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New bishops find their niche Robin Russell, Nov 24, 2008
UMR PHOTOS BY ROBIN RUSSELL
New Bishop Joaquina Nhanala (Mozambique) sits during a photo shoot for the Council of Bishops.
By Robin Russell Managing Editor
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.—Two months into their tenure, the nine new United Methodist bishops elected last July have hit the ground running—dealing with crises in their episcopal areas and adjusting to packed schedules.
And now, they’ve maneuvered their first Council of Bishops gathering, which met Nov. 2-7 at historic Epworth By The Sea. Most new bishops came away with committee assignments for the next quadriennium.
Bishops Earl Bledsoe, Jim Dorff, Grant Hagiya, Mike Lowry, Elaine Stanovsky and Julius Trimble gathered Nov. 1 for some last-minute instructions on how the Council functions. Bishops Peggy Johnson and Paul Leeland were delayed due to work-related reasons and a family wedding, while Bishop Joaquina Nhanala attended Central Conference meetings scheduled at the same time.
Despite the fact they’re still adjusting to the scope of their new responsibilities, most new bishops said they are enjoying their role.
“I like going to the office every day,” said Bishop Jim Dorff (San Antonio). “Every day’s a new day. You never know what you’re going to find, and I like that—for the most part. I haven’t yet learned how to look at my calendar for the big picture rather than just the day-to-day. It’s been an eye-opening experience.”
Bishop Bruce Ough (West Ohio) gave an overview of how the Council uses its corporate leadership, saying that bishops elected in 2004 wanted to have more of an influence in shaping the church spiritually. (The denomination’s Book of Discipline mandates bishops to “exercise oversight of the church.”)
The November Council meeting, he said, would focus on developing the denomination’s new Four Areas of Focus. Bishop Ough also explained how the Council has restructured itself, including trimming the size of episcopal committees from 30-40 members to more manageable groups of six to eight.
Each active and retired bishop is given the opportunity to list areas of interest; the Council’s Leadership Discernment Committee then matches preferences with the church’s needs.
Bishop Trimble, for instance, will help with the development of the Africana hymnbook and serve on the immigration task force and teaching concerns committee. Bishop Stanovsky will be on the Path One Committee and is being considered for training as a church trial judge, as is Bishop Hagiya. Others will serve on finance, global health, vision alignment, ministry study, leadership development and elimination of poverty committees.
Bishops also received some “best practices” on how to handle disciplinary actions, including having to ask a clergy member to surrender his or her credentials.
Bishop Robert Schnase (Missouri) outlined for his new colleagues how he handles the “most serious and egregious situations” involving clergy. When he was assigned as a new bishop to Missouri in 2004, he found three lawsuits awaiting his attention, including one with a $6 million judgment. “The verdict was larger than our conference resources,” he said.
High-risk situations ranging from clergy sexual misconduct to missing church funds, combined with a low level of expertise, “can make you feel you’re in over your head,” Bishop Schnase said. He strongly urged bishops to build a team “who works the issue” and that might include an assistant, dean of the cabinet, conference treasurer or the chancellor—people in whom “you have a high level of trust.” Bishops are the ultimate decision makers, he said, but that doesn’t mean they have to investigate, research or be the legal expert in everything.
“Develop a system that is conducive to making good decisions in a timely way that doesn’t eat your lunch, that doesn’t take over your life,” Bishop Schnase said. “The bishop who controls the timeline controls the process, and the anxiety. Otherwise, you’re working it all the time, and you get eaten up by it.”
New bishops had the chance to ask more questions on the day-to-day business of leading the church. Bishop Julius Trimble (Iowa) asked veteran bishops how they handle the volume of correspondence that comes to their offices. Minnesota Bishop Sally Dyck said she does a “ferocious amount of reading at the airport” each time she travels.
Bishop Mike Lowry (Fort Worth) asked how others communicate on Facebook without having a lot of time to devote to it. “Young clergy set me up,” he said. “How do you do it without getting sucked into it?”
For Bishop Thomas Bickerton (Pittsburgh), it’s a matter of setting limits: “I tell people right up front, ‘I’ve got this block of time,’ and they love it. They know that you know, and it makes all the difference.”
Digital technology helps Bishop James Swanson (Holston) to communicate with young adults. He blogs—“even just two or three sentences, as long as it’s regular”—and says he wants to do more podcasting. But he cautioned his new colleagues: “Be yourself. Don’t try to be hip or cool if you’re not hip and cool. They love it when you’re just yourself.”
Coming into a new assignment sometimes means being compared to a predecessor, some bishops learned. They were counseled to just be themselves.
“They’re just trying to find out your style,” Bishop Dyck said. “I’m much more hands-on than my predecessor. If someone comes to me with a problem, I want to know how it ends. I want the loops closed. They just need to know, ‘Oh, that’s how she handles it.’”
“Be who you are,” agreed Bishop Max Whitfield (Northwest Texas-New Mexico). “You don’t have to be your predecessor. Use your strengths. That’s why you were elected.”
Bishops also wondered how they would find time for sermon preparation when visiting churches in their areas. “You have to pull off hats and put on another quickly,” Bishop Bickerton said. “Learn to flow with it.”
Bishop Dyck said she’s developed a habit of getting up every morning at 5 a.m. to read through the Bible and journal a page, which often gives her sermon illustrations. “That journal saved my life,” she said. “It’s like a sketchbook for an artist. I don’t know how I would have survived the last quadriennium without my sketchbooks. But it’s a discipline.”
The Council of Bishops is considering how to make the episcopacy more “21st-century,” Bishop Bickerton said. For one thing, it means making their office more transparent.
“I get up out of my chair and greet people,” he said. “My office is a meeting place, not a work place.”
He also encouraged them to “have fun with your people. I want my people to see I’m a real person.”
Bishop Swanson agreed. “I’m having fun—that’s shocking to some people,” he said. “Where else can I get paid to do what I love to do: work for the church, and to have the influence we do?”
UMR PHOTOS BY ROBIN RUSSELL
Bishop Bruce Ough (West Ohio) gave an overview of how the Council uses its corporate leadership, saying that bishops elected in 2004 wanted to have more of an influence in shaping the church spiritually. (The denomination’s Book of Discipline mandates bishops to “exercise oversight of the church.”)
love it. They know that you know, and it makes all the difference.”
