Bishop Paup to lead UMC’s
Board of Global Ministries

STAMFORD, Connecticut (US) – United Methodist Bishop Edward Paup has been elected to lead the church’s Board of Global Ministries, which oversees global missions and is the denomination’s largest agency.

He will assume the post of General Secretary on Sept 1. Until then, Bishop Felton May will continue as the interim top executive. 

Bishop Paup, 62, is Bishop of the Seattle area, which includes the Pacific Northwest Annual (Regional) Conference and Alaska Missionary Conference, and is President of the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops. He will tender his resignation from the episcopacy, effective Aug 31.

No stranger to the Board of Global Ministries, he became a director in 2004 and serves as President of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. He chairs the board’s health and relief committee and its audit committee and also serves on its finance and executive panels.

He said that he strongly believes in the importance of the role played by the general secretaries of the denomination’s agencies and commissions and the need for him to resign as bishop in order to be “in the same category” as his fellow executives.

The election of an active bishop to oversee a church agency is unprecedented in the 40-year history of The United Methodist Church. US bishops are elected for life and, while some have resigned for various reasons, none has left for full-time leadership of a church agency. – United Methodist News Service.

BISHOP EDWARD PAUP

-- UMNS picture.