First Assembly pastor Roy G. Sapp dead at 75
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Roy G. Sapp, senior pastor at First Assembly of God in Honolulu from 1976 to 1994, died Friday. He was 75.
"He was the greatest example for Jesus Christ I have ever known in my life," said Janet Kusuhara, pastor of First Assembly of God. "He was a pastor's pastor. He allowed us to dream. He let us see those dreams come true."
Roy Sapp entered the ministry at age 16.
Born in Willis Point, Texas, Sapp entered the ministry at age 16, getting his high school education by correspondence and going on to get his doctorate from the California Graduate School of Theology.
By age 20, Sapp was pastor of an Assembly of God Church in Texas.
Three of his brothers also went into the ministry. Later, his daughter, Diane, would marry the Rev. Rick Seaward.
Sapp moved to California in the 1950s, becoming the senior pastor at a church in Santa Ana in 1953, and continued to move up in the Assembly of God organization in California and later internationally.
He did extensive missionary work in the 1960s and '70s, including the development of a rubber-tree plantation in Liberia that made a 600-resident Cape Palmas leprosy mission self-sustaining.
In addition to Africa, Sapp worked in Central America, Asia and the Pacific.
In 1976, he was asked to come to Hawai'i. "At first, he and his wife didn't know whether they should come," Kusuhara said.
Sapp wrote in his Bible that on the plane ride over, he felt God was telling him Hawai'i was the place he should be, and directing him to a verse that read: "We are setting out for the place about which the Lord said: I will give it to you."
Under Sapp's leadership, the First Assembly of God became one of the state's largest and fastest-growing churches.
Church members built a new facility at 3400 Moanalua Road and moved from Lunalilo Street to Red Hill in October 1990. The congregation now numbers nearly 3,000, Kusuhara said.
Sapp resigned in 1994 after he was diagnosed with a rare illness.
Services will be today at First Assembly of God. Visitation is at 6 p.m., with a memorial service at 7 p.m. Klayton Ko, senior pastor and Sapp's replacement, will preside.
Sapp is survived by his wife, Odelle; his daughter, Diane Seaward; his brothers, Ben, Max and David and two grandsons, Jonathan and Jeremy Seaward.
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
