By Kirk Petersen
Usually when a new bishop is consecrated, he or she has to get to know a lot of people in a hurry. The next Bishop of Georgia gets to skip that part.
The Diocese of Georgia elected its canon to the ordinary, the Rev. Frank Logue, as the XI Bishop of Georgia on November 15. Assuming he receives the necessary majority of endorsements from bishops and steering committees throughout the church, he will be consecrated on May 30, 2020. He will succeed the Rt. Rev. Scott A. Benhase, who has served since 2010.
A canon to the ordinary is normally the chief of staff in a diocese, and it’s unusual to become bishop in the same diocese. Logue told TLC, “Through the election, the diocese is showing that they really like the direction the diocese is going in. I feel like my call is an elevation of the work that Bishop Benhase and the team I’ve been on have done for the past 10 years.”
He credited Benhase with establishing leadership training and greater transparency financially, and generally moving the operation to a more business-like approach. “If you go through a time of focusing more on task, as slightly higher than relationships, what people want then is a deeper connection with one another,” and that’s what the diocese said it was looking for in its profile.
Logue was elected on the first ballot, which is not typical, and is mathematically challenging when there are five candidates. He has served since 2015 on the churchwide Executive Council, making him the second Executive Council veteran this year to be elected bishop. The Rt. Rev. Susan Snook was elected Bishop of San Diego in February, a few months after her term on Executive Council expired. Logue’s election means he will have to step down from the Executive Council, although he said he did not know when that would occur.
The other candidates were:
- The Rev. Rob Brown, rector, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
- The Rev. Lonnie Lacy, rector, St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Tifton, Georgia.
- The Ven. Jennifer McKenzie, Archdeacon of Wigan and West Lancashire, Diocese of Liverpool, Church of England.
- The Rev. Canon John Thompson-Quartey, canon for mission development and congregational vitality, Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.
