Re: [Mgdln] Anybody wanna be a bishop?

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

XXXXX  wrote:

>  My reasons for thinking as I do about bishops is that someone who
> wants to be a bishop too often brings his/her own agenda to the office
> when that person should have the agenda of the Church in mind in
> everything they do.

At http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/nominees4bishopsince1995.html I list
all who have been nominees for bishop from January 1, 1995.  You can see who
has been nominated in more than one race during the last 15 years.   Looking
at the specific persons rather than at a theoretical construct,  I am not
prepared to say that all those who ran and lost before later being elected
wanted to be a bishop too much or brought their own agendas to the office;
are you?  (You cannot see those who were considered but not nominated; so
many of these may have been in other races before the final cuts.)

I am less concerned about a person's agenda than about how willing the
person is to grow into new assignments.   Many of the most important
decisions a bishop will make have to be learned on the spot, not in a prior
assignment.   That's why "Spiritus Sanctus" is one of the most moving parts
of a consecration. That's also why the joke continues that "all those
bishops touching the one being made a bishop are actually removing the
spine."

> There's a difference, IMO, between wanting to be a bishop and being
> willing to be a bishop if called.

I agree that the difference is important.   I have disciplined myself for
over 15 years now to write or speak to people who, I think, would make good
bishops, urging them prayerfully to consider whether God might be calling
them .  I offer to put their name in.   I also offer to find someone else to
submit the name lest stigmas some associate with me would reduce the
welcome of the nominating committee.  I have sometimes offered to kiss
their opponents if that might help! (;o')

Several who are now fine bishops are persons who turned me down multiple
times but finally allowed their names to go forward.

Do you know a person with outstanding qualifications to be a bishop whom you
might urge allow you to submit her or his name?

Sometimes only you will know the son or daughter of Jesse hidden in the
back pasture tending sheep.

At http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/hob.html I maintain a list of all
ongoing elections.

At http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/blackpr.html I maintain a directory
of all black clergy so that we in the white majority will not perpetuate a
system in which we do not know qualified persons unless they look like us.

At http://rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/deputations2009.html I  list all deputies
to the last General Convention

Louie, L1 Newark