Chris Dodds, who’s almost 50, was installed by Dunedin-based Bishop Anne van Gend at Queenstown’s St Peter’s Church last Saturday.
Growing up in the Christian faith in Balclutha, Dodds says "I knew a call to ministry when I was eight years old".
However, while studying law and business at Otago "I walked away from my faith, I guess I thought life was going to be better without God".
After uni he had a marketing role with Tourism Wellington’s convention bureau, worked in the Intellectual Property Office and worked in a bar he part-owned for about 15 months.
In his late 20s "I started exploring, I guess, bigger questions again when the things I put my hope in failed".
Dodds subsequently became a youth pastor in a non-denominational church in Wellington, studied at a seminary in Boston, in the United States, then served at an Anglican church there — "my wife’s [Kara] American so we spent some time there".
Returning to New Zealand, he was a minister in a Wellington parish for six years then had just over a year at Palmerston North’s All Saints’ before being called to Queenstown.
Ironically, Bishop van Gend’s husband, Michael Godfrey, was acting vicar for about two years — "I’m thrilled to have him home," she says.
Dodds, who’s arrived with his wife and three young sons, says he plans to be out and about —"it’s about meeting people, hearing their stories" — and will write a lot of his sermons in cafes.
He’s looking forward to meeting not only his Queenstown, Arrowtown and Glenorchy parishioners, but also the many visitors passing through.
"I think when you’re on holiday you often think about bigger questions.
"When you look at beauty, well, what’s the source of beauty?
"Where’s true rest in an anxious world?"
