Preparing for Bishop Elections Outside US

by

Nov. 15, 2024 | ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. (UM News)

Key Points:

  • United Methodist bishops are praying for the elections of colleagues in the Philippines, Africa and Europe.
  • After the recent withdrawal of some bishops, one particular concern is that any new bishops are committed to the denomination.
  • Côte d’Ivoire’s departure already has had an effect on coming elections.

Starting this week and into next spring, United Methodists in the Philippines, Africa and Europe will be holding elections for bishops.

Altogether, the denomination’s central conferences plan to elect nine new bishops in Africa and two in Europe. The three bishops in the Philippines Central Conference also are up for re-election.

“As you can see, this is a major leadership change,” said Bishop Mande Muyombo, who leads the North Katanga Area, which includes Tanzania and parts of Congo. He is also the secretary for the central conference bishops.

“We need your prayers,” he told the denomination’s Council of Bishops, “so that the church will hold up and God will provide capable leadership that will help the church to move forward in the central conferences.”

A main concern for Muyombo and the denomination’s other current bishops is that their new colleagues be committed to staying within the United Methodist fold and not leading their flocks to another pasture.

Exits by previous bishops already have sent reverberations across the international denomination.

The United Methodist Church has seven central conferences, church regions in the Philippines, Africa and Europe that elect bishops.

They will meet as follows:

  • Philippines Central Conference: Nov. 18-22. Bishops Rodel Acdal, Ruby-Nell Estrella and Israel Painit face re-election.
  • West Africa Central Conference: Dec. 5-8. Two elections.
  • Germany Central Conference: Feb. 12-16, 2025. One election.
  • Africa Central Conference: March 13-17, 2025. Four elections. The central conference also will take the final steps to becoming two central conferences — East Africa and Southern Africa.
  • Central and Southern Europe Central Conference: March 13-16. No elections.  
  • Congo Central Conference: March 29-April 3. Three elections.
  • Northern Europe and Eurasia Central Conference: April 2-6, 2025. One election. The Eurasia Episcopal Area, encompassing churches in Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, will complete the journey to become an autonomous Methodist denomination.

As Eurasia’s exit shows, The United Methodist Church in recent years has struggled to maintain unity amid internal strife over the status of LGBTQ people in church life. The dispute has taken its toll on the denomination as a whole as well as its bishops.

Retiring bishops

The central conferences will choose successors for seven retiring bishops. They are: Bishops Harald Rückert of Germany, Eben K. Nhiwatiwa of Zimbabwe, Joaquina F. Nhanala of Mozambique and South Africa, José Quipungo of East Angola, Gabriel Unda of Eastern Congo, Owan Kasap of South Congo and Christian Alsted of the Nordic-Baltic Area.

The West Africa Central Conference also will elect the successors of the late Bishop John K. Yambasu in Sierra Leone and the now former United Methodist Bishop John Wesley Yohanna in Nigeria.

The Africa and Congo central conferences will each elect an additional bishop, as approved by the denomination’s General Conference earlier this year.

No bishop elections are planned for Eurasia or Côte d’Ivoire.

Exacerbating tensions has been the rise of the Global Methodist Church — a theologically conservative breakaway denomination founded by former United Methodists that launched in 2022 and has been recruiting from the United Methodist fold ever since.

Between 2019 and 2023, The United Methodist Church saw about a quarter of its U.S. churches leave with property under a disaffiliation policy that has now ended.

Churches in Estonia and the Eurasian countries received the necessary approvals to form their own autonomous denominations. Churches in Bulgaria and some in Kenya also left to join the Global Methodist Church without recourse to church law.  

The Global Methodist Church has drawn former United Methodist bishops. Five U.S. bishops — J. Michael Lowry, Scott Jones, Mark J. Webb, Robert Hayes and Young Jin Cho — have joined the Global Methodist Church. Soon-to-be former Bishop Eduard Khegay of Eurasia attended the Global Methodist Church’s convening conference in September and expressed that he is considering joining.

Unrest continues — especially in the Philippines and on the continent of Africa —after this year’s momentous General Conference removed denomination-wide bans on gay clergy and same-sex marriage while also ensuring central conferences can set their own standards for ordination and marriage.

Soon after the legislative assembly, the Côte d’Ivoire Conference voted to leave The United Methodist Church and return to being an independent Methodist denomination.

In July, Nigeria’s then-Bishop John Wesley Yohanna and his cabinet resigned to join the Global Methodist Church. Most United Methodists in Nigeria have opted to stay, and now they are striving through the Nigerian legal system to reclaim the denomination’s property in the country.

Meanwhile, Liberia’s Bishop Samuel Quire is facing pressure from Global Methodist Church supporters who want Liberians to leave The United Methodist Church. Quire persistently has rebuffed the pressure campaign even under threats of violence.

Bishop Muyombo of the North Katanga Area praised Quire for his steadfastness and asked his fellow bishops to remember the Liberian bishop in their prayers.

The Côte d’Ivoire Conference’s departure already has altered preparations for the West Africa Central Conference. Initially, the central conference planned to elect three bishops, including one for Côte d’Ivoire. Now delegates plan to elect new bishops only for Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

The December gathering also originally was scheduled to be in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital. With the exit vote, the central conference is now set to be in Accra, Ghana, hosted by the Methodist Church of Ghana and the country’s African Methodist Council.

Bishop Warner Brown Jr., Sierra Leone’s interim bishop, has replaced Côte d’Ivoire Bishop Benjamin Boni as the West Africa College of Bishops president.

At the Council of Bishops meeting, Brown expressed gratitude that the broader Methodist family in Ghana has opened its doors to United Methodists. He also praised the denomination’s general agencies — especially the mission agency, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries — for stepping up to help with the West Africa meeting.

However, Brown also asked for prayer given all the tumult the West African United Methodists have experienced.

“Things are calming down in some respects,” Brown said. “But even as we prepare for the central conference, I was warned that there are some who are threatening to go and try to intercede with our host, and say, ‘Don’t let the Methodists in. They’re trying to peddle homosexuality.’”

Brown said The United Methodist Church is facing both “lack of appreciation in seeing all of our brothers and sisters as children of God” and misrepresentations “of the truth in our efforts to be faithful disciples.” He added: “We need much prayer.”

Bishops preside but do not have a vote at central conferences or the jurisdictional conferences where U.S. bishops are elected. Instead, half of the delegates who vote on bishops are to be lay and half clergy.

Bishops are elders “set apart for a ministry of servant leadership, general oversight and supervision,” states the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s governing document.

United Methodist bishops appoint clergy and lead ministries within their conferences. They also oversee general church agencies as board members and sometimes board presidents. They represent the denomination in ecumenical and interfaith relationships as well as in the wider community.

Unlike their U.S. counterparts who are elected “for life” — meaning they are guaranteed an assignment until they reach mandatory retirement age — central conference bishops are elected for a specific term that varies by central conference.

However long they serve, their leadership is crucial especially in this time of change.

The Council of Bishops joined in prayer on Nov. 8 — the last day of its fall meeting — for the elections to come with the denomination’s struggles in mind.

“We pray for unity within our church in the face of division and anxiety,” Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr., the council’s president-designate, prayed on behalf of the bishops. He leads what will be the Horizon Texas Conference starting Jan. 1.

“Remind us of our shared mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” he asked God. “For those who seek to undermine or disrupt our work, we pray for the transformation of hearts. May they come to see the value of our shared ministry and the importance of our continued unity.”

Heather Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News.