A Celebration of 150 Years of Faith, Friendship, and Future Hope at All Saints’ Taradale

This past weekend, the community of All Saints’ Church, Taradale gathered to celebrate a milestone few churches ever reach — 150 years of worship, service, and witness.

From the first settlers who built the small timber chapel in the heart of Taradale to today’s vibrant intergenerational congregation, the weekend was a tapestry of gratitude, memory, and renewed commitment to the future. It was a celebration that was at once historic and deeply personal — where laughter met tears, and where the old stories of the saints mingled with the bright voices of the young.

The celebrations began on Saturday evening with a dinner, connecting old and new members of the church in joy and feasting, while also enjoying a Victorian form of entertainment in the Magic Lantern Show. Alongside this an auction was held raising around $3,500 for the work of the church. On Sunday, All Saints’ Day, with the church filled — pews occupied by familiar faces, returning parishioners, and visitors drawn by the occasion. There was a sense of homecoming in the air. Conversations carried the tone of reunion: people who hadn’t seen each other for decades greeting with embraces, laughter, and the familiar smell of the church’s polished wood and hymn books.

Children bustled about with colouring pages that read “Happy All Saints’ Day!”, while elders swapped memories of Sunday school plays, weddings, and decades of shared worship. The sound of the organ mingled with the strum of guitars and the harmonies of voices that have sung together for generations.

During the 150th Anniversary Service, the Rev. Alan Burnett invited the congregation to reflect not only on the years behind them but on the call that continues ahead. “We are not simply remembering history,” he said, “we are standing within it — carrying the faith of those who have gone before us and living it anew for those who will come after.”

The services combined the traditional and the contemporary — prayers from the New Zealand Prayer Book, familiar hymns, and moments of spontaneous joy. Both gatherings captured the spirit of Anglican worship at its best: reverent yet alive, rooted yet forward-looking.