[8] The slow pace of communication between the British Isles and the far-flung colony of New Zealand allowed Deck to operate more or less independently.

When his son, John Field Deck returned to England in 1859 to study Medicine, however, and gravitated towards the Open Brethren,[7] Exclusive leaders, including Darby, became concerned.

[11] Meanwhile, Gordon Forlong, a Scottish lawyer turned evangelist who had played a prominent role in the Second Great Awakening in Scotland around 1859-1860 and had subsequently moved to England and founded a large congregation, Talbot Tabernacle, in Notting Hill, London, emigrated to New Zealand in 1876, where he spent the final thirty-two years of his life.

"Bible Chapels" include both conservative and progressive assemblies, while "Community Churches" (often similar to the Brethren-affiliated "Evangelical Churches" of the United Kingdom) tend to be at the progressive end of the spectrum, often with salaried pastors, women taking an audible part in worship — and sometimes in leadership, and varying degrees of openness to the Charismatic movement.

"Bible Churches" tend to embrace many progressive trends, but generally retain a male-only leadership and continue to disassociate themselves from the Charismatic movement.

Visits to New Zealand by British Brethren preachers Campbell McAlpine and Arthur Wallis in the late 1950s and early 1960s caused a great deal of controversy.

Although widely welcomed at first, both found themselves increasingly isolated as their Charismatic sympathies became known and Brethren leaders like Robert Laidlaw, William H. Pettit, Enoch Coppin, Colin Graham, and Ces Hilton, along with J.

[13] At a conference at Howe Street Chapel on 21 November that year, leading Brethren from throughout New Zealand signed a statement declaring in part: "Those members of this assembly who in any way hold the signs gifts ... or those who associate with people who hold these views, are not to take part in any assembly gathering or activities, whether in the remembrance meeting of a Sunday morning, the Sunday School, the rallies, the women's meeting, or any other activity at all, until they are freed from their error to the satisfaction of responsible brethren ....

This magazine, founded in 1899 by Charles Hinman,[27] long played a leading role in keeping the highly independent Brethren assemblies together as a network.

It expressly denies being either a union or an advocacy group; its stated aim is to give pastors a forum for mutual support and encouragement.

Pathways College is a Tauranga-based theological seminary formed in February 2000 by the merger of two older Brethren[30] institutions: New Zealand Assembly Bible School and GLO Training Centre.

[32] GC3 is an umbrella organisation encompassing three institutions: Global Connections in Mission (GCiM), which supports 150 missionaries abroad as well as almost 100 evangelists in New Zealand,[3] GC Assist, an "operations trust" within GC3 which runs, among other projects, Headspace, a one-year program for school leavers,[33] and GC Aid, a humanitarian NGO.