The sight of children dancing inside United Methodist Church during vacation Bible school makes Rev. Debbie Schmidt smile.

For her it’s a proud moment to see the 75 children and 35 volunteers keep the place buzzing with activity. It also makes her think back to her first summer in Whitefish when the program was led by out-of-town volunteers for just 25 children.

“We’ve slowly been building our congregation and young families have joined the church,” she said. “We still love doing vacation Bible school and it’s a fun thing for the whole community.”

Schmidt gave her last sermon Sunday, retiring after serving 14 years as pastor at the Methodist church in Whitefish.

“The Methodist church, along with the Episcopal church, are the most inclusive of the Unitarian Christ-centered churches,” Schmidt said. “We are welcoming of absolutely everyone.”

“I’m proud that we’re a place for people who have been hurt by the church or who were never raised in the church,” she said. “That we can be the place for them to explore what God is doing in their lives with a focus on grace and not on judgment.”

Raised in Chicago, by a Catholic father and a Protestant mother, she remembers many fights at home being over religion. Her parents eventually divorced when Schmidt was 30.

“Somehow I knew that the conflict wasn’t about God,” she said. “God is about love, not fighting, about faith and wanting to provide a place of healing, peace and acceptance — that’s my guiding principal.”

Schmidt is grateful to have found the church. It’s the feeling of acceptance and love she says she was missing as a child.

Though she found the church, it wasn’t until she was in her late 40s that she attended seminary school. She and husband, Tom, were raising their son in Helena. Schmidt was working for the Montana Legislature as a staff director of the Environmental Quality Council and serving in her church when she knew she wanted to join the ministry.

“My journey in the ministry came out of my journey in politics,” she said. “The agency I worked for was non-partisan and I had to learn how to help people find ways to find common ground — that’s been great experience to have.”

She realized that for the political will to do good, there had to be a healing of people’s hearts. Today, she’s happy that at United Methodist in Whitefish both Republicans and Democrats sit side-by-side because they have a common belief in the kingdom of God.

At the age of 50, Schmidt graduated from Garrett-Evangelical on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. She was then appointed to serve at Bozeman United Methodist Church.

In 2001, she was appointed to Whitefish. She came in at a time when the church was relocating to its new building off of Wisconsin Avenue. The church has added a daycare and preschool, grown in its youth group and continues outreach in the community through many projects including the community garden, helping serve a community meal in Hungry Horse and outreach to Browning, Heart Butte and Babb.

“I’m most proud of not one specific thing,” she said. “I’m most proud that the church has really dedicated itself to moving beyond ourselves and being in service to others in our community.”