Traditionally, bishops represent Christ by serving as guardians of the faith, unity, and discipline of the church catholic.  A bishop’s vocation to pastoral oversight is exercised chiefly as apostle and pastor of a diocese, with special responsibility to pastor the ordained.  Oversight includes a responsibility to guard the church, in collegiality with other bishops, as well as in ordaining others to continue strengthening the laos.  The bishop is a regional administrator of the church, its chief apostle and sacramental overseer, the guardian of certain sacerdotal responsibilities, and the overseer of deacons. Bishops serve the church as facilitators of the diocese in its priestly, prophetic, and pastoral mission to the world.  As a visible symbol of this role, bishops preside in the eucharist and ordinations, teach the apostolic faith, and are the confirmers and chief baptizers of the diocese.  They also join with other bishops in a collegial body representing the catholicity of the church. 

This historic understanding, one rich in biblical tradition and catholic continuity, must be firmly placed within the context of God’s mission and Christ’s body.  Today, bishops serve the community of all faithful people and practice their vocation for, with, and among the laos.  They are not above the body, placed in personal superiority at its head.  Rather, they live in relationship with those whom they serve, responsive to and responsible for the needs of their diocese.  Although they sometimes function as such, bishops primarily are not chief executive officers, institutional bureaucrats, or judges in ecclesiastical court.  They are brothers and sisters in faith—one in baptism and common mission with all the baptized.  As Jewish theologian Martin Buber suggestively phrased it, this is an “I-Thou” relationship—one that involves whole persons.  Because of this “I-Thou,” bishops’ lives are linked in prayer, service, holiness, spirituality, and familial love with those whom they serve.  Thus, bishops are given the ministry of pastoral oversight for the diocese, “a ministry of presiding for gathering in unity.”[1]  Bishops guard the faith, unify the church, and maintain its discipline humbly and relationally, as one within a family for the sake of the family. 

Not only do bishops gather and empower the diocesan community, but they also gather and empower the ecumenical, universal, and mystical community of Christ’s body.  Linked both to the historic episcopate and to their diocese, bishops join together collegially (world-wide, through the communion of saints, and across denominational boundaries) to care for the universal church and build it up for mission.  Bishops remind local congregations that they do not exist in isolation.  As Methodist ethicist Stanley Hauerwas has said, “Bishops exist to insure that Christians travelling across time or space worship the same God.  That is what ‘catholicity,’ for which bishops are responsible, really means.”[2]  Thus, while cherishing, respecting, and serving local communities, bishops also challenge congregations to “see the big picture” of their calling in Christ—a calling to reconcile the world in God’s grace stretching from Genesis to Revelation; through the history of the church; from all nations and to all nations.

In proclaiming the word of God and acting in Christ’s name for the reconciliation of the world, a bishop may assume a prophetic and exemplary stance in church and world.  The priestly responsibility of a bishop is expressed in the role of chief priest in the diocesan community, usually functioning as presider and preacher in all eucharists at which he or she is present. 

Deacons, priests or presbyters, and bishops, working in harmonious concert as part of, with, and for all the people of God, share the common responsibility as models or icons for the ministry of the body as a gathered and a sent community.  By calling and empowering servants for the church, God makes provision for the carrying out of its mission:  “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”  At the ordination services, we—the whole laos—pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God—echoing the prayer of thanksgiving after baptism and confirmation, in which we thank God for the gift of the ordained person who will be “to us an effective example in word and action, love and patience, and in holiness of life.”  All the laos are called to such qualities, but those ordained are given the ordered obligation and grace to be “effective examples” in the midst of the people.