Dear Friends,

We are pleased to share with you an update on the bishop search process. Last week, the nomination and application period closed. Having received an exciting response from many gifted applicants, we look forward to our next phase of discernment with these applicants. 

Over the course of the next three months, we will spend time in prayer, conversation, interviews, a retreat, and more as we seek to discern how the Holy Spirit is moving among us and who God might be calling to stand for election as our next bishop. Your discernment, after you have the opportunity to meet the candidates in mid-September as they visit our diocese, will guide our election from that point. We hope you have those dates marked down after the Standing Committee–with the Transition Committee–recently shared them with all of us.

The author Brian Wren once wrote, “One of the oldest things we know about God is that God is always doing new things.” We have seen that truth born out in this process already as we look to our next phase of work together filled with hope. We invite you, in this Easter season, to join us in a hope-filled joy at all that God is doing in our midst in every corner of our diocese and certainly in this process.

We are grateful in this season, as much as ever, for your prayers. Please know that we hold you in our prayers, too.