About
Churches of New Zealand is a project to capture and document the churches of New Zealand. It is way for us to celebrate our nations deep and beautiful christian history, share their stories and edify one other.
Our Hope for this project
As we drive through Aotearoa, Michaela and I noticed the beautiful churches along the side of the road. Michaela would often remark on how beautiful they were. In the past, I thought they were just a reminder of a bygone era of our church history, and I never really understood their significance. But one day, we stopped and got to see them up close.
These curious detours became more frequent, and we started to see and understand the sacredness they carried.
These churches were pioneered by the community for the community. The beauty of our church history and these historical churches is not in the structures themselves, as beautiful as they may be. Rather, the beauty resides in how the buildings serve as a memory of our church family, the lineage they represented, and the kindred generations that followed thereafter.
These churches were often composed of humble christians with a mission to spread the gospel. These churches would end up becoming the cornerstone of the greater church of New Zealand that we see today.
We hope that through this project, you come to understand that the modern church is not unlike its predecessors. The church before, like it is today, was planted to meet the fellowship needs of our brothers and sisters and for our neighbours to meet our loving Christ.
It is a celebration of life and the community that thrived around it,
our brothers and sisters,
our family.
Who we are
Michaela Carbon
Michaela has had a few “home” churches in her life. As her family moved around New Zealand and overseas, Michaela has been a part of evangelical, pentecostal, baptist, reformed baptist and presbyterian congregations.
Throughout her life, church has been a place where Michaela has been encouraged and challenged in her faith. She loves how each different church body has a unique way of expressing their love, obedience and devotion to God and His Word. Her hope is that Churches of NZ will showcase this diversity
Allen Carbon
Allen began his church life with a mixture of Methodist and Catholic influences in Philippines.
When he moved to New Zealand he started attending a baptist church in his teens, and then started working / volunteering for a large non-denominational church in Wellington.
After that he started attending a pentecostal church, Harmony, in his late 20s where he began to work as their Creative Coordinator. Now he works as the creative director for Southern Easter Camp, and the Creative Specialist for Voice of the Martyrs - an organisation dedicated to serving the persecuted church.
He is married to the most beautiful wife in the world, Michaela.
FAQs
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This project is between just the two of us! So we are limited to the amount of places that we have travelled. The more we travel the more we can support more churches.
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Of course! We would love to. I think right now we want to honour those smaller churches that don’t necessarily have the same level of exposure. But eventually we would like to showcase some of the more modern churches too. They are as much a part of our church history as any other church.
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We are not out to redefine what christianity is nor are we here to disqualify those churches where they do certain practises or procedures that we might not do at our fellowship.
This might be controversial to some but theological differences aside, any churches that believe that the bible is complete and the churches that believe in the trinity. Therefore any protestant, catholic or orthodox church are to us a Christian church. -
Right now, Michaela and I just want to take photos and visit as many different churches as we can. As time goes on in the future, we would like to eventually do other things to help support some of the churches that are struggling.
We can do that by helping raise awareness for them, help them fundraise or even simply just helping them my using our experiences to support them.We also have plans to make a magazine where the proceeds go towards helping the churches!
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Yes! of course. Although it is absolutely not essential, there are ways for you to support us either by spreading awareness of our project or by donating. Find out more here
How can we help you?
OUR MISSION
Michaela and I have a deep love and heart for the bride of Christ. Regardless of what denomination the church is, we want to help in whatever way we can. Michaela and I both bring different skills to the help you out.
I have over 15+ years working in the creative field both within the church world and as a professional in the industry. I work as a designer / videographer for a large commercial company - taking care of all their advertising and website needs. I also work with Voice of the Martyrs as their marketing and creative coordinator.
Michaela is the phenomenally intelligent person, although she is younger, her study and experience working in department of education and with children can be a vital resource navigating research, funds and grants
Whatever we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.