From May 4–6, 2026, pastors serving churches across the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention gathered at Puʻu Kahea Conference Center on Oʻahu for the 2026 HPBC Pastors’ Retreat. Forty-one men registered for the event, coming from every corner of the HPBC: the Big Island, Maui, Molokai, Oʻahu, and Kauaʻi, along with one pastor from American Samoa, two from Okinawa, and one from South Korea. For several attendees, it was their first HPBC pastors’ retreat.

Organized by HPBC’s Robert Miller, Dawn Akutagawa, and Craig Webb, the retreat centered on the theme “Cultivating a Faithful and Fruitful Ministry.” Four sessions led by guest speaker Dr. Mark Hallock provided the theological and practical heart of the gathering, while intentional margin in the schedule offered pastors something they rarely receive: unhurried time to simply rest, play, and breathe.

Sound, Practical Teaching by Dr. Mark Hallock

Mark Hallock serves as the Lead Pastor of Calvary Church in Englewood, Colorado, and as President of the Calvary Family of Churches, a network devoted to planting and revitalizing congregations across the Denver metro area and beyond. He brought to Puʻu Kahea a pastor’s heart and a practitioner’s clarity—and the men felt it.

Hallock’s four sessions covered the full arc of faithful pastoral ministry. He opened with Pursuing Personal Renewal, reminding pastors that Spirit-empowered renewal in our churches begins with Spirit-empowered renewal in each of us as leaders. Drawing from Proverbs 13:4, he identified five signs of a “sluggish soul”—coldness in prayer, apathy toward God’s Word, a drift toward compromise, declining love for the body, and self-centered ambitions—and called pastors to fight spiritual drift with what he described as three essential ingredients: diligence, dependence on the Holy Spirit, and the sustaining power of Christian community.

Session two, Caring for God’s People, offered a comprehensive framework for intentional shepherding. Hallock walked pastors through the four biblical functions of a shepherd— knowing the flock, feeding the flock, leading the flock, and protecting the flock—and gave practical handles for carrying out each one with presence, wisdom, and care. He emphasized that effective shepherding requires both macro-level vision for the congregation and micro-level relationship with each individual sheep.

In his third session, Forming Faithful Disciples, Hallock challenged pastors to move beyond church busyness toward intentional discipleship clarity. He introduced a simple four-part framework—Worship, Connect, Grow, Go—and led the group through exercises to map their current ministries against that grid, identify gaps, and clarify next steps for every stage of a disciple’s journey. His central conviction: a healthy church is not a room full of spectators but a family of equipped disciples helping one another follow Jesus and helping others do the same.

The final session, Raising Up Leaders, grounded leadership development in Ephesians 4:11–12 and presented a six-step process—Identify, Invite, Train, Deploy, Coach, Multiply—that every church can adapt. Hallock closed with a personal challenge: “Don’t leave this training simply with a notebook full of ideas. Leave with names.” The church, he reminded pastors, does not need celebrity leaders. It needs faithful servants, humble shepherds, and teachable disciples willing to help others do the same.

Pastors expressed their appreciation for Hallock’s humility, passion, and sound, practical teaching throughout the event.

Fellowship, Rest, and a Warm Welcome

Ask any pastor who attended what stood out most about the retreat, and three things rise quickly to the surface: the rich fellowship, the strong teaching, and the gift of free time. The schedule was intentionally designed to give pastors unhurried afternoons for hiking, beach time, cornhole, bucket golf, and simply doing nothing—a rhythm that many admitted they rarely allow themselves.

For first-time attendees, the warmth of the gathering made a lasting impression. Pastors who had never been to an HPBC retreat commented on how welcomed they felt by their brothers—men from different islands, different cultures, and different contexts, but bound together by the same calling and the same Lord. That spirit of “one another” encouragement, modeled in Hallock’s sessions and lived out between them, became one of the retreat’s most meaningful gifts.

Testimonies from Pastors Erik Naylor, Shaw Okawara, and Nasa Sete added personal depth to the teaching, connecting the themes of renewal, shepherding, discipleship, and leadership to the real ground-level experience of ministry in the Pacific. Powerful worship was led throughout by Carter Sgambato, with help from Daniel Grewatz and John Kaneshiro.

The 2026 HPBC Pastors’ Retreat was a reminder that pastors, too, need to be shepherded. HPBC is grateful for every man who made the journey and for the faithfulness of those who planned it. We look forward to gathering again.