Beloved Pastor Stepping Down After 34 Years

It’s hard to think of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Ardsley without thinking of The Reverend Robert J. Godley, who’s been rector there for the past 34 years. Multiple generations of parishioners have been christened, confirmed, married, and buried by Father Godley, who has shared these significant rites of passage with his congregational family.

That equation will be altered after July 2, when Father Godley will officially retire. Later this year, Father Godley and his wife Betty will move from Ardsley to South Carolina, leaving behind a church—and village—community that will be diminished in his absence.

Given that Father Godley “didn’t know where Ardsley was” when he was sent here after a year in Scarsdale, his impact on the village has been significant. He has served as chaplain for the Ardsley Fire Department, was a founder of Midnight Run, which provides food, clothing, blankets, companionship and conversation to New York City street people, and founded the Interfaith Caring Community of Ardsley-Greenburgh, a consortium of local religious institutions that come together to run such events as the Thanksgiving Eve service.

“We have a need to be together,” said Father Godley, who was delighted that the group had a “sense of community. Our faith families functioned as one, without losing our individual identities.”

Father Godley has often been the “go to” minister for the larger Ardsley community, offering his wisdom, compassion and spiritual guidance during the post 9/11 memorials, and other occasions.

“I loved being available,” he said. “God gave me the gift of being available.”

Caring about the larger community, as well as his own church, was a hallmark of Father Godley’s distinctive ministry.

One of Father Godley’s favorite anecdotes concerns SHORE, Sheltering the Homeless Is Our Responsibility, Inc, a group that was launched in 1985 to offer shelter and food a few nights a month to homeless men in Westchester: “Friendships developed, people got jobs,” he recalled.

One Christmas Eve, when it was St. Barnabas’s turn to provide shelter, Jewish congregants from Woodlands Community Temple showed up at the church to do the work. “Boundaries didn’t become barriers,” said Father Godley. “We were going about what God was telling us to do collectively, to take care of people sleeping on the streets.”

There is much that Father Godley will miss about Ardsley, who met and married his wife here and raised their family, Jimmie, Kristen, Kyle, David and Robbie. His favorite hang-out has been the luncheonette, Margy’s, in the CVS strip mall, where he has stopped in nearly every day, initially going there to “find out how to get to the church.”

Ardsley itself, as well as St. Barnabas, has defined his adult life.

“For me, it was home,” he said simply. “I was connected to everybody. We were connected in ways that other communities aren’t.”