wfn.org | West African delegates elect Liberian John Innis as bishop

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Dec. 20, 2000 News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-31-71B{581}

By United Methodist News Service

The Rev. John Innis was consecrated Dec. 17 as the new bishop for the United
Methodist Church in Liberia.  He succeeds Bishop Arthur Kulah, who is
retiring after 20 years in the episcopal office. 

Innis was elected on the first ballot during sessions of the West Africa
Central Conference held at First United Methodist Church in Monrovia.  The
Central  Conference was composed of 20 delegates each from the Nigeria,
Sierra Leone, and Liberia Annual Conferences.  

A 1977 graduate of the University of Liberia, Innis served in rural areas of
the country as the director and a teacher at the Camphor Mission Station
from 1978-85. Upon receiving a Crusade Scholarship from the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries, he studied at the Saint Paul School of Theology
in Kansas City, Mo., where he received a master of divinity degree in 1988.

After being ordained by the Liberia Annual Conference, Innis returned to
Camphor Mission. During the early 1990s, he provided food, shelter and other
assistance to refugees fleeing that African country's civil war. When he
suffered a head wound during a rebel raid on the mission, Innis moved to
Monrovia. In the capital, he served as assistant to Kulah until April, 1996,
when the war threatened the safety of people living there. At that time, he
and his family fled to Sierra Leone and then came to the United States to
work, for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). 

While serving as chaplain at the Sager-Brown Center in Baldwin, La., he
received a doctor of philosophy degree in church leadership ministry from
Columbus University in Metarie, La. In April 1998, Innis returned to Africa
to serve as the UMCOR field staff for West Africa.

Innis and his wife, Irene, have three children.  

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United Methodist News Service
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