By the time John Potter became minister of First Congregational Church in Wiscasset in 2003, he already felt a bit of a connection to it. He’d passed by it every summer of his life, when his family would go to the Lake Megunticook, Camden, cottage his father and grandfather bought the year he was born.

The Concord, New Hampshire-raised Potter was minister at a large church in Marblehead, Massachusetts, when he left for a year of boating around the Caribbean islands. He returned to ministering, with an interim post at South Freeport Congregational Church. Then he mentioned to a higher minister in Maine’s congregational churches that he hoped to find a position on the Midcoast somewhere between Camden and Harpswell, where he lived. The minister informed him the Wiscasset church was looking for its next minister.

“I was so excited, after driving by here for some 60 years,” Potter said in an Oct. 9 interview at the church. He has stayed on through 11 years of Sunday services, couples’ counseling, weddings, funerals, baptisms and hospital visits. Being a part of those most personal times with members and their families has been a privilege, as it has been wherever he has served, he said.

The self-described extrovert and his dog did tricks at the church’s annual Summerfest fundraisers and Potter helped get a new steeple installed.

“That was a huge effort and I was right up to my ears there,” he said.

In retirement, Potter will be spending time with nine grandchildren and doing some substitute work known as “supply preaching.” He already is booked for services Nov. 30 in Boothbay and a couple of February dates in Camden. Other than the fill-in work and the added time with family, he isn’t sure what retirement will look like.

“I’m going to be beginning a new chapter in my life,” he said.

He leaves a congregation in Wiscasset that he found to have the best aspects of a small congregation.

“It’s a really friendly group (with) lots of people volunteering for organizations in the community. They get along well. There are no factions,” he added.

Twenty percent of funds the church raises go beyond its walls into the community, Potter said.

“It’s a very mission-minded church. That’s something that’s been very refreshing to me.”

Potter’s departure means the church also moves on to its next chapter and the search for its next minister. A committee has formed, with interviews possibly to come in the next few weeks, Potter said. If no one is named by the time of the Nov. 9 service, the first without Potter, the church will have a supply preacher. But it won’t be him. In Maine’s Congregational churches, a minister is not supposed to serve again at a church he has left, Potter said.

It will be sad to leave the church, whose members have been incredibly supportive of him over the years, he said.

Congregation member Beth Maxwell of Wiscasset had a lot to say when asked what she will miss about having Potter as minister.

“He’s so good with people, with welcoming people, with understanding where they are and responding to them ... His worship services are wonderful.”

The church’s office administrator Pam Frenier said Potter always has an open door for anyone to come in and talk about their problems.

“And I have benefited from that myself during difficult times in my life ... I think that’s his strong point. He’s just a people person.

“He will be missed,” Frenier said.