Bishop to talk with parish via broadband
Bishop Thomas Bickerton of the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church will address the Connellsville District United Methodist Women via broadband link from Russia – a first for the conference. “We are very excited about it,’ said Shirley Sullivan, president of the Connellsville District United Methodist Women.
Bickerton will address the annual meeting for the Connellsville District United Methodist Women, which takes place on Saturday, Sept. 24, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Asbury United Methodist Church, located on the corner of Beeson and Dunbar streets in Uniontown where Sullivan is a member. The United Methodist Women host an annual meeting, which is rotated among churches in the district.
The bishop is slated to speak on “Our World Through Prayer,’ continuing an emphasis the Connellsville District United Methodist Women have used all year.
Bickerton was originally scheduled to appear in person at the meeting, but answered a call from the United Methodist Church for a mission trip where help was needed to work on the dormitory of the seminary in Moscow.
“The seminary opened with only part of its dormitory open and professors and students were being housed in private residences,’ said the Rev. Larry Homitsky, conference council steward. “The call went out to anyone who could go, so Bishop Bickerton was able to coordinate with 31 individuals in western Pennsylvania. He’s leading the work team.’
“He is so mission minded. This was very important to him,’ noted Sullivan.
Homitsky will attend the Uniontown meeting and help set up the Bickerton broadband link. This is the first time a link of this kind will take place in the Western Pennsylvania Conference.
Bickerton will be the featured speaker at the meeting where the United Methodist Women will also elect officers. Special music will be provided by organist Jim Hutchinson and pianist Sharon Brown who will play a duet called “It Is Well With My Soul.’
Sullivan said anyone is welcome to attend Bickerton’s address. A luncheon at the conclusion of the meeting, however, will be provided only to those who have registered.
A native of Moundsville, W.Va., Bickerton became the spiritual leader of approximately 900 United Methodist congregations in western Pennsylvania on Sept. 1, 2004. At 46, he is the youngest bishop in the United Methodist Church.
In West Virginia, Bickerton served a six-point charge as a student pastor. After ordination, he was appointed pastor of a Shady Spring congregation, which grew from 25 to 225 members in the six years he served there.
In 1989, he was appointed senior pastor of then-585 member Forrest Burdette Memorial United Methodist Church in Hurricane, W.Va. By the time, he was named district superintendent of West Virginia’s Northern District in 1998, the Forrest Burdette Church had grown to 1,368 members.
The bishop has been a delegate to the last three general conferences of the United Methodist Church and a Jurisdictional Conference delegate every four years since 1988. He serves on the General Commission on United Methodist Communications, and previously sat on the Church’s General Commission on Archives and History and the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women.
A 1980 graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan College with a degree in psychology and sociology, Bickerton earned his master of divinity degree at Duke University School and his doctor of ministry at United Theological School where he serves as an adjunct faculty member teaching Wesleyan doctrine and church polity. The bishop and his wife, Sally, are parents of Liz, T.J., Ian and Nick.