My name is Scott Craven. I’m a member of Hope Chapel Makiki (Makiki Foursquare Church) in Honolulu. This is a church plant that launched in 2009. Prior to this, I was a part of Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay (Windward Oahu Foursquare Church) in Kaneohe, Hawaii, pastored by Ralph Moore. There, for 12 years, I led Steps to Freedom, an addiction recovery program for men.
I, too, was once an addict, beginning at a young age. We were poor, but my dad had moved us to the affluent community of Scottsdale, Ariz., after my parents’ divorce. My summer job money went to support our family, and I was still angry about having to temporarily drop out of high school my sophomore year to support our family business before the divorce.
I used athletic performance to cover the shame of my family and to establish new friends in the new high school. I robbed clothing stores to fit in, and even stole a car with bogus plates from a junkyard. I just went numb. After graduating from high school, I walked away from a junior college football scholarship and moved with a friend to Hawaii.
By 1998, 25 years later, my life had unraveled. I had been married twice, and had a failed business, progressive drug and porn addictions, and was dealing drugs. What I was doing wasn’t working. My girlfriend had filed a temporary restraining order, I had an 8-year-old daughter whose father was undetermined on her birth certificate, I hadn’t worked for nine years, I owed unfiled taxes, and my driver’s license had been revoked 12 years prior.
The night a police officer came to serve a temporary restraining order was a moment of clarity. A few days later, a man who was still struggling with methamphetamine and had been a regular customer took me in. He introduced me to someone who took me to my first recovery meeting. God got my attention. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and other 12-step venues were where I would experience God.
It was curiosity that finally led me to Christ and Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay (HCKB). I met a man at a beach study group in 1999, and he invited me to church. I soon found myself attending. After a time, I was introduced to members of the Gateways Ministry. After completing some training, I eventually stepped up and took over the men’s addiction group at HCKB.
Most churches cannot even fathom where addiction takes a person. God’s healing is needed in clinical, relational and functional areas of an addict’s life. God has been healing and transforming the lives of so many men and their families.
The HCKB campus is located next to a residential drug and alcohol treatment facility and a state mental hospital, and it is here that God called us to share the gospel. In the Narcotics Anonymous and AA meetings, we announce our men’s addiction study group. Another ministry will pick up clients from the treatment facility on Friday nights so they can attend worship services. Many, for the first time, experience the gospel. I look at our group as a bridge between the recovery community and a safe place to get involved with the church body as a whole.
Now a part of Hope Chapel Makiki, I am excited to see God release people into the relationship they are intended to have with Him. I thank God for Foursquare making God’s message real.
