Bishop Robin Dease, currently the senior pastor at St. Andrew By-The-Sea United Methodist Church in Hilton Head Island, S.C. will soon head to Georgia.
The 54-year-old Dease has been assigned as the new bishop for the North Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, effective Jan. 1, 2023. She received 60 % of the ballots needed during the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s meeting at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina.
She is the first African American to lead the north Georgia annual conference, which includes about 700 congregations in the North half of the state, according to Sybil Davidson, the communications director for the annual conference.
[70 churches move to leave the North Ga. Annual Conference of the UMC]
“I’m a collaborator,” Dease said in a statement. “Let’s have fun. Let’s make disciples. Let’s love one another. Let’s build bridges. I am looking forward to working together.”
After the announcement, members of the North Georgia conference surrounded Dease in prayer, according to the conference’s website.
Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, who has been in that role since 2016, has been assigned to the Virginia Annual Conference.
“A strength of our connection is that leaders are sent where their gifts are most needed,” Haupert-Johnson said in a statement. “We celebrate that these leaders will equip the Church for its next chapter of ministry in these areas.”
The jurisdiction has a meeting every four years, but was postponed because of COVID.
Bishops are appointed every four years, but this meeting is unusual because they will be appointed for two years as the denomination gets back on schedule, said Davidson. It’s likely she will be reappointed.
One of Dease’s challenges will be to build bridges between more conservative congregations and those that are more progressive, which has been a sticking point in the Protestant denomination for several years.
In 2019, during the UMC’s General Session, delegates approved a plan upholding and strengthening prohibitions against the ordination of non-celibate LGBTQ clergy and performance of same-sex marriages.
It drew complaints from more progressive United Methodists but also from more traditional congregations and clergy who feared eventually the denomination would be more centrist or lean more progressive.
Some plan to become independent Methodists congregations or join other denominations, including the theologically-conservative Global Methodist Church.
In unrelated news, the Commission on the General Conference announced on Friday that the 2024 United Methodist General Conference will be held April 23 through May 3, 2024, at in Charlotte, N.C.
The General Conference, which is held every four years, was postponed because of the pandemic.
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