By: Victoria Rebeck, director of communication for the Northern Illinois Conference and Doreen Gosmire, director of communications, Dakotas Conference

At the end of the worship service Saturday morning, United Methodists in the North Central Jurisdiction learned where each of the jurisdiction’s six bishops will be assigned for the next four years. 

Bishop Lanette Plambeck has been reassigned to the Dakotas-Minnesota Area for the 2025-2028 quadrennium. 

“I am delighted to have learned and celebrate that I will be returning to the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area. It is in this place that we will grow in love with God and neighbor, we will reach new people, and we will heal a broken world.” 

Here’s a look at where each bishop will be assigned for the next four years: 

New Triad Area 
    Michigan Area: Bishop David Bard
    Iowa Area: Bishop Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai
    Illinois Great Rivers Area: Bishop David Bard and Bishop Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai
Dakotas-Minnesota Area: Bishop Lanette Plambeck
Northern Illinois-Wisconsin Area: Bishop Dan Schwerin 
Indiana Area: Bishop Tracy S. Malone
The Ohio Area: Bishop Hee-Soo Jung

The North Central Jurisdiction has 10 annual conferences that are organized into seven episcopal areas. A bishop oversees an episcopal area, which may comprise one or more annual conferences.

In January, the NCJ established two new episcopal areas: one comprising the Wisconsin and Northern Illinois annual conferences and another comprising the West Ohio and East Ohio annual conferences. This reduced the number of bishops serving NCJ’s 10 conferences to seven, relieving pressure on the denomination’s stressed Episcopal Fund.

Then in May, General Conference called the NCJ to eliminate an additional bishop assignment, thus reducing the jurisdiction’s bishop count to six. With Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer (West Ohio) and Bishop Julius Trimble (Indiana) retiring this year, and Bishop Frank Beard (Illinois Great Rivers) going on long-term disability due to his ongoing battle with glaucoma, this meant that no new NCJ bishop elections were needed this year. But it also meant that there would be one more episcopal area than bishop.

The NCJ Committee on Episcopacy addressed the challenge of assigning six bishops to seven episcopal areas by assigning two bishops to three areas. Bishop David Bard will return to Michigan, and Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai will return to Iowa, and they will share oversight of Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference.

The committee explained that Illinois Great Rivers will determine, with their two new bishops, how the episcopal tasks will be divided. However, the committee expects that Bishop Bard will take primary responsibility for Illinois Great Rivers for the first two years of the quadrennium (Sept. 1, 2024, through Aug. 31, 2028) and Bishop Bigham-Tsai will assume primary responsibility there for the second two years.

The North Central Jurisdiction’s Episcopacy Committee is responsible for assigning bishops—a process that takes place during the North Central Jurisdictional Conference. The committee includes two people from each annual conference. Beata Ferris and Rev. Sara Nelson from the Dakotas Conference are members chosen to do this sacred work. 

This week, the NCJ Committee on Episcopacy spent more than 45 hours discerning episcopal assignments for the upcoming quadrennium, which is a difficult undertaking.

"It is holy and hard work,  looking at the gifts and graces of our bishops, the needs of our annual conferences and thinking strategically about what our jurisdiction might look like in the future, " said Beata Ferris, who serves as Discipleship Coordinator at Firs United Methodist Church in Pierre, South Dakota. "We figured out what is best for the next season in our jurisdiction with the triad. We did something new and it takes time to wrap your head around doing something new to share two bishops across three annual conferences."