If you’re looking for a story that isn’t about corruption or pork here is one to warm your heart.

Sitting on a stool in the center of a TV studio stuffed with anchor desks, fake brick walls and wires hanging from the ceiling, the Rev. Peter Panagore closed his eyes and meditated.

For several minutes he sat there, his head bowed, as a technician prepared the TelePrompTer and camera monitors flickered.

“I was getting my act together,” Panagore said later.

Such is life at the head of Maine’s only media ministry: the First Radio Parish Church of America. “A lot of the stuff I do happens inside my head,” he said of his quiet moments, which include plenty of prayer and quiet thought around his East Boothbay home.

Though the ministry is known by Mainers for its contemplative “Daily Devotions” - a fixture on TV for more than five decades on WCSH-TV in Portland and WLBZ-TV in Bangor - Panagore’s voice is becoming even better known.

Since taking over four years ago, he has aimed to broaden the ministry’s place among increasingly varied media.

“We’ve always been at the cutting edge,” he said.

In part, that’s a reference to the age of the church, which began in 1923 on radio and moved to TV in 1954.

“We are the oldest, continuously running, non-sectarian broadcast in the country,” Panagore said. “As far as we know, we are unique.” When the church went online in 1995, it was ahead of the curve, he said.

These days, Panagore creates those morning TV spots, radio programs and online mailings.

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