Bishops elect Goodpaster as president-designate

By Linda Green*

FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS)––The bishops of The United Methodist Church have chosen the leader of the Alabama-West Florida Annual (regional) Conference as their president-designate.

Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster, 59, was unanimously elected April 19 to lead the council in two years. His tenure will begin in 2010 at the conclusion of the presidency of Iowa Bishop Gregory Palmer, who will assume the presidency from Bishop Janice Riggle Huie during the 2008 General Conference this spring. Palmer was elected last November to a two-year term.

"I'm grateful to my colleagues, and I know that it is a lot of work, but we are going to pray and we will support each another and we will make it through," Goodpaster said after his election.
Goodpaster was chosen by a discernment team of bishops from the five U.S jurisdictions and from the central conferences — regions in Africa, Asia and Europe.

"I am humbled," Goodpaster said. He added that he looks forward to continuing the collegial atmosphere that has permeated the council in recent years.

Goodpaster equated his election as president-designate to when he was elected bishop during the 2000 Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference.

"I have no why or how, but I depend on God's grace, and that redemptive and transformative love and mercy that keeps all of us where we need to be headed," he said. "I hope that by working together with the council, we find a way to build the kind of collaboration around these four areas and really focus the church and make it possible for everybody to be at the table."

United Methodist leaders are focusing the denomination's work around four focus areas—leadership development, congregational renewal and growth, engaging in ministry with the poor, and stamping out killer diseases by improving global health––in order to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Changes and reflections
Huie, the council's outgoing president, said the unanimous vote for Goodpaster is a testament to his leadership. "Bishop Goodpaster has a vision and he has experience, and he has the trust of this council and of the church to lead it, and we are excited about that happening," she said.

Goodpaster is a graduate of Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss., and Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, both United Methodist-related schools. He was ordained elder in the former North Mississippi Annual Conference and served as a pastor and district superintendent before his 2000 election as bishop.

The council, with offices in Washington, represents 11.5 million United Methodists in the United States, Africa, Europe and the Philippines. It includes 69 active and 87 retired bishops.

During her final presidential address, Huie "walked the ambit" as she reflected on the council's past four years, examined its present and envisioned the future. Walking the ambit is a historical practice of kings and queens who walked around their kingdoms to understand their people.

The council's leadership will change before the conclusion of the churchwide General Conference legislative meeting April 22-May 2. Its membership will change before the council meets again in the fall. In July, new bishops will be elected and 16 bishops will retire.

Huie's "walk" included both celebratory and mournful developments as the council moved from an approach of managing the church to leading the church in collaboration with churchwide agencies. The walk noted the council's November 2006 meeting in Mozambique, its first meeting outside the continental United States, and the historic gathering of bishops, district superintendents and key annual conference staff in a November 2007 convocation to develop clarity around the church's purpose, mission and identity. It also noted episcopal publishing, three bishops’ deaths, the tsunami in Indonesia, Hurricane Katrina. And it highlighted the council's response to the global initiative to eradicate malaria.

'Threshold time'
The entire council wrote the ending of Huie's final address by answering two questions in roundtable discussions: What have we learned? During the next four years, to what does the council need to pay more attention or less attention in order to lead and engage the church in an increasingly complex world?

"A threshold invites us to consider that The United Methodist Church might be the leading edge of a new movement of God," Huie said. "Movements create new partners and new connections.

New energy is released. Hope takes wings. Such powerful transformation takes place only with a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on this Council of Bishops and The United Methodist Church."

She reaffirmed ideas presented in a previous message that will help the council move further into a "threshold time" in which United Methodists can:
.Begin a new church every day somewhere in the world;
.Develop leaders called by God to ministry in the church and world who can pass the faith of Jesus Christ to the next generation;
.Lead with the intention of stamping out the killer diseases of poverty;
.Live out the three simple rules in their daily lives and public witness "so that the United Methodist way itself may be a witness to God's reign of justice and peace." The three simple rules, as outlined by retired Bishop Reuben P. Job in a 2007 book, are to do no harm, do good and stay in love with God.

Hitting the pulpits
The council's leadership and diverse preaching styles were showcased as 44 bishops preached in morning worship services on Sunday, April 20, in United Methodist churches around Fort Worth. It was the first time in the history of Methodism that so many bishops simultaneously preached in the same area.

"The fact that such a large number has volunteered to do so is a testimony to the dedication and commitment of our episcopal leadership," said the Rev. Michael Patison of the denomination’s Fort Worth Area. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Fort Worth area United Methodists to experience the strength of their worldwide church."

Patison worked with Lamar Smith to recruit bishops for the preaching assignments on the eve of General Conference.

"Over the course of 46 years (as a pastor), I had six bishops telling me where to go," he said. "Now I have gotten to tell 44 bishops where to go, and I hope they find their appointments as fulfilling and joyous as I found each of mine."

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.