This translation is not completely accurate as it was automatically generated by a computer.
Powered by
A UMNS Report
By Heather Hahn*
7:00 A.M. ET July 17, 2012
The 2008 Book of Discipline, the denomination’s law book, requires the
episcopacy committees that oversee bishops to evaluate each active
bishop at least once every four years. A UMNS photo illustration by
Kathleen Barry.
View in Photo Gallery
Kids bring home report cards. Employees typically undergo annual reviews. And now, United Methodist bishops get formal evaluations as well.
But just as each class has its own way of grading, each U.S. jurisdiction varies in how it appraises bishops.
The 2008 Book of Discipline, the denomination’s law book, for the
first time requires the United Methodist episcopacy committees that
oversee bishops around the globe “to establish and implement processes” to evaluate each active bishop at least once every four years.
The assessments must include self-evaluations from the bishops,
input from their episcopal peers and comments from individuals affected
by their leadership (such as district superintendents, lay leaders and
directors of agency boards on which the bishops serve).
Those evaluations will play a role this week as jurisdictional conferences get under way across the United States and jurisdictional committees on the episcopacy recommend where U.S. bishops will serve during the next four years.
Responses to questionnaires on Bishop W. Earl Bledsoe likely will
play a critical role during the South Central Jurisdiction episcopacy
committee’s closed-door hearing with Bledsoe on Monday, July 16. The
committee’s hearing could ultimately determine whether
Bledsoe, who leads the North Texas Annual (regional) Conference
remains an active bishop, or whether the committee by at least a
two-thirds vote compels his early retirement.
Even before the 2008 requirement of formal evaluations, some
jurisdictional and central conference episcopacy committees have
carried out bishop assessments on their own. Since the 1976 Book of
Discipline, episcopacy committees — within certain limits — have had
the authority to place a bishop in involuntary retirement by a
two-thirds vote. That possibility is what Bledsoe now faces.
“As a member of the committee, I have found the questionnaires
helpful as one of several sources of information used in the evaluation
process,” said Don House, the South Central committee’s chair and a
lay member of the Texas Conference.
Report cards for the bishops
The Book of Discipline defines bishops as elders “set apart for a ministry of servant leadership, general oversight and supervision.”
The law book goes on to say that bishops must possess:
- A vital and renewing spirit
- An enquiring mind and a commitment to the teaching office
- A vision for the church
- A prophetic commitment for the transformation of the church and the world
- A passion for the unity of the church
- The ministry of administration
So far, the episcopacy committees in four of the five U.S.
jurisdictions have developed questionnaires based on these requirements
to use in evaluating their bishops.
The United Methodist News Service asked representatives of each
jurisdictional episcopacy committees to share what metrics they use in
assessing bishops.
At a glance, here is what they provided:
The episcopacy committee of the Western Jurisdiction, which will not
be electing any new bishops this year, is still formalizing its
evaluation tool, said Greg Nelson, the committee’s chair and director
of communications for the Oregon-Idaho Conference.
Each jurisdictional episcopacy committee includes a clergy delegate
and a lay delegate from each of that jurisdiction’s conferences.
Example of how evaluations take place
The evaluation tools all examine the spiritual leadership of
bishops in areas such as disciple making as well as their stewardship
in such practical matters as church giving. Evaluations also typically
take place with strict confidentiality.
However, the committees vary in how they carry out evaluations.
The Rev. John Ed Mathison, chair of the Southeastern Jurisdiction
episcopacy committee, offers the example of his committee’s process.
He said the jurisdictional committee requests each annual conference
to determine a number “somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 people” to
be involved in the evaluation process of their bishop. The individuals
should be of different age groups and represent different ministries.
“We didn’t want the evaluation to come simply from the cabinet and a
few selected leaders,” said Mathison, who is also a retired clergy
member of the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
His group also encourages each conference committee on the
episcopacy to include an outside bishop in the evaluation. For example,
the Alabama-West Florida Conference invited Louisville (Ky.) Area
Bishop Lindsey Davis to help with the evaluation of the conference’s
Bishop Paul L. Leeland.
The jurisdictional committee relies heavily on the evaluation process from the conferences, Mathison said.
“We were asking episcopal committees to look at these evaluation
forms and work with the bishops to provide growth opportunities,” he
said. “We don’t see the evaluation process as ending simply when a
report is made, but putting in place some structure for assisting that
bishop in a good program of development.”
He estimates about 85 percent of the evaluation process comes from
written data and about 15 percent comes from personal observation.
Mathison and other episcopacy committee chairs said the hope is to help bishops succeed in their ministry.
A bishop’s perspective
Bishop Jane Allen Middleton, who leads the Susquehanna Conference in
Pennsylvania, is a veteran of bishop evaluations, which the
Northeastern Jurisdiction had conducted for years before 2008.
The personal assessment and feedback from others serve as “a kind of
bellwether,” said Middleton, who will retire later this year. “So yes,
there is a level of help.”
However, she said, there are limits to their usefulness.
Just as it is frustrating to try to measure fully the work of a
pastor, she said, it is no less disconcerting to try to do the same
with bishops. She recalls being involved in the assessment of a bishop
who she thought was very effective but whose evaluation came out very
poorly on paper.
“It’s kind of like the proverbial elephant being examined in a dark
room — no one sees the full work of a bishop,” she said. “And because
the work has such breadth, it’s very hard to get appropriate feedback.”
Another struggle, she said, is that sometimes people only tell bishops what they think they want to hear.
At their best, the standardized evaluation forms can be “tools for
dialogue and gaining insights on leadership needs and effectiveness,”
she said.
*Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service.
News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
About UMC.org
RSS Feed
Press Center
Contact Us