Why should a church have bishops?

 I believe in bishops.  I've had both really good and really bad experiences of Episcopal oversight, but experience is not what drives my belief system: the Bible interpreted through the historic church is.  That is why I believe in bishops.  

I know that this is an active topic of discussion among Methodists - and the Global Methodist Church in particular will decide later this year about whether to accept bishops at all and, if so, what sort of bishop it will be.

In this video I explain some of the reasons (there are others) why I think bishops are essential for the flourishing and especially for the unity of the whole church, and the congregations within it. 

Why I moved to the Anglican Church

Since leaving the United Methodist Church (UMC) last year I'm no longer attached to any Methodist or Wesleyan denomination.  Yet I still consider myself a Methodist/Wesleyan pastor in the way of John Wesley himself.  He was the founder of the Methodist movement, but never part of a Methodist denomination.  As a matter of fact, John Wesley remained a lifelong member (and priest) in the Anglican church and said explicitly that he hoped Methodists would remain an organized spiritual movement inside the Anglican church.  

For Wesley, being "Methodist" was about a theological and spiritual approach to pursuing holiness, not about being part of a denomination in the modern sense.  The sad reality is that it is perfectly possible to be have the word "Methodist" on the sign in front of a church, but have no living connection to the spirituality and aims of the early Methodist movement.      

Following Wesley's hopes, I've recently been received into the Anglican Church in North America and have been ordained in the Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast.  Here is a video in which I go into detail about why and how I made that decision.