The North Central Jurisdictional (NCJ) Conference is in session Nov. 2-5 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Delegates from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Illinois Great Rivers, Indiana, Michigan, East Ohio, and West Ohio Annual Conferences are together to elect three new bishops after two years of delay due to COVID.  

Every four years, the five jurisdictional conferences in the United States (Western, North Central, Northeastern, Southeastern, and South Central) meet following General Conference to elect and assign bishops to replace those retiring. Due to the postponement of General Conference and the inability to gather in person, those elections have been delayed, and some of the current bishops have been asked to provide episcopal oversight for more than one area. In the Dakotas, we have experienced this with Bishop Laurie Haller and Bishop Deborah Kiesey providing interim coverage. With the next General Conference now scheduled for 2024, the Council of Bishops requested a ruling from the Judicial Council to determine if they could call a regular session of the Jurisdictional Conference ahead of General Conference.  So here we are! Read more about what to expect.

Dakotas delegates share first day impressions

Dakotas Conference delegates in attendance are Rev. Rebecca Trefz, Rev. Sara Nelson, as well as Rev. Ray Baker, reserve clergy delegate, and Rev. Jenny Hallenbeck Orr, reserve clergy delegate. Lay delegates are Kara Heagel and Beata Ferris. Here are some of their thoughts on day one of the conference in Fort Wayne. They were asked their impressions at the end of the first day of the North Central Jurisdiction Conference. Some of the highlights were the theme, the message of hopefulness, and a positive atmosphere as bishop’s are elected.

“My impression so far of the jurisdictional conference is that there is just this sense of hopefulness and excitement and anticipation for how God is moving and how God will continue to move in the future, "said Rev. Sara Nelson, Dakotas Conference clergy delegate. “The theme is ‘Pressing On’ and we know that God is with us in this moment and in this time of finding a way forward and so I am excited for what is in store and it has been exciting to be part of it.”

The Dakotas delegation to NCJ 2022 was, left-to-right, Kara Heagel, reserves Rev. Jenny Hallenbeck Orr and Rev. Ray Baker, Rev. Sara Nelson, Lay delegate Beata Ferris, and Rev. Rebecca Trefz. Photo by Dave Stucke, Dakotas Communications.

“The process has been amazing because we have spent all of this time reading about the candidates and watching their videos. Now we have been able to meet them in person over the last several days, said Beata Ferris, Dakotas Conference lay delegate. The celebration in the room was joyful as we elected a bishop on the first ballot. We are looking toward the future and moving onto something new and that is really exciting.”

“I think it’s been a very exciting event. I have never been to it before, so I had a lot to learn,” said Rev. Ray Baker, Dakotas Conference clergy reserve delegate. I have been very happy to see we are trying to find the episcopal leaders that have hope and vision for the future. Leaders that will come back to the Annual Conferences and help us to live into that new future.”

Rev. Jenny Hallenbeck Orr, Dakotas Conference clergy reserve delegate said, “The Bishop candidates created and offered a statement to create a unity amongst themselves. That was really beautiful.  I attended Jurisdictional Conference previously as a reserve delegate and I have never seen anything like this before.”

Opening worship 

More than 600 gathered to worship and hear a message titled "God has us Right Where God Wants us," from Bishop Bruce R. Ough at the Grand Wayne Convention Center. Ough invited attendees to explore Ezekiel 37:1-14, The Valley of Dry Bones. Ough said, “God’s question to Ezekiel echoes in our hearts and head, can these bones live again? Is everything too far gone? Is it too late for us? Are the bones too dry, too broken, too trampled upon?” Read more

Bishop elections

The North Central Jurisction is electing three bishops. So far there have been two elections Reverend Kennetha Bigham-Tsai and Reverend Doctor Lanette Plambeck.

The Rev. Kennetha Bigham-Tsai, Chief Connectional Ministries Officer for the Connectional Table, has been elected as bishop in The United Methodist Church’s North Central Jurisdictional Conference. Bigham-Tsai’s election on Wednesday afternoon was a historic milestone, as she was the first to be elected on the first round of voting within the North Central Jurisdiction’s history.  Read more

Bishop Lanette Plambeck was elected on the third ballot at the 2022 North Central Jurisdictional Conference on Wednesday, November 2. She received 102 votes of the 167 ballots cast. She needed 101 to be elected (60% of valid votes.) “I love our God, and I love the United Methodist Church,” said Bishop Plambeck. Read more

On Saturday, Nov. 5, we’ll find out where each NCJ bishop will be assigned. After two years of the Dakotas having two interim bishops and Minnesota having a different one, the Dakotas-Minnesota Area will share a bishop again beginning Jan. 1, 2023, when the new assignments take effect. The bishop assigned to us could be a newly elected bishop, or a current bishop who is re-assigned from another area. The hope would be that whoever is assigned to us would be re-assigned in 2024 for an additional four-year term so that we would have some continuity of leadership.

NCJ Episcopacy Going Forward

The North Central Jurisdictional delegates approved a recommendation from the Committee on Episcopacy to elect three bishops at this session. The retirement of Bishop Laurie Haller was approved effective Dec. 31, 2022, which, along with the previous retirements of Bishops Bruce Ough and Sally Dyck in 2020, created three vacancies. Rev. Sara Isbell, chair of the Committee on Episcopacy, noted that this was counter to the previous recommendation for two elections. She recognized the unique demands of this time on bishops, and she reminded attendees of the fact that we will have two retirees in 2024 who will reach the age of mandatory retirement.

The expectation is that the North Central Jurisdiction will need to imagine more shared episcopal areas in our future. All conferences were asked to engage in exploratory conversation about sharing episcopal leadership.  The conferences of Wisconsin and Northern Illinois and the conferences of East and West Ohio were specifically called to investigate becoming episcopal areas. A task force was also formed to look at the function and role of bishops in our jurisdiction, given what will be increasing demands for episcopal oversight.

Work of the Mission Council

Rev. Ryan Russell and Laura Witoski, current chair and vice-chair of the Mission Council of the North Central Jurisdiction shared that the focus of the Mission Council was spiritual leadership, outreach, and serving as the finance committee, rules committee, and grants committee on behalf of the jurisdiction.  The Mission Council, in consultation with the College of Bishops, saw the need to gather the delegates of the jurisdiction ahead of the 2019 General Conference to create space for spiritual growth and fellowship. Two of those gatherings were held in 2018 and 2019.  The Council also shifted in the way they make grants, moving to an annual grant application process for jurisdictional programming. Curtis Brown reported on the actions taken in response to the Covenant to Build Beloved Community passed at the 2021 Jurisdictional Conference. The leaders in the conferences working in the area of equity, inclusion, and racial justice gathered in October and created a plan to conduct a jurisdiction-wide racial audit in 2023. They will bring a report back to the Jurisdictional Conference in 2024. $10,000 has been set aside to fund an outside contractor to assist with the data gathering.

Lonnie Chafin presented the proposed 2022 Jurisdictional Budget, which would hold the apportionment level for each annual conference. In doing so, he noted that the North Central Jurisdiction has the smallest apportionments among the jurisdictions in the United States. This budget covers two years. A four year proposal will come in 2024.  He thanked the annual conferences for 100 percent of their apportionment payment. Chafin offered an extra word of thanks for the Dakotas-Minnesota Area for the stewardship of the funds granted to them as the host committee of the postponed 2020 General Conference, keeping the expected planned use of reserves of the 2016 approved budget to $82,000 instead of $251,000. The 2022 budget will be voted on Friday.

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