From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org


Council's new president hopes to be catalyst for bishops


From "NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>
Date Mon, 5 May 2003 17:04:17 -0500

May 5, 2003  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn. 
10-71BPI{265}

NOTE: A photograph is available. For further coverage of the United Methodist
Council of Bishops' meeting, see UMNS stories #243, 253, 255, 256, 258, 264,
and 266-268.

DALLAS (UMNS) - Bishop Ruediger Minor sees his election as president of the
United Methodist Council of Bishops as an important symbol for the
international body.

"Most people look at the United Methodist Church as a U.S. denomination," he
said. "Now the presiding bishop is from another country." Though he is not
the first bishop from outside the United States to become president, he is
the first from a former Soviet bloc country.

Minor, 64, was elected president during the council's April 28-May 2
semiannual meeting in the Dallas suburb of Addison. He had served the
previous year as president-elect and succeeds Bishop Sharon A. Brown
Christopher, whose one-year term ended May 2.

The new president leads the denomination's Eurasia Area, which spans eight
time zones. His offices are in Moscow.

In an interview, Minor noted that the council's executive committee also has
other members from outside the United States. "The world view has been
present always, and for this year (it) may be more visible."

The council comprises 50 active bishops in the United States; 18 bishops in
Europe, Asia and Africa; plus 75 retired bishops worldwide. They are the top
clergy leaders in the nearly 10 million-member church.

Minor believes his personal history is important for the council.

"I hope that some of my experience and history I can bring into this service
as a certain ferment, maybe even catalyst ... for seeing things in different
ways," he said. For example, some churches - especially mainline ones - have
felt that their voice has been ignored by the political powers, but he has
had experience in dealing with that kind of problem, he said. "For me, this
is nothing new at all."

The bishop earned a doctorate in church history at Leipzig University in his
hometown of Leipzig, Germany, and went on to the United Methodist Theological
Seminary in the former East Germany. He was elected bishop in 1986. Six years
later, as communism was crumbling around Eastern Europe, he was put in charge
of a new United Methodist mission to the former Soviet Union. The area
eventually became an annual conference.

Minor credited the denomination with opening "a window to the world" for the
church in the East during the communist era. Since then, during the last 12
to 13 years, he said he has seen new activities and renewal in the church in
Eastern Europe. With new tensions in the world today, it's important that the
church keep its connections, he said.

Upon being elected council president, Minor presented Christopher and Bishop
Sharon Zimmerman Rader, the group's secretary, with copies of the new Russian
United Methodist hymnal, Mir Vam ("peace be with you").

At the council's closing worship service, Minor told the bishops that rough
weather might be in the forecast, but Jesus is in the boat with them. He used
the story of Christ calming the storm while the disciples trembled in fear
that their boat would capsize.

"Common Christian tradition has it that the boat is the church," he said.
What happened among the disciples before they decided to awake Jesus? he
wondered. "Would they not have had a crisis management team?"

With the boat listing because of the wind, some of the disciples would have
tried stabilizing it by leaning overboard, he said, but "they could not agree
if the wind was blowing from the right or the left."

In a History Channel series on shipwrecks, Minor noted that model ships were
placed in a water tank to simulate wrecks. "Friends, how often do we think we
are the disciples in the boat, swamped ... when indeed we are just playing a
simulation in the water tank?" 

For the disciples, however, the need was real, and they finally awakened
Jesus, who said, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" 

"The ship of the church is a fragile little boat," he said. "However, the
Lord is with it."

# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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