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Church Bookstore News: Tent store focuses on no-frills resources Print Email
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Thursday, 05 May 2011 03:44 PM America/New_York

Volunteers with 'a heart to serve' unpack 'store in a box' each weekend

 

Display options are limited at the bookstore at New Hope Oahu, because it doesn't have any walls. The operation sets up under canvas each weekend for the five services held at a high school in Waikiki, Honolulu, on the surfing mecca island of Oahu, Hawaii.

Volunteers spend 90 minutes putting the store in place before it opens, arranging tables and wheeling out and opening a collection of specially made, sort of oversized flight cases. They are lined with slatwall and used to store products safely in a rear room at the school during the week.

With few frills of a typical store, the emphasis is on providing a limited range of resources to the 4,500 or so weekend visitors. Books and recorded messages by Wayne Cordeiro, the founder and senior pastor of the New Hope network of churches, are features, along with Bibles and some music.

Set up under a large canvas awning outside the high school auditorium—the store carries some fiction, but limits other books mostly to titles being used for church study groups. It also offers a variety of New Hope-themed souvenir items, as the church is a popular destination for visitors.

Oda_Ray"We try to focus on what will help the people," said Manager Ray Oda (left). "If people are visiting for the first time, we want them to feel that God has led them to be there at this particular time for a reason."

Most of Oda's business is done on the weekend, although he also mans a small permanent store at the site of New Hope's offices, and another church campus. He gathers his team of around 80 volunteers every two months for teaching and fellowship. They also get a discount on sermon recordings.

Oda's only requirement of prospective volunteers is "a heart to serve," he said. "We do have a lot of people come to the church who are hurting, so we just need people that have a heart to reach them."