Episcopal Press and News
NORTHERN MICHIGAN: Bishop elected; Episcopal Ministry Support Team created
Episcopal News Service. February 23, 2009 [022309-04]
Joe Bjordal, Jane Cisluycis, Operations Coordinator for the Diocese of Northern Michigan
Delegates to a special convention of the Diocese of Northern Michigan held February 21 at St. Stephen's Church, Escanaba, elected a new bishop and created a support team that will share in episcopal oversight, something unique in the Episcopal Church.
The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who was announced in January as the single candidate for bishop, was elected on the first ballot. In Northern Michigan voting is not carried out by lay and clergy orders, but rather by individual delegate votes and a congregational vote that represents the combined majority vote of a congregation's delegates. Thew Forrester received 67 of 76 total delegate votes cast. Of the 23 congregations represented, 21 voted for Thew Forrester.
Thew Forrester succeeds the late Bishop Jim Kelsey who died in an automobile accident on June 2, 2007. The bishop-elect has served the Diocese of Northern Michigan since 2001, most recently as rector of St. Paul's Church, Marquette, and St. John's Church, Negaunee.
The special convention also formally created the Episcopal Ministry Support Team, which includes the bishop-elect and which will share with the new bishop in the oversight, development and management of the diocese. The model grew out of the diocese's twenty year experience in mutual ministry.
Appointed as ministry developers on the Episcopal Ministry Support Team are the Rev. Manuel Padilla, the Rev. Charlie Piper, and the Rev. Rayford Ray. In the terminology of mutual ministry, a ministry developer is involved with or has responsibility for more than one congregation. Thew Forrester, as bishop, will also serve as a regional ministry developer.
Appointed to the support team as regional representatives were Jim Heikkila, Kathy Lenten, Susan Harries, and Gin Mannisto. Diocesan Operations Coordinator Jane Cisluycis will also serve on the team.
Assuming that the required number of standing committees and bishops across the Episcopal Church consent to the election, Thew Forrester will be consecrated and the support team commissioned on October 17 in Marquette, Michigan.
The election follows a discernment process that began following Kelsey's death in which the diocese applied its 27-year experience of developing local, shared leadership to the diocesan level. In a January interview, Thew Forrester said a model for the Episcopal Ministry Support Team was developed during Kelsey's episcopate when, in 1999, the ministry developers began to share in episcopal oversight as the core team of the diocese.
The Diocese of Northern Michigan consists of 27 congregations spread across Michigan's Upper Peninsula. According to Episcopal Church statistics, combined membership in 2007 was approximately 1,900 with average Sunday attendance of approximately 700.