[The Episcopal News] Just three more days for you to nominate candidates for bishop – the deadline is June 20.
Just 10 more days for candidates to nominate themselves and complete the application form – the deadline is June 27.
“We’re excited,” said the Rev. KC Robertson of St. Matthew’s, Pacific Palisades, co-chair of the Bishop Search Committee. “We have a good number of nominations already, and the applications are starting to roll in. We’ve been told that historically, most of the applications will come in during the last few days before the deadline. So we’re checking our in-box regularly with sincere hope.”
To learn how to nominate someone and how to apply, click here.
Read the profile here.
“As we wait for the application period to end, it gives us a chance to look around and see how the landscape of the diocese has changed in the last few months,” said Thomas Diaz of All Saints Pasadena, the co-chair. “Back in January we were fighting one kind of fire – the wildfires, which, as devastating as they were, affected only a small part of our diocese.
“Last weekend, the demonstrations all over the diocese and the nation were a different kind of fire that affects everyone,” he said. “Our diocese showed up: There were demonstrations not just in downtown LA, but in all the reaches of our diocese. As far north as Santa Barbara County, as far south as Orange County, and all up and down the inlands. Our Sacred Resistance team was downtown at the detention center, leading prayers and delivering Father’s Day cards that we hope were distributed to the immigrant dads who had been taken into custody. This is the landscape into which we are inviting our next bishop.”
Thomas added: “We are on the leading edge of the immigration crisis – Los Angeles is home to the nation’s largest undocumented population – and the world is watching us. Who is the bishop who can most effectively lead us?”
“All of this has really made us acutely aware of the presence of one’s bishop,” KC said. “Bishop Taylor was there with all of us at the downtown interfaith service last Tuesday, offering the closing prayer amid the thousands of us who gathered. And then there he was just a few days later, quietly showing up at the All Saints Pasadena tea with Bishop Gene Robinson, at a time when our LGBTQ+ friends are increasingly threatened.
“Bishop Taylor’s many acts of showing up this past week alone have been a reminder that a bishop is the face of the diocese in hard times and good times,” KC said. “We continue to need a bishop who can embody the Gospel values on the ground, can be the face of the diocese, can represent what we stand for in the public square.”
What will happen when the nominating period closes?
“Then the real work begins,” Thomas said. “We’ve developed a rubric, a set of guidelines to help us read and evaluate the candidates’ materials. We’ll meet on July 12 to determine who moves ahead to the next step – Zoom interviews.”
The committee will meet again in early August to discern a smaller group of candidates who will attend a discernment retreat later in the month. In early September the Search Committee will determine a slate of three to five candidates, which must be approved by the Standing Committee before the slate is announced.