Bishop Robin Dease Assigned to the North Georgia Annual Conference

Bishop Robin Dease has been appointed as the next bishop of the North Georgia Annual Conference. She begins service in our conference on January 1, 2023. (Read a brief bio here.)

After the assignment, the North Georgia Annual Conference delegation and friends surrounded Bishop Dease in prayer and welcome. 

"I'm a collaborator," she said. "Let's have fun. Let's make disciples. Let's love one another. Let's build bridges. I am looking forward to working together."

Delegates elected Dease, 54, on Nov. 3 at the jurisdiction’s meeting at Lake Junaluska, on the 25th ballot. She received 206 votes out of 343 valid ballots cast – exactly the number needed to be elected (60% of valid ballots).

Bishop Dease – who was nominated as a write-in on the first ballot on Nov. 2 – was the third bishop elected at the Nov. 2-4 meeting, following the Rev. Tom Berlin of the Virginia Conference and the Rev. Connie Shelton of the Mississippi Conference, both of whom were elected the day before.

She currently serves as senior pastor of St. Andrew By-The-Sea United Methodist Church in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

“Most of my 13 siblings have joined the church triumphant, and those who are left physically cannot be here,” she told the delegates to the SEJ Conference, “but you are my family.”

Dease was born in Brooklyn, New York. After moving to South Carolina, she graduated from Claflin University in Orangeburg in 1992. She earned a master of divinity degree and a doctor of ministry degree in stewardship from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. 

She joined the South Carolina Conference in 1992, became a full-time local pastor in 1998 and was ordained an elder in 2001. She has served as pastor of Wesley United Methodist Church in Johns Island (1998-2008), John Wesley United Methodist Church in Greenville (2008-2012), and St. Andrew By-The-Sea United Methodist Church in Hilton Head (2021-present). She also has served as superintendent of the Hartsville District (2013-2021), and in 2012, was interim chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Claflin.

Dease has been involved in numerous denominational and conference boards and committees, and has been active in other organizations in the communities where she has served (Ministerial Alliance, Chamber of Commerce, United Way Faith Based Committee).

The Southeastern Jurisdiction’s delegates are an equal number of United Methodist clergy and laity, from the nine states forming the Southeastern Jurisdiction. This assignment of bishops is for the next two years. In the United States, bishops are elected to serve for life.