A church in mission: our journey and history
We have a proud history. Dunedin City Baptist (formerly Hanover Street Baptist) was founded in 1863, one of the earliest Baptist churches in the country. Right from the start the church had a vision to reach outwards. In the next few years we were instrumental in starting many other Baptist churches in the city and played a key role in organising the Baptist Union of New Zealand and founding the Baptist Missionary Society, becoming the first church in New Zealand to send missionaries overseas. By the 1880’s the School Room building had been built next door which became a free reading room to the city in the absence of a public library and work was begun amongst Chinese immigrants who had settled in Dunedin after the Central Otago gold rush.
God was at work, the numbers grew and a new larger building was needed to replace the original Hanover Street building. Construction on this began in 1910.
By the early 1990’s numbers again reached the point where the Hanover St building could no longer contain those who were coming and so in 1996 after years of deliberating we made the difficult decision to sell the Hanover Street buildings and move on. We moved “temporarily” to rented premises at the College of Education and more recently Otago Boys High School.
The search for a new site to build a church facility now took on even greater urgency. However, finding a suitable location in the vicinity of the University (to continue the work amongst students) proved challenging. Over 16 years numerous sites were investigated and six serious attempts were made to purchase and develop buildings in the north end of the city.
In 2006 we concluded that we needed to widen the search and be open to move anywhere in Dunedin as God led us. Late that year our journey to find land and a new home reached an amazing conclusion: we had noticed a large sunny block of land next to the motorway below Lookout Point that was highly visible, easily accessible and offered plenty of room for parking space, and the facilities we would want to build. This exceeded all our criteria. When we approached the owner we were informed that they were just then making the decision to sell. The timing was perfect and the cost was a fraction of what we had previously expected to pay. We discerned the unmistakeable hand of God and so purchased 7.4 hectares at Lookout Point.
Since then God has continued to open doors. We have been granted resource consent to build despite the land being zoned rural and its having a classification that required public consultation and the council’s planners approval that our plans harmonize with the urban conservation values of the area. Consent was granted on exactly the same day as we were being given title for the land after buying it more than two years before!
Finally late in 2009 an unexpected package arrived from England. The contents were possessions of the late Rev. William Hay, pastor of Hanover Street Baptist from 1903 to 1913. Rev. Hay had been at the helm of the church when the original 1864 building was replaced with the current brick building. Unknown to us until we opened the package, was that at the time of laying the foundation stone, on October 8th 1910, Rev. Hay had been given a commemorative silver trowel by the architect. This trowel was one of the items sent to us. It is a most precious gift providing a significant way to link our current project with our heritage. Therefore in 2010 to mark the start of excavation we used the trowel to turn a sod exactly 100 years from the date when our last building was founded. The timing of its arrival has given us further confidence of God leading us to begin foundations this year.