Episcopal Transitions and Elections Project

Every 10 years, the College for Bishops and the Office for Pastoral Development (OPD) review the practices in use for bishop search and transitions, and the adequacy of resources to support dioceses undergoing them. To date, there has been no systematic way of evaluating how well the prevalent search and transition practices and related resources have served the needs of widely differing diocesan contexts across the Church. In Summer 2007, the Episcopal Transitions and Elections Project (ETEP) Task Force decided to undertake a national survey that would gather detailed and systematic feedback on specific aspects of the process from a spectrum of perspectives. The goal was to identify what is working well, what needs improvement, and what would be helpful in the future.    

Key topics of the survey were the search, the transition (pre-election, election, post-election, and long-term) and pastoral care given throughout the process. Most of the questions addressing these topics focused on obtaining specific feedback on the process for improving it and developing additional resources, procedures, or policies. Some also sought to identify goodness of fit of the process to diocesan culture and the extent to which regional, national or Anglican Communion issues may have influenced the search, election and transition process.   

The 2008 Survey Preliminary Draft Report: Partial Results Overview can be found here.