POCATELLO — After 31 years of serving as the pastor for Central Christian Church, Roger Bray is set to retire.

Family and friends invite the public to attend a retirement reception held in his honor at noon Sunday at the church, 918 E. Center St. in Pocatello.

Bray, who left his home on a Blackfoot farm to initially pursue medicine at the age of 18, decided instead to commit his life to ministering when his sister was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

“During my sophomore year my sister … was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and I realized then that people needed their spiritual resources as well as their physical resources,” Bray said.

He swapped majors to pastoral ministry with a minor in political science, and went on to receive a Master in Divinity from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University.

Since becoming the pastor for Central Christian Church in 1991, he has been involved with many community organizations and councils, including being a startup leader with Gateway Habitat for Humanity and taking a role with the Portneuf Valley Interfaith Fellowship. Through the Interfaith he coordinated the annual community blanket drive from 1992 until now, and he also served as a Pocatello City Council member for over 10 years before resigning in September.

He said the congregation is politically diverse and is involved with social issues, and one of the key components for the denomination is the reconciliation program.

“I came up with a solution for funding our reconciliation program, which is our anti-racism program,” he said. “I did that years ago and it provides training in our congregation. I think that was an important thing we did.”

During his time serving as pastor, he grew to love seeing people of all ages coming up out of the baptistry font and explained it was one of his favorite things about the position.

“(It’s) the freshness and the sense of new beginnings they have, the awareness of how life can be lived in the fullness of God’s love,” he said.

While Bray plans to retire on Sunday, he volunteered to give the Christmas Eve sermon to help the new pastor transition into the role. It will be his last sermon.

After retirement, he said he’s looking forward to spending more time with his wife, Viola, children and grandchildren and becoming more involved with golfing, hunting and traveling. He said he’ll even dabble in hobbies he isn’t familiar with.

“Who knows? I might even pick up something called pickleball,” he said. “I don’t even know what it is, but now that I have a lot more time, I’ll have more time to engage in things.”