“No one is elected who already knows how to do this,” the Rev. Karin MacPhail, rector of St. Elizabeth’s Church in Roanoke, Virginia, told The Living Church on February 10. Less than two weeks earlier, on January 31, the third-generation Longhorn (University of Texas) was elected Bishop of Southwestern Virginia.
MacPhail will be the first woman to serve as bishop in a faith community spanning 50 congregations across 32 counties. She was elected on the third ballot during the annual convention in Roanoke, with 57 percent of clergy votes and 54 percent of lay votes.
“It’s a big moment for us,” said the Rev. Ben Cowgill, chairman of the transition committee and associate rector of St. John’s Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, of MacPhail’s election. For him, it wasn’t an easy choice, as they had a “wonderful slate” comprising two women and two men, all of whom, he said, had a “clear call to ministry in this place.” He described the bishop-elect as someone who has been a “leader amongst us for a while” and who will “lend strength to us as we move into our next chapter.”
MacPhail’s philosophy of leadership emphasizes listening and building trust. “There has to be a relationship formed where the leader really hears the people they are leading and understands the people they are leading,” she said. When it comes to the church, “servant leadership is what is really called for.”
In leading during a time of deep polarization and division in the country, the bishop-elect reflected on the church as “the resurrected Body of Christ in the world” as guide for “what we say, what we do, how we react and act in this unprecedented moment.” She noted the significance of “showing the face of Christ to our neighbors,” “living his ethic of love and how we treat others,” and staying “rooted in our promises made at baptism” as integral to the church and its leadership.
Originally part of the Diocese of Southern Virginia’s Southwestern Convocation, the jurisdiction encompasses an area where the Rev. John Janney Lloyd, the “Evangelist in Southwest Virginia,” founded a string of mission churches, schools, and health centers staffed by lay women and deaconesses.
In a historical account by the Rev. Scott A. West and Katharine L. Brown, they wrote: “These dedicated people brought the Social Gospel to the mountains and hollows, mining towns and lumber camps, and through skillful communication of their work and needs, involved the entire Diocese, especially women’s groups, in the support and advocacy of their work.”
During the 1919 General Convention in Detroit, the Diocese of Southern Virginia was split, and the former Southwestern Convocation became today’s diocese. Among its ministries is Grace House on the Mountain, which serves families in need in the Appalachian Mountains. It is also affiliated with the Boys Home of Virginia, a residential school for students facing adversity.
During its annual convention, a parallel gathering for young people called Youth at Annual Convention meets. It brings together more than 100 students in grades 6-12 from across the diocese for fellowship and learning. It was at this year’s youth convention that MacPhail found respite after experiencing a range of emotions upon learning of her election. As she weighed the “bigness” of what’s to come and the effect of her forthcoming role on herself and her family, MacPhail described being “stunned and moved and overcome, really, with joy, but also serious trepidation.”
“I think I tend to be someone who wants to figure out everything right away and do it perfectly,” MacPhail told TLC. “I’m also trying to remind myself that I don’t have to figure out everything at once.”
Shortly after she accepted her election and thanked the convention, she and her family went to greet the young people at their gathering. “[They] strangely helped me settle back down into myself again … just being with these teenagers who were so excited,” she said.
‘Mom, it’s you.’
MacPhail grew up Episcopalian and, while attending the University of Texas at Austin, began worshiping at the same Episcopal parish where her parents were married, All Saints Church. It was there that she first felt called to the priesthood.
“I was just sitting there on a Sunday morning and just very clearly felt during the sermon, there was like this message … this is what you’re supposed to do,” she recalled. “God and I wrestled and argued about that for seven years.” An English major, she began working in book publishing in New York City. “Then that job brought me down to Northern Virginia.”
She began attending a parish in the area and became more involved in lay ministry with youth. “And that sense of call to ordained ministry really became so persistent that I felt like, well, I have to at least go talk to my rector about this.”
In her 21 years of ministry, she has been active in regional leadership in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia and the Diocese of Virginia. She is chairwoman of the Commission on Ministry and facilitates the Small Church Rector cohort. She also led the Southwestern Virginia Episcopal Fund board and the Diocesan Committee on Higher Education.
MacPhail mentioned how the commonwealth has been deeply meaningful in her spiritual life. Although she grew up in West Texas, she was baptized in Virginia, and not because her parents lived in the state. “They were driving me as a baby from New York to Texas to go meet all the grandparents, and they knew someone who was a priest in Richmond, and so I was baptized there.”
When she was an adult, the Diocese of Virginia was formative in her ministry. “It was really where I, as a layperson, was able to find the ministries that most resonated with me. And it was the diocese where I really began to feel this overwhelming call to ordained ministry and where I was supported through that ordination process.”
The Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, 12th Bishop of Virginia, ordained both MacPhail and her husband and celebrated their wedding.
MacPhail is married to the Rev. Alexander MacPhail, a Virginia native and rector of Christ Church in Roanoke since 2015. They met as seminarians at Virginia Theological Seminary.
“I think there’s just a special spirit here and it’s exciting to me,” the bishop-elect said.
One significant individual who shaped her ministry is her daughter, Maggie. It was Maggie who mentioned to MacPhail that the diocese was searching for a new bishop. Maggie saw the announcement on the diocese’s Instagram page. “That’s kind of unusual, right, for a teenager to follow the diocese,” MacPhail said, laughing.
Maggie asked her if she saw it and said, “Mom, it’s you. You are called to be the next person,” and then, in a serious tone, proceeded to give her a list of reasons why.
Pending consents, MacPhail will be consecrated as Bishop of Southwestern Virginia on June 13.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
