FARMINGTON — After 35 years as the pastor of three parish churches, including the Fairbanks Union Presbyterian Church in Farmington, the timing seemed right for the Rev. Scott Planting to accept a new position as director of Maine Sea Coast Mission in Bar Harbor.

He announced his retirement from the parish ministry, which also includes the North New Portland and New Portland churches, to parishioners on Sunday. He will complete his ministry here on Oct. 3 and start the new position in early November, he said Tuesday.

Planting wasn’t actively seeking a new position but was contacted by the Maine Sea Coast Mission, he said.

When a Presbyterian minister retires from a church, they are asked to leave the area for a couple years to help the new pastor settle in. Planting said he and his wife, Marsha, wondered what they would do when that time came for him. The new position provided that answer. They intend to keep their Farmington home and return once his work there is completed — whenever that may be.

“This is our home,” he said.

This was his first and only church. He came here in the summer of 1974  to serve as an intern to this parish and loved it, he said. He became the pastor in July 1975 at the age of 25.

What held him here was the people, “the character and commitment of very strong people who can deal with just about anything,” he said.

He continued the work started by the Rev. William Burger, a man with a strong sense of outreach to the community. As executive coordinator of the Mission at the Eastward, Planting has seen the work grow. The parish includes eight churches, a camp at Eastward in Starks, a youth program, a West Parish housing program and a South African partnership.

Planting is preparing to take 21 people to a rural South African community in August, his 10th trip there, he said.

He was mentored by the Rev. Carl Georges of Leeds, who took him “under his wing” and taught him to get to know the people in his parish and model life on the people around him. He also taught him to “do your job and follow your hearts delight, find things you love to do,” Planting said.

Planting loves the people here and their stories, the very rich, detailed stories that are often overlooked and not valued in other places, he said.

Along with his service on several boards of directors in the community, Planting chairs the 82 High Street Board of Directors. In 1987, the trailer park at what was then 82 High St. was up for sale. Planting and Fen Fowler from Western Maine Community Action were concerned about what would happen to the 50-plus, mostly low-income families if a new owner changed the usage of the trailer park, he said previously. It was their only place to live.

“It served the people there,” he said.

Just as the rural churches in his parish serve those communities. Describing a successful concert held Monday night at the North New Portland Church, where the town’s store, school and post office have closed, leaving only the fire department, library and church, the church stands as a powerful symbol to help revitalize the community, he said.

“In an area hit hard, the community looks for signs of hope, and I know the church has been that sign of hope,” he said.

In his new position, he’ll perform similar work, some administration and some preaching. The Maine Sea Coast Mission was started as a ministry to the outer islands. It includes a boat with a full-time pastor and a nurse to provide health care with a video opportunity to connect with a physician.

The mission provides an after-school program for about 500 children in Hancock and Washington counties, a food closet, a housing program modeled on MATE’s program and other ministries, he said.

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