Who are we? : Our Leadership : Our History : Our Vision and Values : Life & Light Community Trust
Early Days
Hamilton New Life Church began in 1958 with a small group of children, keen to gather and learn about God. A vibrant Sunday School emerged and a little church began, nurtured by Lou & Gren Davy who became the founding pastors of the church, then known as ‘Open Door Full Gospel Centre'.
Open Door Full Gospel Centre purchased a building and settled in Te Aroha Street; growing and involving a cross section of ages and cultural groups. These gathered as an all-age Sunday School with a church service following.
1980s
The church vision extended to purchase land and develop a Christian School. This prompted the moving of the church building to Collins Road, Melville, in order to initiate and develop the Open Door Christian School (later put under the auspices of a trust and re-named Southcity Christian School). The church offices and Sunday services were run from the Collins Road buildings during this time.
Graham & Esther Ferry were inducted as the new Pastors as Lou & Gren Davy retired after their great effort (which stretched over more then 30 years).
The church changed it's name to become known as ‘New Life Centre Hamilton'. This was in keeping with the national stream of churches it had associated with over the years.
1990s
The church decided to leave the school that it had developed and move back across the river and lease the Apostolic Church building in Grey Street. The church began to extend its vision and targeted specific groups of people (e.g. University students) with the goal of setting up several homogeneous congregations. In 1991 a small ministry team led by Bruce & Jennifer Rosser started a separate congregation, the ‘New Life Whanau' which specifically embraced aspects of Maori culture. This ministry was wound up after five years due to a shortage of leadership.
A second specific ministry expression, ‘New Life Youth', was set up in 1993. This was initially pastored by Mike & Susan Huhn who came from Canada for a 3 year period.
Several changes took place between 1995 and 1997 and the daughter congregations were drawn back in to re-form one church body. At this time New Life Centre re-located to Hamilton East Primary School and the leadership spent time redefining the vision and future direction for the church.
In 1997 Graham & Esther Ferry offered their resignation from the senior pastoral position along with two other elders who retired. John Marquet became an Interim Pastor to assist with the changes until the appointment of Bruce & Jennifer Rosser (Senior Leaders) and Ian & Colleen Bramwell (Associate Pastors).
In the final two years of the 1990s, New Life Church relocated to a rental venue (known as Thornton Court at 135 London Street. The upstairs of Thornton Court became available for the church to utlilise. Children's Church moved upstairs and grew and ‘New Life English' was set up to help immigrants with their English language development.
2000 and beyond...
A new millennium, a new opportunity, a new adventure for Hamilton New Life Church. The vision and direction of the church continues to unfold. An upgraded logo was developed for the church.
In August 2001 the church purchased 2 acres of land (including a house) on the North/East side of the City. This property was picked as a potential site to develop a future church building with multi purpose facilities to operate all future ministries from. Till the building happens we are able to make use of the house and shed for small group meetings.
With the rising cost of renting and a goal to direct our funds into our future property the Church moved out of London Street (mid city) early in 2004. We set up the office in the church house at 360 Tramway Rd, with Sunday services being held in the Rototuna School hall. A new Associate Pastor (Ps. Byron Seiuli) was appointed in 2004.
In 2007 New Life Church (Hamilton) came together with another Hamilton church (Lighthouse Christian Fellowship) to begin the first stage of the building project on the land at 360 Tramway Rd. The building project and ongoing property development is occuing under a joint trust which was formed, named Life & Light Community Trust. The first stage was the auditorium which was completed in July 2007 and the Opening Celebration was held in March 2008.
In 2010 we adopted a new mission statement to reflect where we are heading next - To walk, To work, To worship - Together...more like Him, everyday
