WESTERN KANSAS: Diocese announces three nominees for bishop

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The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas announced Aug. 3 a slate of three nominees for the diocese's next bishop. They are:

• the Rev. Michael Pierce Milliken, 63, rector of Grace Church, Hutchinson, in the Diocese of Western Kansas;

• the Rev. Robert Allen Rodgers, 65, deployment officer in the Diocese of Eau Claire and vicar of two mission congregations, St. Albans' Church in Spooner and St. Luke's Church in Springbrook; and

• the Rev. Bryce Dennis Zimmerman, 58, rector, of St. Cornelius Church in the Diocese of Western Kansas.

The three priests were selected last month from a pool of several candidates, said the Rev. Laird McGregor, vicar of St. Anne's Church in McPherson and a member of the diocesan Standing Committee.

"Two of the candidates are very well-known in the diocese, and people are interested in what they have to say, and are also open to the possibilities," McGregor said in a telephone interview Aug. 4.

Another of the candidates, the Rev. Michael Milliken, was previously a candidate for bishop, in 1994, when the Rt. Rev. Vernon Strickland was elected third bishop of Western Kansas, he said.

"There was a sense that we're a very small diocese and a sense of confidence that the Holy Spirit would work with us and for us with whatever time we have left," McGregor said about a special electing convention, planned for Aug. 21 at St. Michael's Church in Hays, Kansas. Delegates will be able to make nominations from the floor, McGregor said.

The person elected will succeed the Rt. Rev. James M. Adams, the fourth bishop of the diocese, who resigned earlier this year to become vicar of Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church in Lecanto in the Diocese of Central Florida.

More here-

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_123887_ENG_HTM.htm