A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
The Reverend is an honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a title, form of address, or title of respect. The style is also sometimes used by leaders in other religions such as Judaism and Buddhism.
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is a Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination, and the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Although an international and multi-ethnic religious organization, it has a predominantly African-American membership based within the United States. The international headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee. The current Presiding Bishop is Bishop John Drew Sheard Sr., who is the Senior Pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ of Detroit, Michigan. He was elected as the denomination's leader on March 27, 2021.
Charles Edward Blake Sr. is an American minister and pastor who served as the Presiding Bishop and leader of the Church of God in Christ, a 6 million-member Holiness Pentecostal denomination, that has now grown to become one of the largest predominantly African American Pentecostal denominations in the United States, from 2007 to 2021. On March 21, 2007, he became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, Inc., as a result of Presiding Bishop Gilbert E. Patterson's death. In a November 2007 special election, he was elected to complete the unexpired term of his predecessor as Presiding Bishop. In November 2008, Bishop Blake was re-elected to serve a four-year term as Presiding Bishop. In November 2012, Bishop Blake was re-elected again to serve a four-year term as the Presiding Bishop. He was reelected to a third term as Presiding Bishop on November 15, 2016. On October 23, 2020, Bishop Blake announced that he would not seek a re-election as Presiding Bishop nor as a member of the General Board and that he would retire from the Office of Presiding Bishop and from the General Board in 2021. He officially retired on March 19, 2021, and was succeeded by Bishop J. Drew Sheard, Sr. as Presiding Bishop on March 20, 2021.
The Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A. is a Holiness body of Christians headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi. In 2010, there were 14,000 members in 154 churches.
The Apostolic Assemblies of Christ, Inc., Incorporated (AAofC), is a Christian Church in the Oneness Pentecostal tradition. The Church is episcopal in governance. The Apostolic Assemblies of Christ was founded as an ecclesiastical corporation under the statutes of the non-profit corporation laws of the United States. The purpose of the founding of the corporation was to provide an ecclesiastical body where all churches could feel free to worship God and where all churches would have representations on all levels. The founder and presiding bishop (emeritus) G. M. Boone started with 7 churches and currently there are 259 churches worldwide. From the beginning, the Apostolic Assemblies of Christ had a set goal and purpose to its very existence in order to exalt the name of Jesus Christ. The organization's headquarters is located in Detroit, Michigan.
José Horacio Gómez Velasco is a Mexican-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He became the fifth Archbishop of Los Angeles in 2011. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of Denver from 2001 to 2004 and as Archbishop of San Antonio from 2004 to 2010.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston–Houston is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the United States. It encompasses 8,880 square miles (23,000 km2) of ten counties in the southeastern area of Texas: Galveston, Harris, Austin, Brazoria, Fort Bend, Grimes, Montgomery, San Jacinto, Walker and Waller.
Bishop Frederick Douglas Washington was a Pentecostal minister of the Washington Temple Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in Brooklyn, New York. His most famous protégé is Rev. Al Sharpton, who acknowledged his call as a minister at the age of nine.
Joel Neftali Martinez is a Mexican-American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1992. Prior to his election to the episcopacy, Rev. Martinez gained notability as a Pastor and District Superintendent in the Methodist and United Methodist Churches and as a denominational official in the area of ethnic ministries.
Bishop Ted Gera Thomas Sr. was an American cleric with the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) who was consecrated to be the senior bishop of the Historic First Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Virginia, one of the largest dioceses/jurisdictions of the COGIC in Virginia.
Ozro Thurston Jones Sr. was a Holiness Pentecostal denomination leader and minister, who was the second Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, Inc. (1962–1968), succeeding Bishop Charles Harrison Mason, who was the founder. The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is the fourth largest denomination in the United States, being in the Holiness Pentecostal tradition.
Dickerson LeMoyne Shillicutt Wells is an American preacher from Memphis, Tennessee in the Church of God in Christ and was the youngest minister, at the time in 1978, to be ordained as a clergyman in the COGIC denomination in the state of Tennessee.
Samuel Lee Green Jr. was an American pastor and bishop in the Church of God in Christ.
James Oglethorpe Patterson Jr. was a Holiness Pentecostal minister in the Church of God in Christ and a former Mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, the first African-American to hold the office.
Chandler David Owens Sr. was an American minister and Holiness Pentecostal denomination leader of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), for which he served as the Presiding Bishop from 1995 to 2000, after the death of Bishop Louis Henry Ford.
Barnett Karl Thoroughgood was an African-American Holiness Pentecostal minister and church leader of the Church of God in Christ. He was an influential pastor in the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia known for his public service and who served as the Commissioner of Ecclesiastical Services and the Former Adjutant General of the COGIC denomination from 2001 until his death in 2012.
John Drew Sheard is an American pastor and minister from Detroit, Michigan, who is the current Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, a 6 million-member predominantly African-American Holiness Pentecostal denomination that has now grown to become one of the largest African American Pentecostal denominations in the United States. He was elected as the leader of the denomination, in the denomination's first ever all-virtual online election, that was held virtually online due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, on March 20, 2021. He is the first Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ from the state of Michigan and is the pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ, one of the denomination's largest churches in Michigan. He also previously served as a member of the General Board, the twelve bishops who make up the national Board of Directors of the COGIC denomination, and as the president of the COGIC International Youth Department, the auxiliary ministry department of the COGIC denomination focused on youth and young adults, from 1997 to 2001, and the International President and Chairman of the COGIC Auxiliaries In Ministry (AIM) convention from 2004 to 2012.
