The Cook Islands Christian Church is a Christian Congregationalist church and has approximately 18,000 members including 56% of the residents of the Cook Islands.

The Cook Islands Christian Church played a major role in the expansion of Christianity in the Pacific in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  From the late 1830s missionaries went out to Samoa, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and PNG, among other places.

In recent times, the Cook Islands have experienced radical change.  Tourism has had a big impact on Cook Island life, especially on the main island of Rarotonga.  The other significant change has been the large scale migration of Cook Islanders to New Zealand and Austrlia.  Today there are only about 19,000 Cook Islanders remaining in the Islands, with about 50,000 in New Zealand and about 20,000 in Australia.  This has left many outlying islands depopulated, some having less than a third of the population they had 20 years ago.

The Cook Island Christian Church has been significantly affected by the migration of its people.  It now has almost as many congregations overseas as it has in the Cook Islands.  There are 19 congregations of the Cook Islands Christian Church in New Zealand, 11 in Australia and 24 congregations in the Cook Islands itself. The Church is seeing that its mission challenge of the 21^st century is to share the Christian faith with Cook Islanders in Australia and New Zealand who are in danger of leaving the Christian faith.

The other major challenge to the Church is the impact of global culture on the life and culture of the Cook Islands.  This has led to many social problems.

The training program initiated by the Church for which they are seeking support for equipment is in response to these two major concerns.  The program is spearheaded by the Church President Rev. Tangimetua Tangatatutai, and is a most creative initiative that hopefully will strengthen the Church in a time of radical change and facilitate an appropriate mission response.

Downloadable Resources:

Poster