The North Central Jurisdiction, meeting in conference in Sioux Falls, SD, affirmed the following episcopal assignments, effective Sept. 1, 2024:

Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area:                        Bishop Lynette Plambeck

Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference:               Bishop David Bard and Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai

Indiana Annual Conference:                                         Bishop Tracy S. Malone

Iowa Annual Conference:                                               Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai

Michigan Annual Conference:                                     Bishop David Bard

Northern Illinois-Wisconsin Episcopal Area:       Bishop Dan Schwerin

The Ohio Episcopal Area:                                                Bishop Hee-Soo Jung

The NCJ Committee on Episcopacy, which determines the assignment of bishops in the jurisdiction, announced them on July 13.

The NCJ has ten annual conferences that are organized into seven episcopal areas. A conference is governed by the voting members of its annual conference in session. A bishop oversees an episcopal area, which may comprise one or more annual conferences. In the latter case, a bishop oversees and presides over more than one annual conference.

The Episcopacy Committee faced the challenge of assigning six bishops to seven episcopal areas by assigning two bishops to three areas. Bishop David Bard will return to Michigan, and Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai will return to Iowa. They will share oversight of Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference.

The committee explained that Illinois Great Rivers will determine, with their two new bishops, how the episcopal tasks will be divided. However, the committee expects that Bishop Bard will take primary responsibility for IGRAC for the first two years of the quadrennium (Sept. 1, 2024, through Aug. 31, 2028) and Bishop Bigham-Tsai will assume primary responsibility there for the second two years.

In January, the NCJ established two new episcopal areas: the Wisconsin-Northern Illinois Episcopal Area and The Ohio Episcopal Area. This reduced the number of bishops serving NCJ’s ten conferences to seven, relieving pressure on the denomination’s stressed Episcopal Fund.

In May, the UMC General Conference instructed the NCJ to reduce is College of Bishops by one more. The jurisdiction is working on a strategy to fulfill that mandate.

Find biographies of the bishops at www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/bishops