Oregon diocese names Sanford Hampton as assisting bishop
Episcopal News Service. April 16, 2008 [041608-02]
Pat McCaughan, Correspondent for Episcopal Life Media in Province VIII
The Rt. Rev. Sanford Hampton will begin serving as assisting bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon on Friday, April 18, according to Mary Cramer, president of the eight-member diocesan standing committee.
"We want him to have a very strong pastoral presence in the diocese and I think his background and his personality lend him to do that beautifully," Cramer said.
"Bishop Hampton will be in our diocese a couple of weeks each month," she added. "His primary responsibilities will be for that all-important 'pastoral presence' with visitations, confirmations, ordinations, relationship with clergy and laity, and clergy supervision as duties."
Hampton, 73, who has also served as bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Minnesota and bishop assistant in the Seattle-based Diocese of Olympia, said he was delighted at the appointment. "I'm excited about the possibility. I just hope that I'm able to help the folks move forward as they begin the process of electing a new diocesan bishop," he said.
Hampton and wife Mari are "leaving tomorrow for Lake Oswego and I start there this Friday," said Hampton, in a telephone interview from his Anacortes, Washington home on April 15.
Hampton, who expects to serve half-time in Oregon, was elected Suffragan Bishop of Minnesota in 1988 and moved to the Diocese of Olympia about eight years later. "I started here in 1996 and then I effectively retired in 2003 but I never really retired," said Hampton.
For the past few years, he has served St. Stephen's Church in Oak Harbor, Washington. "I began pastoring a congregation of Episcopalians who were more or less exiled from congregations that had placed themselves under a Brazilian bishop. We were meeting in homes for two years."
Cramer said his first order of business will be a Friday morning staff meeting. "Then he wants to meet with each one individually and then will start moving out and meeting people throughout the diocese," she said. "It's a very positive sign."
She added that Hampton has "extensive experience with supporting the growth and development of small churches" from Utah, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington states. His time in Oregon was spent in LaGrande.
Cramer said the standing committee has set "a goal of having our electing convention at our (regular diocesan) convention in November 2009. But, at this point, it's a goal."
She said that Bishop Johncy Itty, who was consecrated as ninth Bishop of Oregon on September 20, 2003, announced at the November 2007 diocesan convention "that he was going to call for his successor, that he felt he had done all he could do in the diocese.
"So, we met with Bishop Clayton Matthews of the national church office of pastoral development and in talking with Bishop Matthews and Bishop Itty we developed this plan that we are following."
The transition has also included the retirement of chief diocesan financial officer Lanny Collins, on March 31, and of Barbara Collins, who was the bishop's executive assistant and secretary, and the resignation of the Rev. Jonathan Weldon, who resigned his position as diocesan canon to the ordinary to take a position in the Diocese of Olympia.
"We've been a little busy but we're making great progress," Cramer said, adding that a congregational development conference last weekend was well-attended "and that's been a very positive sign."
Attempts to reach Itty in New York State, where he is now living, were unsuccessful.