Bishops, other business on slate for Jurisdictional 2012

By Jessica Connor

Thirty-six delegates from across South Carolina will join counterparts from 14 other annual conferences for the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference, set for July 18-20 at Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center in Western North Carolina.

Held every four years primarily to elect bishops, Jurisdictional Conference also has various other tasks, such as making rules and regulations for the administration of the church’s work within the jurisdiction (including budgeting); establishing and electing people to jurisdictional boards; determining annual conference boundaries; appointing a committee on appeals; and promoting interests of the church.

There are five jurisdictions in the U.S.; the SEJ comprises 15 annual conferences in the southeast.

The S.C. Conference has selected Dr. Tim McClendon, Columbia District superintendent and conference parliamentarian, as their episcopal nominee, McClendon has been a delegate to five General Conferences consecutively since 1996 and narrowly missed being elected bishop at the 2008 Jurisdictional Conference, garnering the second-most votes in episcopal election.

All 15 episcopal nominees will meet with delegates July 17, the day before Jurisdictional Conference officially begins.

Newly elected bishops will be consecrated July 20 at 10 a.m.

Full coverage of Jurisdictional Conference will run in the August Advocate.

For further information, visit www.sejumc.org/jurisdictional-conference .

Bishop Taylor to be next SEJ College of Bishops president

S.C. Resident Bishop Mary Virginia Taylor has been tapped as the next president of the Southeastern Jurisdiction’s College of Bishops.

The SEJ College of Bishops is made up of all active and retired bishops who currently serve, or have served, one of the episcopal areas of the SEJ.

Taylor is expected to take the helm at Jurisdictional Conference, set for July 18-20.

Full coverage of Jurisdictional Conference will run in the August Advocate.

For further information, visit visit www.sejumc.org/jurisdictional-conference.

South Carolina’s nominee: Dr. Tim McClendon

Members of the South Carolina Annual Conference officially named Dr. Tim McClendon their episcopal nominee at AC 2012 June 10-13.

McClendon, who serves as Columbia District superintendent and S.C. Conference parliamentarian, has been a delegate to five General Conferences consecutively since 1996. He narrowly missed being elected bishop at the 2008 Jurisdictional Conference, garnering the second-most votes in episcopal election.

McClendon said he has three distinct visions for The United Methodist Church that he hopes to help the denomination achieve: that the church be real, relevant and relational.

“We have to be real in a world of young people and all of every age hoping, yearning for meaning beyond themselves,” McClendon said. “Inauthentic Christians and tired thinking that longs for the good old days has to be replaced with active engagement with our culture as real people, no faking and no presumptions – lots of love.”

He said the UMC must be relevant in a world that sees Christianity and the institutional church as very irrelevant, and be relational in a world that seeks community.

“Christians and churches behind walls and acronyms that are foreign to people won’t cut it,” McClendon said. “We have to meet people where they are, and that has to include all kinds of people.”

If elected bishop, McClendon said his priorities are to be accessible, be on-site and offer forward-thinking leadership through relationships with people, while understanding the pulse of the Annual Conference – including its financial conditions and the health of its local churches.

He said a good bishop must know the cultural landscape of the Annual Conference, promote clergy and lay excellence by being present in churches across an Annual Conference, lead teaching days for laity and clergy that promote faithful discipleship and Wesleyan theology, be in the forefront of clergy recruitment, retain those who excel and effectively make appointments so that local churches thrive.

McClendon has served in a variety of settings, from a three-point charge to a county seat church to a turn-around city church to district superintendent. While senior pastor at St. John’s UMC in Rock Hill, he received the Denman Evangelism Award for his leadership in receiving more than 1,200 members in nine years. He has taught Disciple I 26 times, as well as taught Disciple II, Disciple III, Disciple IV, Christian Believer, and Jesus and the Gospels numerous times each.

Known throughout the connection as an expert on the Book of Discipline, McClendon has been parliamentarian for the S.C. Conference for the past 17 years. He has advised bishops and helped faithfully guide the proceedings of the Annual Conference.

McClendon was also vice-chair of the 2004 General Conference task force that formulated the Connectional Table. He was a member of the GCOM/Connectional Table Transition Team, and has served on the Connectional Table for the past two quadrennia. He is also a member of the AC Committee on Episcopacy and the Southeastern Jurisdictional Committee on Episcopacy.