An unconventional diocese has chosen an unconventional priest to be its next bishop.

In accepting the election to become the second bishop of the Diocese of Bolivia in the autonomous Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, the Rev. Francis R. (Frank) Lyons III, a senior missionary with the South American Missionary Society (SAMS) and native of the United States, says he will probably accept no salary and he is not the least bit interested in the "pomp and circumstance" that usually accompanies the installation of a new Anglican bishop.

"They could probably afford to pay me something," said Fr. Lyons by telephone from California, "but I would rather concentrate on getting the diocese on a firm (financial) footing right now. I think our first priorities ought to be establishing a pension plan for the leadership and land acquisition for new churches. You're not looking at the typical Anglican model here."

The differences in style begin with Fr. Lyons' election as bishop by a nominating committee composed of two clergy and three lay members of the diocese, a situation that much more closely resembled the traditional U.S. call of a parish rector.

The nominating committee started with about 30 names. About 15 of those were interested and that list was whittled down to a final three. After a visit to Bolivia by Fr. Lyons and his family in September, the nominating committee unanimously recommended him. Ratification by the Provincial Council of the Southern Cone on Nov. 16 confirmed his election. A consecration date has not yet been set, but will probably be sometime in February.

For the next few months, Fr. Lyons said he will be traveling throughout the United States, performing one of the most important duties of a missionary bishop: seeking support for his diocese and his family, which includes his wife, Shawnee, a Bible study leader and high school math teacher, as well as five teenage children.

So what do the Anglican Communion and a graduate of Nashotah House seminary have to offer the people of a landlocked country high in the Andean Mountains that some say has never recovered from the fall of the Incan Empire in 1533? Plenty, according to Fr. Lyons.

"In some ways Bolivia is in the same situation that England was in at the time of the Reformation," he said. "We have the Reformed Catholic Church to offer. That is the Anglican Church: liturgy and scripture in the (native) language of the people."

No matter what else the Anglican Communion has to offer, Fr. Lyons said he wants to convey a sense of mission. By that he means "making disciples, raising up leaders and planting new churches." In order for that to happen, Fr. Lyons said as bishop he will seek to model his episcopacy along the idea of being a "missioner" among what in the United States is called a cluster or mutual ministry team.

"To have a self-supporting church in Bolivia, we can't necessarily plop on them a medieval style of church structure," he said. "The last thing we want to do is give people the idea that the bishop is the head of the pecking order. For the sake of the development of the diocese, we want to convey a sense that the bishop is part of a team. It's going to have to be a pretty different style than people are used to here (in the United States)."

The Diocese of Bolivia has four active missions and an average Sunday attendance of about 350, according to Fr. Lyons. It was created five years ago out of what was up to then called the Diocese of Peru and Bolivia. The Province of the Southern Cone includes all of the South American continent except for Brazil, which is a province, and Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, which are part of Province 9 in the American Episcopal Church.

Demographically, Fr. Lyons said he will likely model his ministry in Bolivia after that of the apostle Paul by beginning with the educated upper and middle class urban population.

"I told them when I interviewed that if they wanted someone who would sit in an office all day and develop programs that no one will use, then I was the wrong person," he recalled. "I'm not denigrating the traditional episcopal system. I'm just saying that it would not work here. We're basically on the first rung of the ladder."

Fr. Lyons, a cradle Episcopalian, was baptized in what he called a "charismatic renewal" Episcopal church in the Diocese of Washington. He received his undergraduate degree from Wheaton College. When combined with his Anglo-Catholic seminary education, Fr. Lyons said he is fluent in the three main branches of Christianity in America.