Constructed as a landmark building in Ponsonby, St John's Church opened for worship on 30 April 1882. The church was one of several places of worship built during the later nineteenth century to serve the growing and varied religious needs of the expanding suburb. Completion of the new structure appears to have been celebrated by the wider Protestant community. Two of the six opening services were conducted by Rev. Spurgeon of Auckland's Baptist Tabernacle, and Rev. Robertson of St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Ponsonby. Members of the Methodist (also known as Wesleyan) faith were represented among Auckland's first European settlers. The town's first Methodist services, held in 1841, led to the establishment of a local congregation. A Wesleyan chapel was constructed in High Street in 1843, to be replaced by a more substantial brick building five years later. By 1865, the Wesleyan community was sufficiently well established to erect a large church on Pitt Street, seating 650 individuals. The 'Mother Chapel' in High Street closed in 1874, leaving the Pitt Street church to lead further development in Auckland and the surrounding area. Ponsonby's Wesleyan church was one of many new places of worship to develop under the auspices of the Pitt Street community. In 1876, the Wesleyans took steps to provide a place of worship in Ponsonby, paralleling a similar move by Presbyterians in the same year. Both groups went on to build large timber churches in the Gothic Revival style in the suburb, in 1882 and 1880 respectively. There had been an Anglican church on Ponsonby Road since 1866, and the Baptist and Roman Catholic faiths were to each build new churches in the locality in 1885 and 1887. Ponsonby's population of 1,640 in 1874 had more than doubled by 1881, and was to double again by 1886. This was the result of a speculative surge of house-building on Auckland's suburban fringe, which occurred during a protracted economic boom in the 1870s and early 1880s. Early in 1876 Wesleyan services had commenced in a building on Summer Street. An area of land, part of the present St John's site, was purchased and a small weatherboard chapel opened for worship on 11 November 1877. A year later a gallery was built to provide more seating, but within another three years the building was too small. The congregation's rapid growth led to the appointment of a separate minister for Ponsonby in 1880, and the following year a property adjoining the chapel was bought to allow for expansion. Plans were prepared for a large new church seating 550 people, and the foundation stone of the current structure was laid on 2 November 1881. The new building was to be part of a larger complex of religious and educational structures serving Methodist needs. A dwelling that previously occupied the purchased site was moved back to face Arthur Street, where it served as a parsonage, and the 1877 chapel was also relocated on the site to serve as a Sunday School hall and gymnasium. Costing £2,240, the new building was constructed by James Heron, a foundation trustee of the church, to the design of Edward Bartley (1839-1919), who had worked in Auckland as a designer-builder since 1854. Bartley formally began practice as an architect in the 1880s and was to become vice-president of the Auckland Institute of Architects and Diocesan Architect for the Anglican Church. He constructed a number of notable ecclesiastical and other buildings in the Auckland area, including St David's Church, Symonds Street (1880); Holy Trinity Church, Devonport; Jewish Synagogue, Princes Street; the Opera House, Queen Street; and the Auckland Savings Bank, Queen Street (all 1884). With the exception of churches at Pitt Street, Grafton Road and Parnell, comparatively few Wesleyan places of worship in Auckland were said to have any architectural pretensions before the construction of St John's. Most new Methodist churches, or chapels as many still preferred to call them, were small structures of comparatively humble design. By contrast, Ponsonby's new house of worship, designed in Gothic Revival style, was unmistakably a 'church'. Gothic Revival was modelled on predominantly British medieval ecclesiastical architecture and became the preferred style for Anglican churches from the mid nineteenth century. Initially rejected by 'low church' denominations for its association with pre-Reformation religious hierarchy, it was also adopted in the latter part of the century by Wesleyan and other congregations as these groups became increasingly part of the religious establishment. By the time that St John's was constructed, many Wesleyans who had settled in Auckland in earlier decades had become people of substance. Prominent local figures involved as foundation trustees of St John's included the solicitor William Thorne (1847-?), a city councillor and member of Auckland Harbour Board; Joseph Liston Wilson, proprietor of the New Zealand Herald; and George Winstone (1848-1932), co-founder of Winstone Brothers' haulage and quarrying firm. Ongoing debate between 'high' and 'low' church elements within the congregation is indicated by discussions about whether the new building should be named after St John the Baptist or John Wesley, founder of the Wesleyan faith. Nationally, the Methodist denomination grew in strength during the 1880s, peaking just after the turn of the twentieth century at which time an estimated one in ten New Zealanders was Methodist. During this period, St John's Church was the centre of the religious, cultural and social life of its members. Prior to the First World War (1914-1918), St John's had a cricket eleven in the Auckland club competition. With the outbreak of war, however, the team and an adult gymnastics group went out of existence. Modifications were made to the church interior in the early 1900s, including the accommodation of a pipe organ and the creation of vestries at the eastern end of the church in 1903. In 1927, a communion rail made by a congregation member (a cabinet-maker) was added. As well as work undertaken to strengthen the Church tower and sheath the spire in copper, electric lighting was also installed in the Church. The layout of the sanctuary was modified by relocating the pulpit to the south side. Some of these changes indicate the changing relationship between minister and congregation. A photograph of the sanctuary taken in 1897 shows that a pastor and choir on the rostrum would have been distanced from worshippers by the height of the platform and the strict delineation of space. Although modifications undertaken in 1903 had brought the pulpit further forward, it was not until 1927 that the minister was able to preach from a position closer to the level of the congregation. These mirror broader social changes in New Zealand, whereby there was a growing emphasis on egalitarian ideas through the early twentieth century. Like other churches in the older suburbs of New Zealand's larger cities, St John's suffered a substantial decrease in its congregation following the Second World War (1939-1945). By 1953 the church exterior required extensive repairs, and in 1964 the earlier church - re-used as a Sunday School - was burnt down. With the inflow of Pacific Island peoples to Auckland's inner city suburbs in the 1960s, St John's main ministry changed. The District Synod saw the need for a centre where the social and cultural needs of the church's Samoan members could be met, after which St John's Church was used as the headquarters of an Auckland District Samoan Fellowship. A Samoan minister, Rev. Siauala Amituana'i, was appointed to St John's, and an extension to the church erected in 1977 to accommodate a Methodist Samoan Community and Cultural Centre. In 1983 St John's became the first Samoan Methodist parish in New Zealand. This parish covered the Auckland District and Manurewa in the Manukau District, as it does today. In 1989, a two-storeyed hall addition was constructed to accommodate a Sunday School and to better provide for social activities of the congregation and other community groups.