GRANT Atkins is officially a reverend of the Uniting Church – and he returned to Tamworth at the weekend to celebrate the ceremony of his ordination with members of his former and new congregation.
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Reverend Atkins this week started his new life as a minister with the Quakers Hill Uniting Church, after his ordination ceremony was held at the Southside Uniting Church in Tamworth on Saturday.
He was with the Southside church as an unordained lay pastor from 2000 until 2011 and he and his wife moved to Sydney in early 2012. There he attended the theological college in Sydney to undertake a three-year training process, in order to get on the path to becoming a minister.
His first service as a reverend will be held on Sunday.
“Even though I studied down here (in Sydney) ... and started as the minister at Quakers Hill Uniting Church, I went back to Tamworth to be ordained at Southside,” Reverend Atkins said.
“In the Uniting Church, the area you came from, which is called the presbytery – which is (locally) the churches in the New England North West area – that’s where you come back and are ordained.
“I grew up in Tamworth. My wife and I joined a ministry that was an international drama ministry called Covenant Plans. We then travelled the world for 15-and-a-half years doing drama in places like India, south-east Asia, South America, South Africa and the United States. We then came out of that and back to Tamworth, and that’s when I started at Southside.”
Members of the local presbytery, as well as members of Reverend Atkins’ Quakers Hill congregation, took part in the ordination, which was led by presbytery chairman Bob Minton.
Also present were synod general secretary Reverend Andrew Williams from Sydney, members of Reverend Atkins’ family and students who attended the theological college with him.
“In so many ways it was the end of a long journey, but the beginning of a new one,” Reverend Atkins said.
“It was just nice to have that (the ordination) as the culmination of the years of preparation, and now I’m looking forward to entering into that new chapter here in Quakers Hill.”
