After 26 years of devoted service, the Rev. Dr. James Gray retired in 2024. We were most fortunate to find a highly experienced interim, Rev. Dr. Mark McDonough, who began in November 2024 and continues to provide strong leadership, thoughtful guidance, and inspiring worship programs.
The Spring of 2025 saw a period of reflection and congregation input around questions such as what drew us to the Dorset Church, what activities are most important to us, identifying values and changes we would like to see in the future, and ascertaining our expectations of the next minister. This resulted in a document entitled, “Summary: Transition Teams’s Small Group Conversations”. This was reviewed and accepted by the Congregation. The Cabinet appointed a Search Committee in December of 2025 which includes the following members: Joel Ario, Janet Chandler, Henry Chandler, Dick Coss, Rob Gaiotti, Rich Grip, Steve Holman, Elizabeth Karet, Linda O’Leary, Liz Schaefer, and Lynne Welsh. Linda O’Leary and Joel Ario were selected as co-chairs.
The Pastor Search Committee has been meeting weekly since late January 2026. Our first task is to complete the online UCC Church Profile. This 18-page “fill in the blanks” document includes a tremendous amount of data specifically about our demographics and finances as well as sections on our history, community vision, and expectations for our next minister, to name a few. We decided that this format, while required, doesn’t allow us the freedom to truly convey who we are as the United Church of Dorset & East Rupert. So additionally, we are working on a free-form narrative profile that will allow us to paint a picture that facts and figures alone don’t tell.
April 1st saw this hardworking committee meeting for the 10th week in a row. After consultation and review with Vt UCC Associate Pastor, Rev. Paul Sangree and Ministries Coordinator, Rev. Jackie Lingelbach we are in the process of finalizing our on line UCC Church Profile and our Dorset Church Profile. Both ministers gave our profiles a grading of excellent! Together these documents are approximately 35 pages long & include photographs of our church facility, the manse and various activities. We are awaiting final editing efforts and will coordinate publication with the launching of our new church website. The Search Committee will take a well deserved week off and meet with the Rev. Paul Sangree on April 15th. At this meeting he will provide information and advice on the next steps of receiving and reviewing applications and developing interview questions. In addition to the eleven members of the committee, we wish to thank Lee Romano, Julie & Dave Citron and Maggie McDonough for their expertise, guidance and assistance.
Joel Ario & Linda O’Leary, Co-chairs