News and Views

By Melissa Lauber

Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling danced.

 With a spirit of professed and profound gratitude, joy, and hope, Bishop Easterling danced as she met with the delegations of the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences after learning she would be reassigned to serve these two conferences for four more years. The delegates celebrated with her – claiming the missional possibilities open to them with Easterling continuing as their episcopal leader.

“Beloved, this is an honor,” she said. “I, my husband (the Rev. Marion Easterling), and my family count it an honor that you feel we have the gifts and graces to serve among you. We are exceedingly grateful. I treat this as gift.”

The assignment was made at the close of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference held July 8-12 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During the session, the NEJ’s Committee on Episcopacy created six episcopal areas. In their work, the affiliation of the Baltimore-Washington Conference and Peninsula-Delaware conferences, begun in 2021, was lifted up as a model for others in the denomination.

Bishops serving beyond eight years in the same annual conference is unusual in The United Methodist Church. However, Bishop Easterling was granted a missional exemption by the Committee on Episcopacy in recognition of the excellent, fruitful and ongoing work being carried out in the two conferences.

The names of the six new areas in the Northeastern Jurisdiction will be developed after consultation with the Committee on Native American Ministries. In The United Methodist Church, an episcopal area is a geographic region presided over by a resident bishop.

The following bishops have been assigned to other Areas in the Northeastern Jurisdiction:

• Eastern Pennsylvania and Greater New Jersey Conferences – Bishop Cynthia Moore Koikoi
• New England and New York Conferences – Bishop Thomas Bickerton
• Susquehanna and Upper New York Conferences – Bishop Héctor Antonio Burgos-Núñez
• Western Pennsylvania Conference – Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball
• West Virginia Conference – Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, who, in a unique arrangement, will also serve the Holsten Annual Conference in the Southeastern Jurisdiction.

The Committee on Episcopacy, whose members include the Rev. Ianther Mills and Cynthia Taylor from the BWC and the Rev. Vicki Gordy-Stith and Colleen Moskov from Pen-Del, lifted up four missional guidelines for Bishop Easterling in the next quadrennium. They included:

• Implementing a vision of strategic vitality, 100% vitality for 100% of our churches, through the Missional Action Plan in both conferences;
• Implementing a post-disaffiliation refocus and vitality efforts in Pen-Del;
• Implementing structural changes in BWC that lead to greater church vitality; and
• Continuing IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism) work and building intercultural competency in both conferences for all to be a more beloved

Bishop Easterling pledged herself to this strategic and Spirit-led work and vowed to walk with purpose and intentionality.

“Beloved, this is just the beginning of our new journey,” she said. “Four years is all we have. We need to make sure we all understand our priorities and are ready to lay it on the line to the glory of almighty God. … This is a new day.”

Leaders in the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware conferences are celebrating Bishop Easterling’s reassignment as their resident bishop, praising her for her strong, bold, innovative, and justice-seeking leadership, her compassion, unwavering faith, and willingness to dream big, new dreams for the church and its people. See some of their reactions.