On a Friday evening in April 1799, a small group gathered at the Castle and Falcon pub in London. They were meeting to form a new society which would spread the Gospel to the world – to dis­sem­in­ate ‘treas­ures more valu­able than silver and gold…the offer­ings of spir­itual peace and Chris­tian freedom.’ These men were part of the Clapham Sect, a network of evan­gel­ical Chris­ti­ans that included well-known figures such as William Wilberforce.

The Clapham Sect had long been dis­cuss­ing ways to preach the Gospel and plant churches in Aus­tralia, the East Indies, South­east Asia and Africa. The Church Mis­sion­ary Society (CMS) was born from these con­ver­sa­tions, and the first mis­sion­ar­ies were sent out to Africa, India and then New Zealand.

In New Zealand, the CMS mis­sion­ar­ies were amongst the earli­est European set­tlers. At first there were very few con­verts; however the Gospel started to spread, and Māori began turning to God. It was these new believ­ers who became the most effect­ive at reach­ing their own people.

New Zeal­anders soon began think­ing beyond Aotearoa, to the world beyond; and in 1892, 78 years after the first mis­sion­ar­ies arrived to our shores, the New Zealand Church Mis­sion­ary Society (NZCMS) was formed. Less than a year later, a woman named Marie Pasley became the first mis­sion­ary sent out by NZCMS, serving in Japan for 29 years. Since that time, our mis­sion­ar­ies have served in coun­tries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America, Europe and the Pacific.

If you would like to engage further with the con­ver­sa­tion about iden­tity and history in Aotearoa New Zealand, we recom­mend the work of the Karuwhā Trust. They seek to help people know the story they are a part of by con­nect­ing com­munit­ies through haer­enga, story and service.