District Superintendent (United Methodist Church)

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A District Superintendent in the United Methodist Church is a clergyperson who serves in a supervisory position over a geographic District of churches (varying in size) providing spiritual and administrative leadership to those churches and their pastors. According to the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church,

“ The offices of bishop and district superintendent exist in The United Methodist Church as particular ministries for which persons are elected or selected from the group of elders who are ordained to be ministers of Word, Sacrament, and Order and thereby participate in the ministry of Christ, in sharing a royal priesthood which has aspostolic roots (I Peter 2:9; John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28; I Peter 5:2-3; I Timothy 3:1-7).[1] ”

District Superintendents were once called Presiding Elders in United Methodist Churches, and still are in other Methodist denominations.[2]

[edit] History and Task

“ From apostolic times, certain ordained persons have been entrusted with the particular tasks of superintending. Those who superintend carry primary responsibility for ordering the life of the Church. It is their task to enable the gathered Church to worship and to evangelize faithfully. It is also their task to facilitate the initiation of structures and strategies for the equipping of the Christian people for service in the Church and in the world in the name of Jesus Christ and to help extend the service in mission. It is their task, as well, to see that all matters, temporal and spiritual, are administered in a manner which acknowledges the ways and the insights of the world critically and with understanding while remaining cognizant of and faithful to the mandate of the Church. The formal leadership in the United Methodist Church, located in these superintending offices, is an integral part of the system of an itinerant ministry.[3] ”

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church: Section II. Offices of Bishop and District Superintendent - ¶ 503 (retrieved 23 May 2007).
  2. ^ Church Global Directory. The African Methodist Episcopal Church. Retrieved on 2007-05-23.
  3. ^ The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church: ¶ 501 - Task (retrieved 23 May 2007).