Episcopal assignments were announced Saturday afternoon during the final day of the 2024 North Central Jurisdictional Conference.

JAMES DEATON
Content Editor

July 13, 2024 | SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The 2024 North Central Jurisdictional (NCJ) Conference of The United Methodist Church concluded Saturday with the announcement of episcopal assignments.

Bishop David Alan Bard will remain resident bishop of the Michigan Conference for the next quadrennium, 2025-2028. Bishop Bard has been serving Michigan since his election in 2016. However, on September 1, 2024, Bishop Bard begins a new relationship with the Illinois Great Rivers Conference and the Iowa Conference.

In this new Triad Area, Bishop Bard will also share oversight as bishop of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference along with Bishop Kennetha Bigham Tsai, who will continue serving the Iowa Conference. She was elected at the 2022 North Central Jurisdictional Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The NCJ Committee on the Episcopacy, consisting of 20 members representing 10 annual conferences, is responsible for assigning bishops. They created this new episcopal arrangement in response to structural and funding challenges within the denomination.

In January 2024, the NCJ established two new episcopal areas: the Wisconsin-Northern Illinois Episcopal Area and The Ohio Episcopal Area. This reduced the number of bishops serving NCJ’s ten conferences to seven, relieving pressure on the denomination’s stressed Episcopal Fund.

In May 2024, the General Conference instructed the NCJ to reduce its College of Bishops by one more to six. With the recent announcement of Bishop Frank Beard’s disability and ineligibility for episcopal assignment, the NCJ had six eligible bishops.

Standing on stage with all the members of the NCJ Committee on Episcopacy on Saturday afternoon, Rev. Barrie Tritle noted the challenge given to them: “We had an adaptive challenge to assign six bishops to 10 conferences in seven episcopal areas. We needed to come up with an answer that wasn’t in the room. We needed to come up with an answer that was creative, that was different.”

Rev. Sara Isbell then came to the microphone alongside members from her conference — Illinois Great Rivers — and members of the Michigan and Iowa conferences and gave further details. She explained that Illinois Great Rivers will determine, with their two new bishops, how the episcopal tasks will be divided. The committee expects Bishop Bard to take primary responsibility for Illinois Great Rivers for the first two years of the quadrennium, and Bishop Bigham-Tsai will assume primary responsibility there for the next two years.

Living into this unique arrangement will take time, as Bishop Bard, Bishop Bigham-Tsai, and members of all three annual conferences work together closely in the coming days. But it’s an opportunity for each bishop to lean into their strengths and for the three annual conferences to support them as they live into this new configuration.

Nichea Ver Veer Guy, laity, and Rev. Paul Perez, clergy, are the Michigan Conference’s two members of the NCJ Committee on Episcopacy. Each annual conference has two members.

Ver Veer Guy explained that the committee carefully examined each annual conference’s current needs and each bishop’s experience and gifts, and then this idea gradually emerged. The Illinois Great Rivers Conference is still experiencing disaffiliation issues, and the committee felt that Bishop Bard could help them through that process because of his experience in Michigan and get to a healthy place. Then, in a couple of years, once Bishop Bigham-Tsai is better settled as bishop in Iowa, she will take over more responsibilities in Illinois Great Rivers.

Bishop Bard also has experience shepherding more than one annual conference. From January 1, 2021, through December 31, 2022, he was also the interim bishop for the Dakotas-Minnesota Area, supervising the Minnesota Annual Conference.

This is a great opportunity for the Michigan Conference to step into a new kind of leadership, said Ver Veer Guy. “It’s going to be a new adjustment for Bishop Bard and for us,” she said, “but he already has this great relationship with us. He knows the leaders in our conference and understands the systems in place. We’re just going to have to share him a bit more. And that means we need to make some decisions within our structure in the conference to adapt to that. It may mean hiring some new staff to help do some of the work the bishop was doing.”

To assist with funding staffing and other needs, NCJ delegates approved a jurisdictional budget that added $80,000 to the $40,000 initially proposed specifically for the Episcopal Area Transition Fund. This $120,000 will help resource bishops and annual conferences in transition over the next four years.

Perez agreed that the NCJ Committee on Episcopacy “worked hard to find the right missional fit for our entire jurisdiction with the bishops we have.”

“I am grateful Bishop Bard has been reassigned to Michigan,” he continued. “He has led us and The United Methodist Church graciously and faithfully during a challenging season. I believe Bishop Bard and Bishop Bigham-Tsai will bring their unique wisdom, passion, humor, and spiritual grounding to the triad assignments among Illinois Great River, Iowa, and Michigan. I also believe their gifts and skills will complement each other and serve each conference well.”

During this time of transition, Perez asked the Michigan Conference, “Please pray for Bishop Bard and Bishop Bigham-Tsai, their families, our conference, and the other conferences as we move together into this new thing.”

Below is the complete list of episcopal assignments for the North Central Jurisdiction, from September 1, 2024, to August 31, 2028:

• • Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area: Bishop Lanette Plambeck
  • Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference: Bishop David Bard and Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai
  • Indiana Annual Conference: Bishop Tracy S. Malone
  • Iowa Annual Conference: Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai
  • Michigan Annual Conference: Bishop David Bard
  • Northern Illinois-Wisconsin Episcopal Area: Bishop Dan Schwerin
  • The Ohio Episcopal Area: Bishop Hee-Soo Jung

Victoria Rebeck, director of communications for the Northern Illinois Conference, contributed to this story.

Last Updated on July 16, 2024