Blog

Experiencing the Joy of Generosity! Dear Friends, Each year we ask all of us who are members of the cathedral community to consider the level of our personal financial support for the mission and ministry costs of our cathedral [i.e. the operational costs]. On June 11th, we will begin a three-week stewardship programme called Experiencing the Joy of Generosity. We believe this programme will be a blessing to those who already are experiencing the joy of being generous with the... read more

Taranaki videographer Keith Finnerty has filmed this video of the cathedral’s interior. Watch it above or here. The short visual walk-around reminds us of the beauty and serenity of the historic building – one of the top 50 sites to visit in New Zealand. It also helps to see parts of the church you would not normally view such as the very tops of the organ pipes and the soaring roof. Note that the video was filmed after the removal... read more

The fund-raising campaign for the Cathedral Project has well and truly begun. Donations and pledges to earthquake strengthen and future-proof the iconic Taranaki Cathedral Church of St Mary are already coming in. By the end of April 2017, three-quarters of a million dollars has either been pledged or donated to The Cathedral Project – A Taranaki Taonga. This includes a number of individual donations of $100,000. Dean Peter Beck says this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be... read more

A prominent New Plymouth businesswoman, Jan Mason, has accepted the vital challenge to assist in raising funds for Taranaki Cathedral’s earthquake strengthening and enhancement project. As campaign manager, Jan Mason will start the position on May 1. She is pictured above (middle back row). Others in the photo are: back Row L-R: ++Philip Richardson, Peter Tennent, Richard Handley, Jan Mason, The Very Revd. Peter Beck, Lynn Bublitz. Front row: Terry Parkes, Jenny Goddard, Cathy Thurston, Mike Braggins The cathedral is... read more

Two vigorous churchmen who walked immense distances during their ministries were key figures in the history of St Mary's: Bishop Selwyn, the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand, and William Bolland, the first Vicar of St Mary's. In 1842 Bishop Selwyn reached the tiny settlement of New Plymouth after a walk from Thames during which he was delayed by floods and nearly starved. Only 31, he was an athlete who made extraordinary physical demands on himself and expected much from others.... read more

A sense of community was the drawcard to Taranaki Cathedral when Nancy and Doug Getson looked around for a place to worship. New Plymouth has been their home for just over two years; sadly a change in Doug’s work means they’re leaving in the next few months. Churchgoing is something they have always done. She was brought up a Baptist, he a Catholic but when they got together neither of those denominations suited. Instead they ended up (initially) in an Anglican... read more

Mele Prescott boasts a Tongan background but it’s the Pakeha branch of the Anglican Church she’s starting her ‘apprenticeship’ in. She began as curate and Youth Enabler at the end of November this year, the first time Taranaki Cathedral has had a person in such a position, in recent history. Mele comes to Taranaki from St John’s Theological College in Auckland where she completed her three-year study. Born to Tongan parents who migrated to NZ in the 1970s, she grew up... read more

As a teenager kicked out of home, Ugandan woman Lillian Nakabiri wanted to poison herself. Her family didn’t want her, life was characterised by loneliness and poverty and killing herself seemed the only answer. In despair, she started reading letters she’d received over the years as a sponsored child. “I wanted to die happy, reading them. They gave me joy,” she told hundreds of school students in a moving talk about her early years. The written words from her Australian sponsor... read more

Tributes from the parish to four members of our church family who passed away during 2016 read more

After five years of “living a life of heartbreak and hope”, Dan and Mai Lander have swapped the streets of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) for a ministry closer to home. The couple and their two young boys, Bobby (almost 4) and Thom (2), recently returned to New Zealand from India, where they had been living with and helping some of the world’s poorest and oppressed people. Dan’s parents, John and Angela Lander, attend St Mary’s, and Dan was keen to return to... read more