207 348-6602 | Worship every Sunday @ 10 a.m. Zoom available.
Get to know our church leaders and staff.
Pastor Kim Blocher is a native of Pennsylvania, who moved to the island last year with her husband, Larry Knutson. Pastor Kim’s background in ministry includes psychiatric chaplaincy in several settings, interim ministry at 4 churches, and a 13 year pastorate with a rural PA church. She was called to an interim pastorate at DISCC in May of 2023. Her call now encompasses an extended time of visioning with the church, to determine the best model of mission and ministry within the changing role of church life in this community.
Pastor Blocher’s call to ministry brought her to Lancaster Theological Seminary in 1993 where she received her Master’s of Divinity degree in 1995 and was ordained the same year in the United Church of Christ. In 2009, she completed her Doctor of Ministry degree through Lancaster Seminary. Her dissertation was entitled “Rehearsing Resurrection: Practicing What We Proclaim.” She also holds an M.B.A. from Shippensburg University. A proud veteran, Kim served in the United States Navy from 1974 to 1979 as a meteorological technician (i.e. weather-guesser).
Kim and Larry fell in love with Maine as they vacationed in this area; on MDI, Swan’s Island, and Brooklin. Larry has recently retired from Penn Trails, his business that specialized in designing and building trails for public and private entities. He can now be found hiking with our dogs Ethel and Emma down to the Mill Pond, across the street at the park, or anywhere else on the island. Kim’s great passion is for gardening and learning about native plants. She was a PA Master Gardener and now is content to garden at home and visit other people’s gardens. Kim studied horticulture at Longwood Gardens for many years. A favorite hobby is drying and preserving plant specimens.
Kim’s family, for many generations, has lived in Gettysburg PA. In the Battle of Gettysburg, the first day’s battle raged around her great-great grandfather’s farm near Barlow’s Knoll. The farm is still there and now part of Gettysburg National Military Park. Her roots in Pa are very deep, but now calls Maine home. Kim and Larry currently live in the Parsonage, and love being part of island life.
Edith Dunham has played piano and harpsichord since she was a child. She received a master’s in music in 2003 from Longy School of Music, with a performance degree in harpsichord. She started a music class for mothers and their toddlers in Paris in 2007, and then taught a children’s chorus in Bar Harbor from 2010 until she moved to Blue Hill in 2013. She has been the organist and choir director at the Parish of St Mary and St. Jude’s Church in Seal Harbor and Northeast Harbor intermittently since 2003, spending most of her time focused on her two daughters, who are now grown-up. In addition to being the music director at Deer Isle Sunset, Edith teaches Spanish at the Bay School in Blue Hill.
Dave Bayley, Moderator
Andy Bowes, Treasurer
Anne Bowes, Clerk
Susan Greenlaw, Financial Secretary
Susan Bayley
Alan Chesney
Anne Douglass
Rosalie Guy
Karen Hill
Rich Howe
Marshall Kaiser
Miriam King
Jack Scott
Lois Simmons
Susan Bayley, Head Deacon
Susan Greenlaw
Rosalie Guy
Vickie Hardie
Miriam King
Susan Scott
Lois Simmons
Carol Walsh
Jack Scott, Chair
Carl Simmons
Peter Haskell
Larry Jones
Dave Bayley
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