CEB: What do you consider to be your spiritual gifts?
JWF: Preaching, encouraging and mentoring, energy and enthusiasm, creativity in imagining new ways in the faith.

CEB: How are these particularly matched with your new position and its demands?
JWF: The mix of my spiritual gifts can be useful for my new position. A bishop, however, is not just a bundle of gifts and skills. A bishop is a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit, empowered to be an agent of love and forgiveness. Bishop Doyle spoke most effectively about this in his sermon at my consecration. I believe that God called me to be a bishop—filled with the Holy Spirit, warts and all—and the person that I am today will not be the same as the bishop I will be tomorrow. God has always given me the gifts to do the ministry I am called to do. I am trusting that the same will continue to be true.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

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