Newton Pacific Island Presbyterian Church

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The First Samoan Church in New Zealand, founded by the late Susuga a le Toeaina Reverend Leuatea Sio in 1947. Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ, Edinburgh St. 09 379 7692

The current buildings date from 1979 and were opened by the Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, they replace several late victorian wooden buildings which had been the centre of the Newton Presbytarian Church. Initally a white working class congregation the church had changed image by the middle of the 20th century and is one of the few organisations to have survived the coming of the motorways. Now most of it's congregation live outside of the immediate area.
The Newton Congregationalist Church started out as with a european working class congregation.
After the war this changed to being predominately Pacific Island as new people arrived in Auckland looking for work and were living in the surrounding areas of Newton, Grey lynn and Freemans Bay.
Becoming the first Pacific Island Church in NZ in 1947 it was absorbed back into the Presbytarian Church in 1966 (the Congregationlist Church had separated from the Presbytarians in 1592 for theological reasons)
The wedding scenes in the films "Sione's Wedding" 2006 and "Sione's Wedding 2" 2012 were filmed in this church. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sione's_Wedding