WEST BARNET — The Presbyterian Church of Barnet on Sunday afternoon welcomed its newest minister, the Rev. Dakota Whitaker.
About 50 members of the church gathered in-person, masked, and participating in the mostly socially-distanced ordination, which saw the laying of hands on the new minister with fully-masked church elders and reverends who serve on the ordination commission.
Shellie Samuels, an elder in the parish as well as its assistant treasurer, served on the hiring committee to help the church find its new pastor, with eight other members of the congregation.
She said, “Our former pastor was the Rev. Dr. Howard Gaston, who moved back to Western Pennsylvania in October, 2019,” explained Samuels. “We hired Rev. Bob Rochelle from Littleton as our interim, and then COVID … We had two years searching, kind of … then Dakota came along!”
On the website for the church, Rev. Whitaker is introduced, “Before settling in Vermont, Dakota was raised in Alabama before meeting his wife Megan in Nashville, TN in 2014. He holds a Bachelor’s of Classical Music from the University of South Alabama, a Master’s in Youth Ministry from Memphis Theological Seminary, and a Master’s of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. Dakota and Megan have two daughters. They all love to rock climb, explore the outdoors, and cook.”
Les Morrison, also a church elder and the chairman of the hiring committee, said before the ordination that the group first worked to decide “what we needed for a minister.”
With those qualities in hand, he explained, “You go looking for a minister.”
He said when the committee first received the application of the soon-to-be pastor Dakota Whitaker, who was still attending Princeton University in Princeton, NJ to earn his Master’s Degree in Divinity, the entire group had a strong feeling he was the one.
“We were looking for someone who was young, that could encourage the young people to come to the church,” said Morrison, noting with another member of the committee and elder Bill Conant, that the church has many members who are in their 70s and 80s, and they are hoping to draw in young families and younger community members to keep the church thriving.
Dakota Whitaker is a young father, married, and with two daughters, who ran upstairs with Conant before their dad’s ordination got underway to pull on the rope that rings the bell in the historic church set in the Village of West Barnet.
Conant nodded about Whitaker fitting the bill for being youthful in the hopes the church can remain vibrant and strong under his leadership, and added, importantly, “He’s well-versed in scripture.”
Morrison added, “He’s worked in the music industry. He’s a song writer, he wrote songs in Nashville.” And, he noted, the new minister can play the guitar!
In fact after the laying of the hands, and the official pronouncement by the Rev. John Seiders, who moderated the ordination from the Windham Presbyterian Church in Windham, NH, representing The Presbytery of Northern New England for the ordination and installation, the now-official Rev. Whitaker shared that a decade ago he was heading to Nashville, Tenn., to pursue a career in music, but noted that God had other plans for him, and here he was today, taking the helm of the church in Barnet, Vermont, with an eager parish awaiting its next chapter.
Rev. Seiders, at the start of the ordination, said, “He’s a special guy, and this is a special congregation.”
Conant, before the ordination ceremony began, said of the church hiring Dakota Whitaker, “We’re very fortunate,” adding that he also has a higher degree in youth ministry.
Melody Morrison, Les’s wife, added, “Blessed.”
Once the match was made and the offer from the Presbyterian Church of Barnet accepted by the still theological student, the plans for he and his family to relocate to Vermont and live in the parsonage were made. Les Morrison and Ben Gates, both St. Johnsbury business owners and members of the hiring committee for the new minister, drove down to Princeton, NJ, and helped the family to move back to the NEK, said Morrison.
A member of the ordination commission, Nichols-Fleming said the church’s hiring committee was searching for someone who had “a pastor’s heart” and they found him.
Rev. Whitaker took to the pulpit for the first time as the newly ordained minister of the church, though he has been here and serving the parish since early December awaiting his official installation.
He was succinct, a quality Melody Morrison noted was a trait of his sermons, saying they are personal and memorable, and he shared about how his path had taken him from Nashville and music to God and Barnet, Vermont.
“God is in the business of changing our plans,” shared Rev. Whitaker. “If we look with the eyes of faith, what we will see is that God is always moving us from darkness to light.”
Rev. Whitaker then made his very first announcement as the church’s official reverend, calling attention to bags of treats including homemade cupcakes, available in the church’s lower level to take home, saying it was not a time of fellowship due to COVID-19, and noting, “They’re treats on the go … you can snatch them on your way out!”
“May the presence of Christ be with you,” he said, and headed to the back door to greet his parish and receive their warm welcomes and congratulations.
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Dear Amy,
Thank you for your article on the Rev. Mr. Whitaker's installation as Pastor at the Barnett Presbyterian Church. Its a great day for that congregation. And by the way, one of my former colleagues in NYC, the Rev. Beverly Bartlett, began her ministry there many years ago. So I have followed it throughout the years. It sounds like Dakota is just exactly who they need and we pray them a good, strong, and faithful ministry here in the North Country.
A couple of corrections/clarifications to your article:
Presbyterian's do not "hire" ministers, we call them to serve.
They are sought through a Presbytery monitored search process, called by the congregation, and installed by the Presbytery.
Ministers in our tradition are not "reverends" but "ministers," "pastors," "teaching elders," or 'Ministers of Word and Sacrament," but never "reverend; it is an adjective, not a noun. The proper use of the term is "the reverend Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr. .....
The Rev. Mr. Whitaker received his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, not Princeton University--they are two independent education institutions in the same town, and have been since 1812, when the Seminary was founded by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.
And finally, the Rev. Mr. Robert Rochelle was the Interim Pastor during those two years.
Thanks for listening.
Fred R. Anderson (The Rev. Dr.)
Pastor Emeritus, Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, NY, NY.
Trustee Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ.
Retired and residing in Whitefield, NH
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