Bishop Search
The Nominating Committee for the Ninth Bishop of Upper South Carolina invites you to learn more about who we are and the bishop we seek through the pages of our Diocesan Profile. Explore our diocese in detail. Within the profile you will find underlined blue text that is hyperlinked to information about us and our ministries.
April 2021 Update
Grace to you and peace from the members of the Bishop’s Nominating Committee for the Ninth Bishop of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.
Since our last update, the Nominating Committee has met many times via Zoom and in person, as we entered a careful process of discernment and rigorous evaluation of the candidates for bishop. As mentioned before, this confidential process is based faithfully on the Diocesan Survey and the Profile built around the survey results. A timeline for the process is included in the Profile.
Once the nomination and application deadlines had passed, committee members were able to begin reviewing applications. We met in person in March to carefully evaluate each candidate’s application. After prayerful discernment, the decision was made to narrow the strong candidate pool in accordance with the deep desires for certain qualities and experiences in our next bishop expressed in the survey and outlined in the profile. Following the March meeting, teams of committee members began interviewing the continuing candidates, checking their references, and reviewing sermons, publications, and social media in preparation for further discernment. We are enjoying getting to know the candidates and explore with them how their gifts fit with the challenges and opportunities cited in the profile. In April, the committee will meet in retreat to further narrow the candidate pool, again using the survey and profile as our guide. In the late spring, an in-person retreat will be scheduled with the remaining candidates. Afterwards, we will enter a time of deep and prayerful listening and consideration in moving toward the recommendation of a slate of candidates to the Standing Committee.
In the process of Christian spiritual discernment, we open our hearts and listen for God’s guidance through the Holy Spirit. We, as a committee, are bound to this process of faithful listening, along with ongoing individual and group prayer. We pray for all applicants and their families, for the process, for our diocese, and for the election that will bring us our new Chief Pastor and Bishop. We ask that you join us in these prayers and pray for us and our work as well.
Faithfully,
Ms. Melissa Langford, Co-Chair
The Rev. Grant B. Wiseman, Co-Chair
The Rev. Raphiell Ashford
The Rev. Scotty Brock
Mr. John Cantey
Ms. Shawn Dunham
Ms. Lillian Hardaway
The Rev. Charles Jenkins
The Rev. Mia McDowell
Mr. Larry Moore
Ms. Susan Pretulak
The Rev. Patricia Sexton
Mr. West Summers
Ms. Corliss Wise
On June 6, 2020, Bishop Waldo asked for and received the Standing Committee’s consent to call for the election of the IX Bishop of Upper South Carolina at a special Convention on Saturday, September 25, 2021. The new bishop will be elected by clergy and lay delegates from across the diocese at the special electing convention, and the consecration of the new bishop is scheduled for February 26, 2022.
If you have any questions about the search process, please reach out to us at [email protected].
Previous updates will be archived here:
April 8, 2021 - Update from the Nominating Committee
January 7, 2021 - Update from the Nominating Committee: Nomination Form Open
November 16, 2020 - Update from the Nominating Committee
November 8, 2020 - Call for Special Electing Convention
October 17, 2020 - Invitation to Complete the Diocesan Profile Survey
September 13, 2020 - Nominating Committee Appointed
July 21, 2020 - Application for Nominating Committee Opens
June 6, 2020 - Bishop Waldo Announces Intent to Retire
The nominating committee, listed below, will begin its work with an orientation session with Standing Committee on September 26, 2020. They then will work to draft a search profile and identify candidates for our next bishop from around the country. The nominating committee will then narrow the candidates to a group of finalists, which the Standing Committee plans to approve and announce in August 2021.
Nominating Committee
The Rev. Scotty Brock
St. David's, Columbia
Mr. John Cantey
Grace, Camden
Ms. Shawn Dunham
St. Peter's, Greenville
The Rev. Charles Jenkins
Christ Church, Greenville
Ms. Melissa Langford
Grace, Anderson
The Rev. Mia McDowell
St. Luke's, Newberry
Mr. Larry Moore
Church of the Advent, Spartanburg
Ms. Susan Pretulak
St. Matthew's, Spartanburg
The Rev. Patricia Sexton
All Saints’, Cayce
Mr. West Summers
Trinity Cathedral, Columbia
Ms. Corliss Wise
St. Luke's, Columbia
The Rev. Grant Wiseman
St. Thaddeus, Aiken
The Rev. Raphiell Ashford (Alternate)
St. Luke's, Columbia
Ms. Lillian Hardaway (Alternate)
Christ Church, Greenville
Click here to download a PDF version of the timeline
June 6 July 18 August 21 September 12 September 26 September 26 – December 5 November 6 - 7 December 12 2021
January 29 February 26 March 1 - August 13 June 17-19 August 14 August 28 September 11-12 September 25 September 27 November 5-6 2022
January 1 February 26Bishop Search Timeline
Bishop Waldo announces intent to resign and retire effective December 31, 2021
Standing Committee to post application for Nominating Committee members
Applications for Nominating Committee are closed
Standing Committee names Nominating Committee
Retreat for Nominating Committee and Standing Committee
Listening sessions conducted throughout the diocese
Diocesan Convention: Standing Committee provides update of the nominating process
Profile of prospective bishop and candidate application posted
Deadline to submit a nomination form
Candidate applications close
Nominating Committee reviews candidate materials, references, conducts interviews, and completes site visits
Nominating Committee retreat with potential candidates
Nominating Committee presents a slate of finalists. The Standing Committee reviews and approves finalists and posts materials to the website
Period of nomination by petition closes
Candidate walkabouts are conducted
Electing Convention at Trinity Cathedral, Columbia
Period for Certification of Election and receipt of Diocesan Consents begins
Diocesan Convention to include a celebration of Bishop Waldo’s Episcopate
Bishop Waldo begins retirement and Standing Committee becomes interim Ecclesiastical Authority
Consecration of the IX Bishop of Upper South Carolina
“For everything there is a season, 6 June 2020
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Throughout the seasons of history, a great cloud of witnesses is filled with faithful women, men, and children who have met times similar to our own with steadfastness and persistence. St. Paul knew his own biggest challenge to bring the good news of God in Christ Jesus to the nations would take several lifetimes. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth,” he wrote to the church in Corinth. Our work as disciples is constantly one of “some planting and others tending,” as we put to use our many gifts in the one Spirit for the good of all.
