THE PRESIDING BISHOP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

On Friday, October 25 our annual convention for the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida gathers at the Chapel of St. Andrew on the grounds of St. Andrew's Episcopal School here in Boca Raton at 5 PM. Everyone is invited to attend this festive worship service, which gathers together our diocesan family that stretches from Key West to Stuart.

The special guest and preacher for this service will be the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Right Reverend Sean Rowe. Bishop Rowe has led the Erie-based Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania since 2007, and also serves as Bishop Provisional of the Diocese of Western New York through a partnership the dioceses established in 2019. He previously served as Bishop Provisional of the Diocese of Bethlehem from 2014 to 2018. Originally from western Pennsylvania, Rowe is a Virginia Theological Seminary graduate (my seminary as well!) and was ordained to the priesthood in 2000 in Northwestern Pennsylvania, where he served in congregational ministry until his election as Bishop. He currently serves as parliamentarian of the House of Bishops and Executive Council. The Presiding Bishop has a range of responsibilities, as outlined by The Episcopal Church Constitution and Canons. Those include presiding over the House of Bishops, chairing Executive Council, visiting every Episcopal diocese, participating in the ordination and consecration of bishops, receiving and responding to disciplinary complaints against bishops, making appointments to the church’s interim bodies, and “developing policies and strategies for the church and speaking for the church on the policies, strategies and programs of General Convention.”

Bishop Rowe succeeds Bishop Michael Curry, who, has been such a dynamic leader focusing our attention on Jesus and the Gospel and the work of building the beloved community of God. Bishop Rowe has stated that he looks forward to helping "usher this church into whatever it is being called into in this next phase and season of life.” He adds, “we don’t exactly know what that is or what it looks like, but what we know is that God is in the midst of it and that love is the way, and if we continue to live and move ever more deeply into those ways that the world can be transformed around us in Jesus.”

I hope you can join me for this special worship service. It will make a difference!                     

In Christ, 

Andrew+