The Rev Dr Tokerau Joseph has got the call to head north, returning to Auckland, where he was raised.
Dr Joseph was born in Rarotonga but moved with his family to New Zealand in 1969, living in Grey Lynn, then South Auckland.
In 1995, he moved to Dunedin to train as a minister.
From 1999, he worked for five years in Auckland, returning to Dunedin to do an honours degree and PhD in theology and religion.
Dr Joseph started his Dunedin ministry as an associate minister at First Church, and was asked to be senior minister in 2008.
Of his time in Dunedin, he said it had been "a great journey" that helped shape him as a person and a minister.
The prominence of First Church in Dunedin meant there was plenty to live up to in terms of civic service and the connection with institutions such as the Dunedin City Council and the University of Otago.
He had been "very privileged" to work on university committees.
Dr Joseph said the church was not the building, but the people it served.
"I’ll miss the people. When you’ve been so close to people and you’ve had to bury them and marry them and baptise their children, and all the pastoral connections you’ve had with them, it’s been those relationships I’ll cherish most.
"It’s all very well having a beautiful historic building, but the real church is the people."
However, being able to climb the scaffolding and touch the top of the spire recently was also a highlight he would remember.
Dr Joseph said he had "accepted a call" to be minister of the Mairangi and Castor Bays Presbyterian Church in Auckland’s North Shore.
That was a "very different parish to First Church", but also an area with a diversifying population.
His PhD research was an exploration of ethnic relations in congregations of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand.
"I thought it was a good opportunity to continue putting into practice the things that I did in my PhD research."
He said he would also be closer to extended family in Auckland.
