About us

About Christian Resource Centre

Our History

In the 1860s, the Wellesley Street Baptist Church (now the Tabernacle) was advised that there were undelivered packages for "Superintendent, Sunday School, New Zealand". These packages were given to the Baptist Church. They turned out to be reports sent out each year by the London Sunday School Union. The reports were read keenly, and it sparked the idea of uniting people engaged in Sunday School work in Auckland. By 1864, Sunday School teacher's meetings in Auckland were discussing the idea of forming a group or union. Six schools agreed to go ahead and in 1865 the Sunday School Union was launched and underway -- with the Auckland Sunday School Union Bookshop included.

Today

We were established as a bookshop in Auckland city almost 150 years ago with Sunday School Union, and from 2008 we have taken over the ownership of CRC.

We have a passion for books and the church, and we want to inspire and impact people, to educate and create a desire to know more about God so as in turn to reach out to the needy in our communities and the nations. Using personal knowledge and background in Christian books we want to create a place of meeting, a network of not just clients but of friends. Our customers are the local population, youth (students who are actively involved, young leaders) and city workers (more the conservative, traditional family). We hope to work more closely with churches and Sunday schools, supplying educational programs and prizes. Our customer base is global, multicultural, often seeking foreign-language items and quality gifts. We have over 100,000 items in stock, a wide range including music, DVDs, bibles, general books, children resources, and gifts. We are a progressive shop using the latest technology in communication, offering a huge variety of stock and being able to source quality products globally.

From 2014 we have changed yet again. We moved out of Auckland City to pursue new opportunities, and we're constantly changing and developing more ways to reach out to people with Christian literature. Recently we started offering second-hand books, which will add value for our customers to enable them to buy books at reduced prices, and we can offer books otherwise no longer available.