The United Methodist Council of Bishops is the organization of which all active and retired

Bishops A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in the

United Methodist The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelica ...

Connection are members. In the

system of polity, the Council of Bishops is the Executive Branch of United Methodist Church government. Bishop

Cynthia Fierro Harvey Cynthia Fierro Harvey (born 1959) is an American bishop in the United Methodist Church and president of its Council of Bishops. She is the first Hispanic woman to lead the Council of Bishops. Harvey is the Resident Bishop of the Louisiana area ...

currently serves as president of the Council of Bishops. The bishops of The United Methodist Church, both individually and collectively through the Council of Bishops, provide spiritual leadership to more than 11 million United Methodists in a broad range of settings on four continents: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Since the founding of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the

Christmas Conference The Christmas Conference was an historic founding conference of the newly independent Methodists within the United States held just after the American Revolution at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1784. Prior to the revolution, ...

in Baltimore in 1784,

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

s have presided over Annual and Central Conferences (regional areas of the church). They play an important leadership role in helping to set the direction of the church and its mission throughout the world. United Methodist Bishops preside over geographic areas of ministry, known as Annual Conferences, and supervise the appointment and ministry of each Annual Conference's clergy and the mission and ministry of each Annual Conference's congregations. Bishops are elected every 4 years (

quadrennium A unit of time is any particular time interval, used as a standard way of measuring or expressing duration. The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) and by extension most of the Western world, is the second, defined as ab ...

) by each of the 5 Jurisdictional Conferences in the United States and the Central Conferences outside the United States. Once elected each Bishop is consecrated to the episcopacy for life and they serve in the Jurisdiction by which they were elected and consecrated. Just as all

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

itinerate within the Annual Conference of which they are members, once elected Bishops itinerate within the

Jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...

they are members of, serving a specific Annual Conference for 4 year terms, after which they may be reappointed or moved to another Annual Conference, on the recommendation of each Jurisdictional Committee on the Episcopacy and the authority of the full Jurisdictional Conference acting on those recommendations. Bishops are responsible for supervising the ordination and character of the clergy under their leadership, and for fixing the appointment of each clergy member of an Annual Conference each year to a particular congregation, charge, circuit or other place of ministry and mission. The Bishop of each Annual Conference also presides over each session of the Annual Conference and is the executive officer of each Annual Conference. Each Bishop presides over a cabinet of District Superintendents, who are the Bishop's assistants who more directly supervise the ministry of clergy within each district within an Annual Conference. Districts are regionally based units within each Annual Conference, each of which is presided over by a District Superintendent (who must be an Elder in Full Connection with the Annual Conference in which they serve) and which has its own officers and structures that are accountable to the

and the Annual Conference for the conduct of their mission and ministry. While the United Methodist Council of Bishops is the Executive Branch of Church government, it is ultimately and only the General Conference of the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelica ...

, which constitutes the Legislative Branch of Church government, that speaks for and sets the policies, missions and ministries of the

through its sole authority to maintain and change the United Methodist Discipline, the book that structures and rules United Methodism. Ultimately, the General Conference speaks for the United Methodist Church.

External links

United Methodist Council of Bishops Official Website
*https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/ {{United Methodist Church

See also

External links