Bishop Poulson Reed / Oklahoma

Good morning, Bishop, and thank you for meeting with us today. As a fairly new bishop, you may not be known by many in the wider church. Please tell us a little about yourself.

I’m glad to be here, and thank you for asking me to join you today. As you know, I’ve been in this role as Bishop of Oklahoma basically since the beginning of the pandemic. For the first few months, I served under my predecessor Bishop Ed Konieczny as the Bishop Coadjutor. I have since become Bishop Diocesan, those two roles spanning seventeen months at this point.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church in Virginia. My mother was a church organist, so we were always in the church building. I sang in church choirs and experienced the hospitality of various churches around the diocese. When we were kids, my brother and I would accompany our mother to those churches; she would practice and we would play. The church is a great place to play as a kid! Whenever there were others present, they were so kind and generous to us. While I felt connected formally to the church—baptized, confirmed, etc.—that sense of welcome extended into the hospitality that I mentioned. Yet, no matter how connected I felt within the church, I certainly never imagined that I would become a priest, much less a bishop, at that time. It simply wasn’t on my radar, at all.

Continue reading at Issuu.com