Early in 2019, I began discussions with my family, some of my bishop colleagues, and the Presiding Bishop about a horizon for me to request the support of the Standing Committee to call for the election of the Ninth Bishop of Upper South Carolina.
This day, I have asked for and received the Standing Committee’s consent to call for the election of the ninth Bishop of Upper South Carolina at a special Convention on Saturday, 25 September, 2021. My resignation as your Bishop will take effect on 31 December 2021, about 19 months from now. This date was set late last fall in consultation with the Presiding Bishop’s office, and the decision to announce at today’s Diocesan Executive Committee meeting was made this past February, in consultation with the Rev. Stephen Rhoades, President of the Standing Committee.
In this season of my own family’s life, I am called to make time for my children and grandchildren in ways we have not previously been able, and while my health is excellent. Later this month, I will celebrate 32 years of ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, which followed nine years in a vocation as a performing musician and teacher. The next season in my family’s life is approaching. Following the timeline established by the Standing Committee, the Nominating Committee for the Ninth Bishop of Upper South Carolina, once called, will have the task of discerning whom God is persuading to serve his Church in this capacity, in this place, for the next season of your common life—who will lead you in following God’s call.
In the coming months, we will have ample opportunity to reflect on the important work we have done together in God’s gracious hands. We have learned much about how to be in deeper dialogue on difficult issues, like same-sex blessings/marriage and racial reconciliation. We have built relationships to support public education through parish-school partnerships and advocacy. We have worked to create and live into norms of transparency and mature discipleship across the Diocese. We have changed the face of the college of clergy within the Diocese, now having the highest percentage of women in charge of congregations in the entire Episcopal Church.
We have learned much about being the Church during this pandemic, and yet we are just getting started in understanding—and are just now planting seeds for—a Church that will emerge energized, newly skilled in technology, freshly longing for in-person relationships, and even more deeply centered in and grounded upon the love of God in Christ Jesus.
We are continuing to work on strengthening youth and campus/young adult ministry and leadership development, and to create a stronger, more flexible and higher capacity camping and retreat ministry at Gravatt Camp and Conference Center.
Most of you have heard me speak or preach or tell stories about events and people who shaped my passion and understanding around issues of race and reconciliation—stories from my childhood in Alabama and ever since. Today’s conflicts around racial justice are urgent signs of the critical work we still have to do—addressing injustice, economic inequality, education inequity, and discrimination. Polarized politics and pandemic have only accentuated the importance and difficulty of this work to which God calls us, and yet we have much more work in learning how to grow in Christian maturity during a time of conflict and alienation. Indeed, disciples of Jesus—across time—have strived to embrace and live Jesus’ words, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
Our Centennial Campaign: From Generation to Generation in the Church, with its goals to renew the Episcopal Church Home at York Place, Gravatt Camp & Conference Center, and Canterbury Campus Ministries is still underway, even though we recognize it will take longer than planned. Each goal will play an important healing and restorative role in the life of this Diocese for many years to come.
In other words, we remain a Church focused on making, equipping and sending mature disciples. This is and continues to be our vocation, our call from God.
We have plenty of time in the months ahead to engage this work, and for the whole diocesan community to imagine who you will be, and where you will go when you turn the next episcopal bend in the river. In the meantime, I intend to remain fully engaged, excited about our shared work as fellow travelers and laborers in God’s mission.
In 2009, when I was still a nominee for Bishop, I traveled here from Minnesota for the November “walkabouts”—the all-day Q&A sessions in Columbia and Greenville with people from across the Diocese—with an uncertain heart about my call to be here. I had heard that, even in the midst of theological turmoil in the Church, this was a Diocese that simply wanted to stay together. At the walkabouts, many of you articulated that deep desire over and over again, in one way or another. Your love and care for one another, your commitment to the good news of God in Christ, and your passion for ministry was palpable. By this point, I was listening. Awakened. Persuaded that, should I be elected, we could—for a season—serve God together in gladness and devotion. And we have. These continue to be some of the most inspiring, fruitfully challenging, and spiritually rich years of my life.
In gratitude, love and hope, I remain faithfully yours,
The Rt. Rev. W. Andrew WaldoA Letter from Bishop Waldo
and a time for every matter under heaven.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1
The Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina
A PRAYER FOR OUR BISHOP SEARCH
LATEST TRANSITION NEWS
Bishop Search Profile and Nomination Form Now Available
Nominating Committee Update on the Bishop Search
A Message from the Nominating Committee
Nominating Committee Appointed for Bishop Search
Application open for EDUSC Nominating Committee
Bishop Andrew Waldo Announces Plan to Retire, Calls for Election of Next Bishop
