Milestone for parish

Rose Luxford is the first woman minister in the history of St Paul's Presbyterian Church in Oamaru.

The original church was built on the Coquet St site in 1865.

It was replaced by a Thomas Forrester-designed church which opened in February 1876.

Luxford (53), who moved to Oamaru last week, has spent the past 12 years as minister at Iona Presbyterian Church in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, which was her first parish.

She has strong Otago connections, having been born in Dunedin and grown up in Milton.

She lived in Dunedin for many years.

During her training, which was in Dunedin, she spent 10 weeks on Auckland's North Shore which she really enjoyed.

"I think if I hadn't done that, I might not have considered Auckland," she said.

She had enjoyed her time in the city and being involved in a "fantastic" parish.

The church was much less historic than St Paul's being only about 50 years old.

Luxford said she loved her job and working with people.

While she used to think she would like to be a hospital chaplain, she liked the variety of parish ministry.

She had taken weddings for couples and later baptised their children and it was great having that ongoing contact, she said.

While she took a service at St Paul's last year, tomorrow will be her first official service.

There seemed to be "quite a lot going on" at St Paul's and she wanted to build on the strengths the parish had.

Luxford was impressed with Oamaru, saying it seemed to have "a bit of a buzz" about it, and she was looking forward to getting involved in the community.