New Bishop for Methodist Churches | Video

Michelle San Miguel | 10/6/2012

Methodists in North Dakota have a new bishop. Bishop Bruce Ough was installed as the bishop of the United Methodist Church for North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. The ceremony took place at McCabe United Methodist Church in Bismarck on Saturday.

Bishop Ough is from Williston but has spent the past 12 years serving as a bishop in western Ohio. He`ll now be the spiritual leader for about 130,000 Methodists, bringing together the newly merged Dakotas and Minnesota conferences.

"The United Methodist Church is growing very fast in Africa and southeast Asia and so this is really a shifting of resources. We`ve decided to downsize the number of bishops in the continental United States to free up resources to add bishops in Africa and in other areas of the world where the United Methodist Church is growing very rapidly," Bishop Ough said.

The bishop says his biggest priority is to reach out to congregations that have seen a decline in churchgoers and help them restore the mission of the church.

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