[ENS] Diocese of Springfield elects Daniel Hayden Martins as 11th bishop

[<mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal News Service
>September 18, 2010

Diocese of Springfield elects Daniel Hayden Martins as 11th bishop

>By Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Daniel H. Martins was elected Sept.
18 as 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield, Illinois,
pending required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction
and standing committees of the Episcopal Church.

Martins, 58, the rector of St. Anne's Church in Warsaw, in the Diocese
of Northern Indiana, was elected on the third ballot out of a field of
three nominees.

He received 42 of 74 votes cast in the lay order and 38 of 49 cast in
the clergy order at a special electing convention at St. Paul's
Cathedral in Springfield. An election on that ballot required 38 in
the lay order and 25 in the clergy order.

Pending a successful consent process Martins will succeed the Rt. Rev.
Peter H. Beckwith, 71, who was consecrated Feb. 29, 1992 and retired
Feb. 1, 2010. The diocese has since been under the ecclesiastical
authority of the standing committee while the Ven. Shawn W. Denney,
Archdeacon of Springfield, has been served in an administrative
capacity at the diocesan center.

Martins was born in Brazil and raised in Chicago suburbs. During more
than 20 years of ordained ministry he has served congregations in
California, Louisiana and Indiana.

After his 1989 ordination to the diaconate (June 18) and priesthood
(Dec. 20) he exercised a "turn-around" ministry in several
congregations, halting patterns of attendance decline.

He served two congregations in Baton Rouge, in the Episcopal Diocese
of Louisiana, including as curate and chaplain at St. Luke's School
from 1989-1991, and as vicar of St. Margaret's Church (1991-1994).

He had also served for 13 years as rector of St. John the Evangelist
Church in Stockton (1994-2007), California, in the Diocese of San
Joaquin prior to moving to his current ministry as rector of St.
Anne's.

He is a 1989 cum laude graduate of Nashotah House with a master of
divinity. He also holds a master degree in music history from the
University of California at Santa Barbara in 1975 and a bachelor's
degree in music from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, 1973.

Nationally, he has served as General Convention Deputy (2009) and on
the Board of Examining Chaplains.

During the interview process he said the challenges faced by both the
Springfield diocese and the Episcopal Church are how "to find a way to
re-invent ourselves, both inwardly and outwardly, while at the same
time remaining faithful to our core identity as Anglican Christians.

"When our median age is pushing 60, and our average attendance is down
to 70 or so, it's clear that we need to find ways to engage the
culture around us-a culture that is constantly shifting underneath our
feet-much differently than we currently are. There are lots of old
habits that we need to unlearn, and lots of new habits we need to
learn. We need to be a lot more self-critical, and a lot more
courageous, than we are habitually prone to be as Episcopalians."

He added that the Springfield diocese "has some impressive 'DNA' and
cited as examples Bishop Philander Chase, the first bishop of the
as-yet-undivided Diocese of Illinois and Bishop George Franklin
Seymour, a dean of General Theological Seminary who was the first
bishop of the spun-off Diocese Springfield, created in 1877.

"They were solid Catholic Anglicans, who fed their flock with a very
nourishing diet of Catholic liturgy and devotion and spiritual
practice. Most of the congregations in the diocese can trace their
roots to these early Evangelicals and Catholics. They faced challenges
at least as great as the ones we face today, and they faced those
challenges successfully, and their spirit still lives, I believe, in
the fabric of diocesan life.," he said.

He has been married to Brenda F. Martins since 1972; the couple has
three grown children.

The consecration is expected to take place in March 2011.

The other nominees were: Matthew A. Gunter, 52, rector, St. Barnabas
Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois in the Diocese of Chicago; and Canon E.
Mark Stevenson, 45, canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of Louisiana.
Information about all the nominees is available here:
http://www.episcopalspringfield.org

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_124612_ENG_HTM.htm