The Reverend Dr Carlton Johnstone, Arrowtown’s minister for the past nine and a-half years, says "if you want a metaphor, it’s kind of like a child growing up and now leaving home, rather than that separation kind of narrative".
Johnstone notes when he arrived there were only about 20, mostly older, parishioners.
"Over the years we’ve grown and now we’ve got over 100 people including 40 kids and young people."
He says a catalyst for the move was the Rev Ian Guy leaving last year after 12 years as Wakatipu’s minister overseeing five congregations, including Arrowtown.
A consultant was brought in "to explore what it would look like if we stood on our own, what it would look like for Wakatipu".
"We thought that would give both places stronger, more focused leadership, it would probably enable each place to flourish more."
It also means the Arrowtown parish will have its own governing body, or ‘session’ of elders, and own property group.
Wakatipu minister Clay Peterson de Oliveira, who’s been with the church for 11 years and stepped up when Guy left, with the help of a transitional minister, says the move also makes sense as his parish has a lot going on, including the recent sale of its Queenstown church and future plans for Frankton where it already has a church.
Johnstone adds: "We agreed on a memorandum of understanding on a number of things we would still like to continue doing together, like some of the stuff with our youth ministry, shared events and just continuing to meet up and encourage each other and pray for each other."
The Arrowtown move is also interesting in an historical context.
After being part of the Wakatipu parish from 1873, Arrowtown also went out on its own in 1901.
Then from 1940 it was part of the Cromwell parish before reamalgamating with Wakatipu in ’97.
