Formerly known as Bays Christian Fellowship, it was founded in 1982 by current senior pastors Peter Mortlock and his wife Bev Mortlock. The church also holds regular Community Impact days where over 700 volunteers go out into various schools, hospitals and homes to help clean, garden and maintain the properties, as they seek to put biblical principles into practice. The church also runs the television programmeImpact For Life on TV channel Prime, as well as on Shine TV, the Impact for Life programme has been screened regularly on the Australian Christian Channel, United Christian Broadcast in UK, Power Vision in India, Cook Islands TV in Rarotonga, World Harvest Broadcasting network in Fiji and Daavo Christian Bible Channel in the Philippines.
Expansion of the Church
In addition to the North Shore and the Mt. Wellington campuses, in 2018, City Impact Church has rented a theatre in Westgate Cinema Complex to run their weekly Sunday services, which CIC now has two Auckland campuses and one Theatre Church. City Impact Church also has a network of churches in the South Island of New Zealand. These are located in Queenstown, Invercargill, Balclutha, as well as overseas churches, City Impact Church Canada, in Moncton and Fredericton, and one in Tonga. City Impact Church Canada is based in Moncton and has two other locations in New Brunswick, Canada. The church's Senior Pastor's are Gerry and Toby LeBlanc. The main church in Moncton has a 300-seat auditorium with attached auditorium for the youth and Sunday school services. In 2011, City Impact Church earned a revenue of $10,000,000 – roughly $6.9 million of that coming from donations.
CIC founded City Impact Church School in 2004, where subjects include History, Geography and Doctrine, Language, Mathematics, Science, Art, Music, Drama, PE, and Kingdom Building, and teaches Years 0 through to 13. In 2015 the school opened a new classroom block to accommodate for the large growth in the school. It was temporarily closed in 2005 by the Ministry of Education because it was not a registered educational institution, however was soon reopened once registration was complete.
Community Impact
CIC runs a community support program called Community Impact. This program involves hundreds of church volunteers going to various schools, hospitals and private homes and helping clean, garden and decorate the property. The church holds 3-4 Community Impact days a year, with over 700 volunteers reaching 150-200 homes across New Zealand. City Impact also delivers over 1000 Christmas boxes every Christmas to underprivileged individuals and families as part of their Christmas community impact day. To help identify and support families City Impact works with numerous different community organisations.
City Impact Childcare
The church has three childcare centres, two in Auckland and one in Queenstown. 80% of their teachers are qualified and they are open to both church members and not-church members. In 2014 one of their head teachers, Francesca Bunting, was awarded the NZ's Most Inspiring Teachers award in the Early Childhood category.
City Impact Church has historically worked alongside Brian Tamaki's Destiny Church. In 2004 they jointly organised the first of the Enough Is Enough rallies protesting against the legalisation of civil unions in New Zealand and promoting "traditional family values." A subsequent editorial in The New Zealand Herald pointed out that "for all the fear and loathing aroused in liberal discussion" the church had done nothing to suggest "that its intentions are other than law-abiding and democratic."
Poll controversy
In January 2013 The New Zealand Herald reported that pastor Peter Mortlock had attempted to manipulate a same-sex marriage poll. The poll was set up on the website of MP Murray McCully, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in reference to Louisa Wall's Marriage Amendment Act 2013, and asked "Do you support or oppose the proposed legislation that would make it possible for same sex couples to marry?" Mortlock emailed his congregation stating "Since we are able to vote as many times as we like, I'd encourage you to place your votes and keep checking back." The multiple votes were spotted by the McCully staff and were removed.
