The Rev. Dr. Teresa Snorton has been elected the first female bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church. Snorton was one among elected bishop during the congregation’s thirty-sixth quadrennial session and thirty-seventh General Con
(NNPA) — The Rev. Dr. Teresa Snorton has been elected the first female bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church. Snorton was one among elected bishop during the congregation’s thirty-sixth quadrennial session and thirty-seventh General Conference, which convened in Mobile, Ala. early this month, it has been announced. The conference theme was, "An Essential Church": Poised for 21st Century Ministry." A fourth generation, life-long CME member, Bishop Snorton has long prepared for this moment. She is executive director of the national Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, Inc. (ACPE); the former executive director of the Emory Center for Pastoral Services in Atlanta, Ga.; and former director of Pastoral Services at Crawford Long Hospital. She has been adjunct instructor in Pastoral Care at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. According to a release announcing her election, she is descendant of a great-grandfather, a father and an uncle who were all CME pastors. Her grandmother was an active missionary. Her two sisters are also CME ministers. As an ordained minister in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, she has served as a pastor in Kentucky. Before moving to Atlanta, she was also a psychiatric staff chaplain in Louisville, on the adjunct faculty of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky. She was also on the faculties of the Patient Counseling Program at the Medical College of Virginia and the School of Theology of Virginia Union University, both in Richmond. Bishop Snorton has a B.A. degree from Vanderbilt University, a Master of Divinity degree from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, a Master of Theology in Pastoral Care from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a post-graduate certificate in Patient Counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Amidst a plethora of activities and memberships, she is a member of the International Congress of Pastoral Care and Counseling, the Society for Pastoral Theology, and Business Manager of the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling. Also an author, Bishop Snorton is co-editor of a book, “Women Out of Order: Risking Change and Creating Care in a Multi-Cultural World, co-edited with Dr. Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner and published by Fortress Press last year. Bishop Snorton is married to Charles Short. They have three sons and three grandchildren. The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, under the leadership of Senior Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr. and its College of Bishops, is a 139-year old historically African-American Christian denomination with more than 1.2 million members across the United States. It has missions and sister churches in Haiti, Jamaica, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan/Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda Rwanda and Burundi. Copyright 2010 NNPA Photo: Courtesy
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