After 30 years, Trent Baptist pastor retiring

At first “God Made a Farmer,” as Paul Harvey liked to say.
But eventually God called that farmer to be a pastor.
The Rev. Dave Knutson, pastor at Trent Baptist Church, is retiring from his second career as a preacher and is leaving the congregation after 30 years serving the area community.
“My second career, but my first church,” Knutson says of the only church he has served and an unusual length of stay for a clergy. “We appreciated it here. It’s a rural ministry which is what we wanted.”
Trent Baptist will honor Knutson and his wife, Debbie, from 2-4 p.m. July 19 at the church. He will lead his last service in Trent at 9:30 a.m. July 26, before leaving the next day to move back to the farm in Nebraska where he spent his first career.
While in Trent, Knutson has been a part of the Flandreau and Dell Rapids ministerial associations, has helped start Moody County Cares, started a contemporary worship for a few years at the Crystal Theatre on Sunday evenings, led campers at Camp Judson in the Black Hills and wrote Christmas musicals for the church to perform each year. He also started a prayer time at the flagpole at the Flandreau school for students and staff who wanted to participate each fall when school started.
Trent Baptist hasn’t had to look for a pastor for 30 years. For now, until a more permanent pastor is found, they will be served for the next year by interim preacher, Randy Maass, who was a pastor in Marion and wants a short-term position until he retires, said Kent Whipkey. Whipkey was born and raised attending the Trent church and is the church moderator.
“It worked out just perfect,” he said of Maass. “I think the good Lord had something to do with that.”
Having Knutson as pastor for three decades has provided the church with consistency, Whipkey said. When they hired him, the congregation was looking for someone with a rural background. Like anything that lasts 30 years, there have been some bumps in the road and some ups and downs at the only church in Trent, he said. But their pastor has continued to be a servant to the community.

“Pastor Dave is a very servant-minded pastor. If somebody doesn’t pick up what they’re supposed to do, he’ll pick it up and do it himself,” Whipkey said. Knutson is also very knowledgeable about the Bible, has led Bible studies and plays guitar and drums. He and his wife also are the maintenance and custodial staff at the church where about 50 people attend worship.
“We will very much miss him. We’re trying to fill in all the shoes that he’s been doing,” Whipkey said.
With Knutson retiring, the Trent congregation will be looking for some new ways to be a spiritual light and serve God in the community, Whipkey said.
Knutson, 67, was born in Colorado, and as a college-aged young man, his family bought a farm near Bridgeport, Neb. One summer when he was home from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where he was earning an ag degree with an emphasis in agronomy, his mother and Debbie’s mother tried to line them up. The women farmed near each other and were in the extension club together.
He turned her down when she and her nieces asked him to go swimming, but later he asked her out and she said “yes.” The couple married and bought Debbie’s mother’s farm.
They raised sons Neil and Charles, who both graduated from Flandreau, are married and live in California. The Knutson’s have five grandchildren.
In 1987, when the Knutson’s went to the back to renew their loan, they were denied. That’s when he decided on a second career.
“We prayed about it a lot, and we didn’t know what we should do,” he said. They decided that Knutson, who was a Lutheran until he joined the Baptist church in 1976, would attend Central Baptist Theological Seminary for three years in Kansas City, Kan., starting in the fall of 1987.
“I think the Lord was really leading us there.”
They sold their farm machinery for money to live on and left the farm in the hands of a niece.
That’s where they will return, to the place that they first met and where she still has family.
“We might be working for one of them. I’ll prob do some ministry. I don’t think I’ve done yet,” he said.
It’s been odd ending his career during a pandemic, when he isn’t able to visit people in nursing homes, Knutson said.
“I love visitation. It’s just one of the things I like doing. But I’m not allowed to do it right now.”
Knutson will miss his congregation.
“This is the greatest church in the world. We’ve made a lot of good friends, too. We’ve gone through some difficult times, too,” he said. After 30 years, he knows people well, and appreciates them.
“I see people who need Christ. They want to be here,” he said. “We’re trying to trust the Lord for what happens.”