AFTER more than nine years as rector at St Barnabas’ Anglican Church, Reverend Gary Neville is retiring.
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Mr Neville will hold his final church service on Sunday.
His other duties this week have also included officiating at the Remembrance Day service in Robertson Park on Friday and he joined the children at the Mainly Music sixth anniversary on Wednesday.
“I have very mixed feelings about retiring but it’s a time in your life when you have to step into another phase,” Mr Neville said.
Before taking up the ministry at St Barnabas, Mr Neville was previously a bank manager in Sydney and worked for a time at Westpac in Orange before leaving the industry after 29 years due to ill health.
He also worked as a rural councillor before joining the church and was based at Rylestone and Kandos before filling a long standing vacancy at St Barnabas.
“What I’ve really been so happy about is seeing people mature and grow in their faith and spirituality, they’ve developed a really good understanding of who God is to them,” Mr Neville said.
He said the Mainly Music program was a good example of that and it was pleasing to see families participate and embrace their spirituality through the children’s music program.
However, he said while separate programs are going well overall church attendance has fallen away due to elderly members dying or people moving away from the area.
“You don’t replace those people in five months but thankfully people do come along and step up,” he said.
I have very mixed feelings about retiring but it’s a time in your life when you have to step into another phase.
- Reverend Gary Neville
Although Mr Neville is retiring his wife, Anne, is also ordained and will carry on in his stead until a replacement is found.
However, despite retiring from his position at the church Mr Neville will continue to fulfill his roles as a chaplain of police and chaplain of the RSL sub-branch.
“This has been a real gift coming here to Orange we never through doing the bank 30-odd years ago that we’d be here again,” Mr Neville said.