GBOD board elects officers for next four years

NASHVILLE, Tenn., October 1, 2008, /GBOD/ --The Board of Directors for the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship (GBOD) elected officers for 2009-2012, during an organizational meeting held in Nashville, Tenn. September 23-27.

The new officers elected to lead the board’s work over the next four years include: Virginia Bishop Charlene P. Kammerer, president; newly elected bishop of the Denver Area, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky, vice president; district superintendent from North Indiana, the Rev. Frank Beard, secretary; and GBOD’s chief administrative officer/treasurer, the Rev. Charles Carnahan, treasurer.

“The whole denomination is on a new path of exploration. We [at GBOD and the whole church] have the capacity and the potential to lead in the Four Areas of Focus. I would like to help see that become a reality,” says Bishop Charlene P. Kammerer, president of the GBOD Board of Directors.

The board is comprised of 58 members from the five jurisdictions and central conferences outside the United States, plus one liaison representative from the Methodist Church of Puerto Rico, and one member without vote from among the member churches of Churches Uniting in Christ.

“We are delivering the needed resources, learning systems and interactive networks that spring to life in response to the heartbeat and cry of the church and world,” said the Rev. Karen Greenwaldt, CEO of GBOD, during her annual address to the board.

“This Wesleyan and Methodist movement always has responded to the call of God and has taken the Gospel and mission of Christ to the people wherever they are. This movement is not a movement of the past. It is a movement of today,” she said.

Greenwaldt, acknowledging that it is very tempting to be overwhelmed, paraphrased Mordecai’s message in Esther 4:14, “For such a time as this, together with God’s grace, we, as the church, can—

.build new places for new people;
.renew existing congregations;
.build sustainable resourcing systems for leaders desperately seeking spiritual formation and leadership materials for churches and their personal faith journeys;
.create networks for young people who move out across the world to bring hope, relief and belief to millions of other young people; and
.provide the best teaching and learning resources for people to find meaning for life and living.”

In addition to electing officers and participating in orientation sessions, members of the Board’s divisions and standing committees also organized, elected their leaders and began their work for the next quadrennium.