The Trivocational Pastor

As a teenager, Ronaldo Pascua felt God calling him to ministry. He wanted to work in law enforcement instead.

As a young adult, Pascua pursued both vocations. While employed as a police officer, he also served on a church staff. He met his wife, Joy, while he worked as a part-time youth pastor. The couple married in 1995. As a licensed Assemblies of God minister, he officiated at weddings and conducted funerals.

Pascua says he sensed God’s tug to full-time ministry as he served on the Honolulu Police Department. He ended his police career in 2008 as an investigative detective on the force. Pascua doesn’t regret leaving the good-paying job.

“As we follow the Lord we may have our plans, but God has His,” says the soft-spoken Pascua.

Many pastors are bivocational. Yet Ronaldo Pascua holds down three jobs. In additional to his primary role as pastor of Paradise Chapel in Waianae, Hawaii, Pascua is a chaplain for both the Honolulu Police Department as well as the Hawaii Army National Guard.

For the past decade, Pascua, 50, has been a National Guard Reserve brigade chaplain, spending one weekend a month providing religious and spiritual support to those in the military and their family members. He also trains for two weeks annually as a reservist.

“Seeing soldiers only one weekend a month is more of a challenge for ministry,” says the fit-looking Pascua, who during five years on active-duty orders was deployed to Kuwait and Afghanistan.

Pascua spends around 20 hours a month as a U.S. Missions Assemblies of God Chaplaincy Crisis Ministries voluntary police chaplain for the Honolulu Police Department. As one of eight chaplains on the force, he provides a “ministry of presence” by going along on rides as well as responding to line of duty injuries or death notifications.

Honolulu Police Department Sgt. Tenari Ma’afala has known Pascua since 2001, when they served on the force together. Ma’afala is commander of the HPD Peer Support Unit under which the department’s chaplaincy program operates. He is responsible for coordinating assignments involving traumatic events that affect police officers and their families.

“Having experienced firsthand the demands and sacrifices of being a police officer is a huge advantage to Chaplain Ronaldo in his role as an HPD chaplain,” Ma’afala says. “I am truly blessed to be serving alongside Chaplain Ronaldo, whom I consider as a spiritual mentor.”

Since January 2015, Pascua’s full-time role has been as senior pastor of Paradise Chapel in Waianae, an area where he says homelessness, poverty, drug addiction, and crime are issues. Pascua succeeded George Nagato, who retired after 34 years at Paradise Chapel, located on the west side of Oahu, 20 miles west of the capital Honolulu.

The church of 150 looks much like the islands: a mixture of Hawaiians, Koreans, Filipinos, Japanese, African-Americans, and Caucasians. Pascua and his wife are Filipino.

John W. Kennedy

John W. Kennedy served as news editor of AG News from its inception in 2014 until retiring in 2023. He previously spent 15 years as news editor of the Pentecostal Evangel and seven years as news editor at Christianity Today.