wfn.org | [UMNS-ALL-NEWS] UMNS - Peggy Johnson elected a bishop of The United Methodist Church

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Peggy Johnson elected a bishop of The United Methodist Church

>Jul. 17, 2008

NOTE: A photograph is available at http://umns.umc.org.

>By Linda Bloom*

HARRISBURG, Pa. (UMNS)-The Rev. Peggy A. Johnson of Baltimore has been
elected a bishop by the Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference of The
United Methodist Church.

Johnson, 54, pastor of Christ United Methodist Church of the Deaf, was
elected July 17 by jurisdictional conference delegates. On Sept. 1, she
will become one of nine active bishops in the Northeastern Jurisdiction,
which includes 13 annual (regional) conferences from Maine to West
Virginia.

A consecration service for Johnson is set for 11:15 a.m. on July 18 at
Grace United Methodist Church. Geographical assignments for the
jurisdiction's bishops will be announced earlier that day.

Endorsed by the Baltimore-Washington Conference and the Association of
Physically Challenged Ministers, Johnson was elected on the 10th ballot,
receiving 163 of 248 votes cast.

The Northeastern Jurisdiction has two retiring bishops, Bishop Violet L.
Fisher of Rochester, N.Y., and Bishop Susan Morrison, who took early
retirement. Because of a planned change in annual conference boundaries
and a reduction from 10 to nine episcopal areas in 2010, only one new
bishop was elected.

Johnson has been actively involved in the United Methodist Congress of
the Deaf since 1988 and has supported a deaf ministry effort in Zimbabwe
through her conference. Since 1995, she has been an adjunct faculty
member at Wesley Theological Seminary.

She served as a General Conference delegate from 1996 through 2008; was
a member of the Board of Higher Education and Ministry from 1996 to
2000; served as a consultant on deaf ministry for the Board of Global
Ministries from 2001 to 2004 and was a member of the NEJ episcopacy
committee from 2000 to 2004.

Johnson received "The Circuit Rider of the Year Award" from the United
Methodist Publishing House in 1990 and "The Pillar of Faith Award" from
Howard Divinity School in 2006.

She earned a bachelor's degree in music education from Lebanon Valley
College in Annville, Pa., in 1975, a master of divinity degree from
Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., in 1980 and a doctor of
ministry degree from Wesley in 1993.

Besides Christ Church, she has served at Fulton-Siemers Memorial and
Lansdowne United Methodist churches in Baltimore and the Mount Pleasant
charge in Frederick, Md. She also was chaplain at Gallaudet University
in Washington from 1985 to 1986.

Johnson received the "HIV/AIDS Activist Award" from the Family Service
Foundation of Baltimore in 2004 and the "Helping Hand Award" from the
Maryland Association of the Deaf in 1991 and 2005. She currently is a
part of the Maryland Governor's Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Mental Health Task Force.

A United Methodist bishop in the United States is elected for life and,
although eight years is the standard term for a bishop to serve in an
episcopal area, it is not unusual for a bishop to be assigned to one
area for 12 years for "missional reasons."

Bishops are charged by the church's Book of Discipline to "lead and
oversee the spiritual and temporal affairs" of the church and to "guard,
transmit, teach and proclaim, corporately and individually, the
apostolic faith as it is expressed in Scripture and tradition, and, as
they are led and endowed by the Spirit, to interpret that faith
evangelically and prophetically."

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

>********************

United Methodist News Service Photos and stories also available at: http://umns.umc.org

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