I have a random observation from watching the streaming video of the UMC’s General Conference. As a British Methodist, I am quite used to seeing ministers in clerical collars, but we do not have bishops here (the closest may be the chairs of district, but the church has said no to bishops last year or the year before). Clerical collars are not widely used in American Methodism. So are the bishops in the UMC wearing purple clerical shirts and collars more this year or is this just the first I’ve noticed it? My bishop in SC (who is now in Western NC) wore one for the worship services at Annual Conference, but the bishops are wearing them for presiding over the business meetings at General Conference. Do bishops wear them more often in their own Annual Conferences during the year?
Anyone else noticed this?
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I came over here from Nick Norelli’s blog and saw you mentioned you had completed a unit of CPE – I did as well. I was good experience and I probably should have pressed on to do a full year.
I’ve seen some bishops wear the purple over here, especially those from the African American tradition. My current bishop will probably not ever be seen in a clerical collar. He just doesn’t strike me as the type…
Brian: Thanks for stopping by. CPE was definitely a great experience, but as a friend of mine called it, ‘The best thing I’ll never do again!’ I had a fantastic group and an outstanding supervising chaplain. I don’t think the experience could ever beat that one.
Sarah: Not long after I posted this, I was watching again and I saw two others (one our dean’s brother, Bishop Scott Jones) and neither of them were in so much as a collar. So maybe it’s not as prevalent as I thought.