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By Heather Hahn*
12:00 P.M. EST November 4, 2011 | LAKE JUNALUSKA, N.C. (UMNS)
Bishop Rosemarie Wenner is elected president of the Council of Bishops.
Wenner is the first woman from outside the United States to preside over
the council. UMNS photos by Ronny Perry.
View in Photo Gallery
Bishop Rosemarie Wenner of Germany will be the next president of the
Council of Bishops, marking the first time a woman from outside the
United States will lead the global body.
The council on Nov. 2 unanimously elected Wenner president, and
Bishop Warner H. Brown Jr. of the California-Nevada Annual (regional)
Conference as the president-designate.
Wenner will start her two-year term on the third day of General Conference, the denomination’s top-lawmaking body. Brown will succeed her in 2014.
Bishop Larry M. Goodpaster,
the Council of Bishops president now, said he thinks Wenner will bring
“a great spirit” to her new role. Goodpaster has worked closely with
Wenner in the past two years during her time as president-designate.
“She has a great grasp of United Methodism around the world and is
just a wonderful person to work with,” said Goodpaster, who also leads
the Western North Carolina Annual Conference. “I think she brings some
really positive leadership to the whole church.”
What the council president does
The council president is responsible for presiding over the bishops’
executive committee and the twice-yearly council meetings. Goodpaster
said the president has a responsibility to guide the bishops in their
deliberations and remind them of their mission to make disciples.
Only General Conference can speak officially for The United
Methodist Church. However, the council president sometimes is called on
to speak to journalists and others within and outside the denomination
on behalf of the bishops and church teachings.
The president also often takes a leading role in council
initiatives. Goodpaster, Wenner and Illinois Area Bishop Gregory V.
Palmer, Goodpaster’s predecessor as president, all have been involved
in the denomination’s Call to Action process, aimed at fostering more vital congregations.
Wenner said she hopes to lead the council and her fellow United Methodists by “modeling what it means to be a Christian.”
She has asked her fellow bishops for prayer and support. “I am
trusting in my colleagues because it is a team effort,” she told United
Methodist News Service.
To be a more global church
The council presidency typically rotates around representatives from
each of the five U.S. jurisdictions and a representative from the
central conferences – church regions in Africa, Europe and the
Philippines. Council presidents have come from outside the United
States before. Bishop Emilio de Carvalho of Angola, for example, who served from 1991 to 1992, was the first African bishop in that position.
Wenner, 56, is a trailblazer in her own way. When she was elected bishop of Germany in February 2005, she became the denomination’s first woman to be named to the episcopacy outside the United States.
“I hope just the fact I am coming from the central conferences is
seen as a sign that the church lives in this reality of a global
church,” Wenner said.
Only in working together as a global church, she said, will United Methodists fulfill the church’s calling from God.
Wenner grew up in Eppingen, a village in southwestern Germany, and
was nurtured by a small United Methodist congregation. She studied at
the United Methodist Theological Seminary in Reutlingen and served as
pastor of congregations in Karlsruhe-Durlach, Hockenheim and
Darmstadt-Sprendlingen before her appointment as superintendent of the
Frankfurt District in 1996. She and her husband, Tobias Wenner,
live in Nussloch, Germany.
Bishop Gaspar Joao Domingos of West Angola said Wenner’s election to
the council presidency shows that the central conferences have values
they can share with the global church.
“It also will be a great joy that from a central conference context,
it will be the first woman presiding, and that is a context that is
dominated by men,” said Domingos through an interpreter.
President-designate
Brown, 64, was elected bishop by the Western Jurisdiction in July
2000. He first served in the Denver Area, which encompasses the Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone
annual conferences. Since 2008, he has served the San Francisco Area,
which includes the California-Nevada Annual Conference.
The new Council of Bishops officers from left to right are Bishop Mary
Ann Swenson, Bishop Warner H. Brown Jr., Bishop Rosemarie Wenner, Bishop
Robert Hayes Jr. and Bishop Peter Weaver.
View in Photo Gallery
Brown, a native of Baltimore, began preaching as a youth. He later
served as a pastor in western Pennsylvania, a staff member for the
California-Nevada Annual Conference, a pastor in Oakland and
Bakersfield, Calif., and a district superintendent. He has a bachelor
of arts in sociology from the University of Maryland and a master of
divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. Brown and his
wife, Minnie Jones Brown, have three children.
At their spring meeting and again on Nov. 1, the bishops endorsed an amendment to the church’s constitution
that would allow the council to elect one of its own to a full-time,
four-year position as president without the usual responsibilities of
overseeing a geographic area. To be ratified, the amendment needs a
two-thirds majority at General Conference and a two-thirds majority of
all annual conference voters
If the amendment goes into effect, Brown said he will assist the new
“set-aside bishop” in his or her
role.
Brown said he considers his role to be “a servant” of the council.
“Our main business is making disciples and empowering churches to be
the instruments of God’s love,” he said. “As we grow and pay attention
to the way God is already working among us and cherish that, it will
awaken vitality.”
*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.
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