Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

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The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is a Calvinist Protestant-oriented church with Scottish roots in New Zealand . It is based in Wellington . In 2006/2007 the church was represented in 403 congregations with around 28,500 members. The elected "elders" are responsible for running the parish. Together with the pastor, they organize pastoral care.

history

The history of the origins of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand goes back to the year 1840, when on February 21st of that year the first Presbyterians came to New Zealand as settlers on the Bengal Merchant and disembarked in Petone , at Port Nicholson . Among them was John Macfarlane , pastor of the Church of Scotland , who on January 7, 1844 in Wellington opened the first church of the denomination in New Zealand under the name Scots Church , later called St. Andrew's .

In the "disruption" (spin-off) of the Free Church of Scotland from the Church of Scotland in 1843 left more than a third of the faithful the traditional Church of Scotland and the new church joined. In this spirit of optimism and inspired by the colonization project of the New Zealand Company , believers of the new Free Church of Scotland gathered to emigrate to New Zealand as settlers. Representing the Scottish Free Church Lay Association and under the leadership of Captain William Cargill and Pastor Thomas Burns , the settlers reached Port Chalmers in the spring of 1848 , named after the mathematician , professor of moral philosophy , Thomas Chalmers , who was then leader of the Free Church of Scotland was. They founded the city of Dunedin in Otago and the first Presbyterian Church on the South Island of the New Zealand colony. This was documented 25 years later with the construction of the First Church of Otago , which was handed over to its destination in November 1873.

In 1851, a group of Scottish settlers from Wellington sent a petition to their home country asking for a pastor from the newly formed Free Church of Scotland to help them form a congregation. The church sent a representative with Pastor John Moir in 1853 and thus founded the second Presbyterian Church on the North Island , now known in Wellington as St. John's .

In the years that followed, different church foundations were pending throughout the colony, with development on the South Island proceeding faster than on the North Island due to the economic boom caused by the gold rush in Otago . Despite the same origin and the first efforts in 1861 to unite the Presbyterians in a church organization, the unification of the churches did not come about until under the leadership of James Gibb in 1901.

After continuous development and increasing membership, the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand was able to count more than half a million believers in 446 parishes with over 800 churches in 1964.

today

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is now divided into numerous different organizations with different tasks and goals:

  • Association of Presbyterian Women (APW) - women's organization in the Church
  • Association of Reconciling Congregations & Christians (ARCC) - an ecumenical network of gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexual Christians who advocate that sexual orientation is not a barrier to God or to participation in the life of the church.
  • Evangelical Presbyterian Missionary Fellowship - Community of Missionaries
  • The Knox Center for Ministry and Leadership & Salmond Hall - umbrella organization for the Knox Center for Ministry and Leadership and Salmon College , both in Dunedin.
  • Presbyterian Affirm - a network for action, faith, fellowship, advocacy, renewal, and mission within the Church
  • Presbyterian Historical Society - publisher of books
  • Presbyterian Church Archives Research Center New Zealand (PCANZ) - National agency and historical archive of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Presbyterian Savings & Development Society (PSDS) - Church-owned savings and loan bank
  • Presbyterian Support New Zealand - seven Presbyterian Support Organizations nationwide that provide help and support for the elderly, people with disabilities, families with social problems and needy children and young people
  • Westminster Fellowship - Church groups who follow the Westminster Confession of Faith

literature

  • Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (ed.): What does it mean to be Presbyterian . Wellington 2008 (English, brochure).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (ed.): The Reform of Presbyteries . Wellington 2008 (English, Presbyteries Task Group - Assembly Reports).
  2. ↑ The Esplanade, Petone, Lower Hutt. New Zealand Historic Places Trust, accessed December 21, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Heritage. First Church of Otago, accessed December 21, 2011 .
  4. ^ Presbyterian Church - Consolidation. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, accessed December 21, 2011 .
  5. ^ Presbyterian Women (APW). Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, accessed December 21, 2011 .
  6. ^ ARCC - Who We Are. Association of Reconciling Christians and Congregations, archived from the original on January 26, 2012 ; accessed on September 5, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).
  7. ↑ About Us. Presbyterian Affirm, accessed December 21, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Welcome to The Archives Research Centers. Presbyterian Church Archives Research Center New Zealand, accessed December 21, 2011 .
  9. ↑ About PSDS. Presbyterian Savings and Development Society, accessed May 9, 2019 .
  10. ↑ About us. Presbyterian Support New Zealand, accessed December 21, 2011 .