Lutheran Archives – Pastor Mads Christensen, Danish Lutheran Church of New Zealand
An invitation from Friends of Lutheran Archives
On 27 February, Friends of Lutheran Archives will gather at Immanuel Church North Adelaide SA to hear Dr David Hilliard tell the story of New Zealand pioneer Danish Pastor Mads Christensen – and you are invited to join our gathering via livestream on YouTube.
For 35 years FoLA has promoted and supported the Archives of the LCANZ in Adelaide in its mission to preserve the records of the Church for the use of its people and the broader public. FoLA has funded the purchase of technical equipment and archival supplies essential for storing, cataloging and digitising Archives holdings, as well as financing special projects such as indexing thousands of documents relating to the work of the Church among post-WWII migrants.
Lutheran Archives new stand-alone website www.lutheranarchives.lca.org.au was also funded by FoLA, enabling a new level of access for discovering the resources and treasures of the Church. Since the records of the Church in NZ were welcomed to Adelaide in 2023, indexing NZ church registers has been given priority, so New Zealanders too can search their family story in the Names Index by clicking on https://lutheranarchives.lca.org.au/genealogy-and-family-history/
Monthly public talks by church members and academic researchers, students, pastors and local historians, engage FoLA audiences in stories of Lutheran parishes and people, missions and ministries from very diverse perspectives, and now anyone anywhere in the world can be part of that audience, live or later. From the work of 19th century artist George French Angas illustrating the Antipodes to an anthology of German writers evcountering Indigenous Australians or a local historian investigating how a tiny SA settlement came by three Lutheran churches: you can browse these talks and many more from recent years and over the year ahead at https://www.youtube.com/@friendsoflutheranarchives9644/streams
News and reviews of FoLA events and the work of archivists and volunteers at the Archives are published in the quarterly FoLA News, while an annual Journal presents new historical research from near and far. Long before New Zealand’s Lutheran records joined Lutheran Archives, the 1993 FoLA Journal focussed on “Hands across the Tasman” with articles and book reviews, and that was of course not the end of it. Do you have a story to tell? You can learn more about FoLA at https://lutheranarchives.lca.org.au/friends-of-lutheran-archives/#
Notice for the FoLA meeting
Thursday 27 February at 7.30pm (SADT)
Pastor Mads Christensen: A Danish Pastor in New Zealand
Speaker: David Hilliard
139 Archer St, North Adelaide SA 5006
LIVESTREAM on FoLA YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@friendsoflutheranarchives9644/live
During the 1870s there was a significant emigration from Scandinavia to the North Island of New Zealand. Some three thousand Danes, Norwegians and Swedes settled on land allocated by the government
in Wairarapa and southern Hawkes Bay. To minister to them, the first Danish Lutheran pastor arrived in 1878. Mads Christensen was sent to New Zealand in 1886 by the Inner Mission, an association within the Church of Denmark. He was pastor of the Danish Lutheran congregation in Palmerston North, the region’s largest town, from 1894 to 1927.
David’s presentation will explore the problems faced by the Lutheran Church in colonial New Zealand and the life and ministry of Mads Christensen.
David Hilliard was formerly an Associate Professor of History at Flinders University.
Lois Zweck
Lutheran Archives
January 2025
