Relationships are at heart of ministries

 

Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth's life and career decisions guide him as he connects congregations in the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area of the United Methodist Church to develop relationships with Indigenous people, among different regions, across racial divides and within congregations.

Growing up, his flexibility began as he went to The Methodist church two Sundays a month with his dad's family and the Baptist church two Sundays a month with his mother's family.

After high school, he left his hometown in Decatur, Ala., to serve four years in the Air Force and returned to figure out next steps. Although he started pharmacy studies at the Baptist Birmingham Samford College, he earned a bachelor's degree in religion in 1997.

At the United Methodist Claremont School of Theology in Southern California, he was diverted from his original goal of teaching New Testament after he joined a Lilly program in 1999 and was assigned to Bowen Memorial Methodist Church, an African American church south of downtown Los Angeles. Its first members, who came from Alabama in the Great Migration, were part of the jazz scene in the 1940s and 1950s.

In five years there, Cedrick discovered pastoral ministry. Raised by his grandparents, he had an affinity for the 12 members who were elders, now living in a neighborhood that had become Hispanic, Latino and Spanish-speaking.

After graduating in May 2000 and beginning three-fourths time as Claremont's director of alumni and church relations, Cedrick continued at Bowen quarter-time until 2003. The church team included an elder to do pastoral care and a Spanish-speaking pastor to relate with neighbors. The church continues to grow.

"That church formed my focus on team ministry," said Cedrick, who began doctoral studies in organizational leadership at Pepperdine, a Church of Christ school in Malibu, Calif., and then served Crenshaw UMC from 2003 to 2008. His next assignment was as superintendent of the Los Angeles District—a large chunk of Southern California—from 2008 to 2015.

Then he served four Santa Ana churches—Tongan, Cambodian, Filipino and Hispanic—that speak a mix of languages, including English. Each was struggling to survive.

"Working together, we formed one congregation with three of the four, selling the property to develop a block for affordable housing and green space," he said.

Despite that success, in 2017 Cedrick took two years off, unsure if he would continue in ministry. He did substitute teaching, drove a forklift and consulted on organizational effectiveness.

In 2019, the bishop asked him to serve Grace UMC, which he served during the pandemic. In 2021, he was assigned as director of innovation and communication for the California Pacific Annual Conference, which serves Southern California, Hawaii, Guam and Saipan.

Then in 2022, Cedrick was elected a bishop in The United Methodist church, receiving his first assignment to the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area, leading conferences serving Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and a bit of British Columbia.

Cedrick is energized by the area's work with Indigenous people, beginning with Nooksack UMC and the Nooksack Tribe in Whatcom County.

"Our Camp Indianola on Puget Sound is on a sacred Suquamish site," he said, seeing those efforts as focused on building relationships, not quickly saying, "Here's the deed."

In 2024, Cedrick went to Nezperce, Idaho, to give Nimiipuu land back to the Nez Perce Tribe as a culmination of a decolonization, repentance and reconciliation process started before he came by the Rev. Dr. Allen Buck, director of the circle of Indigenous ministries.

In 2018, Allen, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, began conversations with tribes and the UMC. He also pastored a church, working quarter-time.

"Indigenous ministry is a priority, so we increased resources for it and hired Allen full time," Cedrick said. "The ministry requires the difficult process of introducing a new view of history to replace an old one."

Allen guides a truth-telling process with six teams who are studying churches, leaders and land genealogies. For example, in tracing the Wilbur Memorial UMC in White Swan on the Yakama reservation, they learned that the founding missionary had helped the U.S. government start a school to assimilate children.

"Other teams unearthed aspects of history that have been unsettling for some church people as they learn what tribes have long known," said Cedrick, who does not want people to rush past truths or history to appear courageous and just say, "This is sacred land. Let's give it back."

"To participate in repair, people need to know what happened," he said. "We are in a process. We will be uncomfortable while we take time to learn the full narrative."

For him as a Black American, Cedrick finds it strange to apologize for what happened to Indigenous people in colonial times.

"I apologize on behalf of the church. I'm clear about who I am and know my role calls for it," he said.

Cedrick finds tribes open as churches reach out and finds tribes seeking out the church.

"We only establish a relationship when we are open to the broader narrative," he said. "It's an exciting time to listen and learn what has been ignored, forgotten or dismissed, and to work to create space for conversations."

New to the Northwest, Cedrick has found strong localized divisions among 12 "competing sub-regions" in the three conferences—west and east of the Cascades in Washington and Oregon, the Idaho Panhandle, Southeast Idaho and Alaska. Eastern Oregon does not identify with Portland, as Northwest Oregon does, and south of Eugene is like California.

"Each region feels it's the outlier, with its needs forgotten," he observed. "That reality makes it hard to have a unified message. "

So the area has made an administrative shift in recent months. Now superintendents are responsible for 10 to 15 churches that are less than two hours apart.

"To avoid reinforcing a region's ideas about itself, our leadership respects each of their contexts," Cedrick said.

Today's political climate stirs fears for pastors and laity about the impact of divisions on church relationships.

Laity don't want to lose friendships with people they have known from 40 years of going to church and camps.

Regional leaders invite pastors to find a balance between avoiding being a lightning rod and having courage not to hide their convictions. Laity and clergy may fear losing members to other churches, but should preach, teach and lead from a place of conviction, he said.

In recent months, Cedrick has encouraged churches to see themselves as places for conversation more than places for decision. Voting can divide. So he asks: "Can churches be places where people talk and relate rather than divide and decide?"

The Greater Northwest Area now trains lay people to be "conversation starters" to help churches consider new ways to use the debt-free, mostly empty buildings they own. They ask: "Can the buildings be places people gather without an agenda to talk while quilting, sewing or studying a book?"

Cedrick is also excited that churches are partnering with nonprofits to offer affordable health care and housing. Some open their space for community or government agencies to provide health care close to where people live.

Some work with Family Promise to shelter people in rooms or partner with Safe Parking in Western Washington to make their parking lots safe spaces for unhoused people to live in their vehicles. Many churches also offer morning and evening meals.

Another priority of the Greater Northwest Area—eliminating racism—requires intercultural competency training for laity and clergy as the UMC diversifies its pastoral leadership pool faster than its congregations.

"We need to focus on how to talk with and see each other," said Cedrick.

Conferences are now also training 20 people as conveners to respond to local initiatives, connecting congregations interested in doing similar ministries so they can share resources.

"When someone asks the conference, 'What are you doing?' our response is, 'We are doing what you are doing.' A conference may not be doing anything if the congregations are not doing anything," Cedrick noted.

"It's based on collaboration, self-determination and keeping ministry in the hands of people who want to do ministry," he said.

For information, call 206-870-6837, email bishop@greaternw.org or visit greaternw.org