instruction.
Pastor Stonebraker's response was a hardcore program to instill the most solid and in-depth biblical knowledge possible into children as early as possible. No easy children's bible stories in that Sunday School, but in-depth scripture. My daughter was in elementary school during that time, and even though she's thirty years old now, she readily gives credit to that children's program for a rock foundation.
We also liked the quarterly services on the beach, which were also big pot-luck means (pot lucks are popular in Hawaii) and baptisms in the ocean.
