NORTHERN MICHIGAN: Single candidate for bishop and Episcopal ministry support team announced
Episcopal News Service. January 23, 2009 [012309-02]
Joe Bjordal
The Diocese of Northern Michigan announced on January 23 the results of a year-long discernment process: its slate for a new "Episcopal Ministry Support Team" and a single candidate for bishop.
The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester has been named candidate for bishop/ministry developer. He currently serves as ministry developer and rector at St. Paul's Church, Marquette and St. John's Church, Negaunee, as well as ministry development coordinator for the diocese.
If elected at a special convention to be held February 21 at St. Stephen's Church, Escanaba, Thew Forrester will succeed the late Bishop James Kelsey, who was killed in an automobile accident on June 3, 2007.
The discernment process was based on the mutual ministry model in use in congregations of the Diocese of Northern Michigan for more than 20 years. In the terminology of mutual ministry, a ministry developer is involved with or has responsibility for more than one congregation. Thew Forrester said that if elected he will "remain rooted" in one of the diocesan regions as ministry developer/bishop and keep involved in the "nurturing work of local ministry with the rest of the ministry developers."
Thew Forrester said that in the model developed under Kelsey's episcopate, beginning in 1999, the ministry developers shared in apostolic oversight of the diocese.
Named ministry developers on the new Episcopal Ministry Support Team are the Rev. Manuel Padilla, a ministry developer in the Western region of the diocese since 1988; the Rev. Charlie Piper, rector of Holy Trinity Church, Iron Mountain; and the Rev. Rayford Ray, ministry developer in the south central region of the diocese since 1990.
Also named to the team are Regional Representatives Jim Heikkila, senior warden at Christ Church, Calumet; Kathy Lenten, senior warden and outreach coordinator at Christ Church, Negaunee; Susan Harries, a member of the ministry support team at St. James Church, Sault Ste. Marie; and Gin Mannisto, a member of the ministry support team at St. John's Church, Munising and St. James the Less, Harvey. Diocesan Operations Coordinator Jane Cisluycis was also named to the team.
The special convention will also be asked to "affirm" the ministry developers and regional representatives. Other "at large" lay members of the team will be added in time.
Thew Forrester, Ray, Piper and Standing Committee chair Linda Piper participated in a joint telephone interview with Episcopal News Service today.
While Thew Forrester has served the diocese since 2001, Ray reported that names of potential candidates were received from "throughout the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion."
"It was very important for us not to limit ourselves," he said.
He said there is precedent for putting forth only one candidate for bishop, noting that it is standard operating procedure in congregations, where a call committee typically discerns a number of candidates and, in the end, submits one name for final approval.
Linda Piper made it clear that the actions of the Diocese of Northern Michigan are in full compliance with both the canons of the diocese and the national Episcopal Church.
"The new bishop of Northern Michigan will be duly elected," said Piper.
She also said that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Clay Matthews of the Office of Pastoral Development "have been very supportive" in the Diocese of Northern Michigan's unusual search and discernment process.
Jefferts Schori will preside at the consecration of Northern Michigan's new bishop and the commissioning of the Episcopal Ministry Support Team on October 17, 2009.
Ray said the process used in discernment for the new bishop and Episcopal Ministry Support Team has "risen up" from the congregations of the diocese, where such a process has been in use for years. He said that the 2008 convention of the diocese, meeting October 17-18, 2008, offered "overwhelming support" for the process and the work of the Episcopal Ministry Discernment Team.
"Our job," said Ray, "was to take this model of shared ministry that has been so successful in our congregations and raise it up to the diocesan level."
Thew Forrester said that the new bishop would be "very much a member of the team."
The discernment team was comprised of 21 persons from throughout the diocese and was assisted by three "reflectors:" Bishop Tom Ely of Vermont, Bishop Bruce Caldwell of Wyoming, and Professor Fredrica Thompsett Harris of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jo Gantzer, canon for lifelong learning for the Diocese of Michigan, served as "companion" for the discernment process.
Linda Piper said the model of an Episcopal ministry support team will allow for great collaboration and sharing of tasks that usually fall to a bishop alone.
"This model is really about making the job and life of our bishop much more manageable and healthy," she said.
Thew Forrester said, "There is not a blueprint for what we are about to do, but there is extensive experience on the congregational level.
"However we do this, it is important that we create it together," he said.