Synod Council forming process for electing new bishop

By Rick Nelson, Synod Council member

Members of the Southwestern Washington Synod Council reviewed issues ranging from the bishop-election process to mission starts when it met Sept. 22 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Tacoma.

Bishop Robert D. Hofstad will retire in 2013, and the Rev. Nina Body, chair of the synod Nominating Committee, outlined the process being developed to lead up to the election of a new bishop at the June 2013 synod assembly.

The Synod Council last year asked the Nominating Committee to develop a process to gather information about pastors willing to be candidates for bishop. Pastor Body reported that the committee soon will send an email to congregations to solicit input on what they’d like to see in the next bishop. The committee will present the information at regional talking-post meetings where people may start lifting up names of possible candidates. Possible candidates will be asked to complete a profile; these will be saved for use during the election at the synod assembly.

The election process at the assembly will be under the direction of the synod Elections Committee. The election will be conducted under the normal ecclesiastical election process, with the first ballot being a nominating round. The 2013 assembly will be June 7 to 8 at the Hotel Murano Tacoma.

In other business, the Council authorized assembly coordinator the Rev. Don Fossum to schedule the 2014 assembly at a church or college instead of a hotel convention center. Fossum said this would be a cost-saving measure for the synod. Voting members would be responsible for finding their own lodging for the two-day assembly.