St Andrew's on the Terrace

St Andrew’s on the Terrace in Wellington, New Zealand (1923) has a longstanding history of community work and progressive stances. During the Great Depression it operated a rest-room for unemployed men that was highly utilised during the cold winter nights. Women gained more formal recognition within St Andrew’s on the Terrace than in other churches of the time, with their first woman elder in 1961 and their first female ordained minister in 1965. The church took progressive stands on significant occasions during the 1980s, supporting HART (Halt All Racist Tours) in their opposition of the Springbok rugby tour in 1981 (New Zealand vs South Africa during the apartheid era) and Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986. More recently it has hosted Alcohol Anonymous meetings, supported the Aotearoa Living Wage campaign and the LGBTQI+ community. In 2014 the church defied a directive by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand to ban ministers from performing same-sex wedding ceremonies. Interim minister Jim Cunningham stated, ‘we see sexual orientation and gender identity as irrelevant in the celebration of a couple's union. It is the quality of the relationship, the love and commitment that matters.’