C4SO Elects Suffragan Bishop Brian Wallace

Dear Friends,

I’m so grateful to serve as your Bishop! It is my great joy to lead the diocese in the values of Kingdom, Spirit, Mission, Formation and Sacrament.

As we continue to grow, I’m no longer able to care for the full needs of our non-geographic diocese. When I returned from sabbatical in 2022, it became clear to me that, while grateful for the work of ad hoc/assisting bishops, C4SO needs to hire its own full-time bishop with a specific gift and skill set to work alongside me in the daily life of C4SO. The scope and scale of the diocese is simply too broad for me to adequately teach (a core episcopal role), lead mission, and care for all our clergy and churches. Thus, in January 2023, we began a search for a person to assist me in my pastoral care and episcopal duties.

Read Bishop Todd’s Full Letter >>
Bishop Todd Headshot

Our Suffragan Bishop-ELECT

Executive director of the Fuller Center for Spiritual Formation since 2015, Brian holds a doctorate in missiology from Fuller Seminary and is a priest in the Anglican Church of North America. Prior to serving at Fuller, Brian spent 11 years as a pastor in Austin, Texas (where he still lives), and 19 years with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, largely as regional director for Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, leading teams of staff and students in the work of establishing witnessing communities of Christ followers on campuses across the region. Fuller Formation Groups were born out of Brian’s doctoral research and extensive years of church and ministry leadership. Brian has been married to his wife, Lisa since 1985 and they joyfully celebrate their family of three sons, three daughters-in-law and now five grandchildren. Brian is an avid Red Sox fan, coffee drinker, and music lover.

join us for the consecration this fall!

RSVP if you plan to attend

Suffragan Bishop FAQ

A Suffragan Bishop is a permanent bishop who is elected by a convention and assigned responsibilities to assist a Diocesan Bishop, but does not automatically succeed him.

In addition, a Suffragan Bishop can be called upon in an emergency (incapacitation or sudden death of the Diocesan Bishop) to function alongside the Canonical leadership of the Executive Leadership Team as an acting Diocesan Bishop until the election of a new one.

According to the Canons of the Anglican Church in North America, all bishops, including a Suffragan Bishop, must be male.

Bishop Todd is no longer able to care for the full needs of a rapidly growing network of churches spread out across America. Throughout COVID and Bishop Todd’s sabbatical, C4SO relied on “contract labor”—using temporary assisting bishops. These friends of C4SO do good ad hoc work, but C4SO needs a full-time bishop with a specific gift and skill set to work alongside Bishop Todd within the daily life of the diocese.

The Suffragan Bishop will share in the work of the diocese in a collegial and collaborative fashion with Bishop Todd and the diocesan team. His work will expressly underpin, promote and execute the mission, vision, values, priorities and practices of the diocese. Under Bishop Todd’s leadership, the Suffragan Bishop will collegially lead strategic mission and provide strategic oversight of the life of C4SO churches, provide care for clergy and churches, carry out episcopal duties, and more.

The Suffragan Bishop will be a visible, strong and inspirational leader who makes the most of opportunities to promote and lead Christian mission, liturgy, pastoral care, and teaching. He will be a demonstrable team player with a collaborative and flexible working style, possessing strength of character to be able to make difficult decisions under pressure and implement them within settings of considerable complexity and nuance. The right candidate will have a proven track record of cultivating ethnic diversity and supporting women as clergy and leaders in the Church. The right candidate will be comfortable with the various styles of church within C4SO.

The hiring of a Suffragan Bishop will free Bishop Todd to develop new aspects of diocesan life needed to facilitate our growth and ensure a fruitful future. He will have more space to architect culture and create content based on Jesus’ Gospel of the Kingdom, providing diocesan stability through articulating vision, mission and values. Through relational endeavors like hosting The C4SO Podcast or Office Hours for C4SO clergy, he will create conditions in which seeking transformation of the soul is normative for leaders. He will also have more bandwidth to resource diocesan leaders, clergy, church leaders and vestries through regular touchpoints.

  • Bishop Todd, based on names recommended to him, populated a short list of appropriate candidates.
  • A discernment team—a subset of C4SO’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT)—chose one candidate to recommend to the ELT.
  • The candidate completed background checks.
  • The ELT approved the candidate.
  • C4SO publicly announced the candidate for election.
  • C4SO approved and formally elected the candidate at a special Diocesan Convention on April 29, 2023.
  • The Suffragan Bishop will be consecrated on September 9, 2023 in Atlanta.

As of April 2023, a Special Diocesan Convention composed of clergy and lay delegates elected the Rev. Dr. Brian Wallace as C4SO’s Suffragan Bishop-Elect. In June, the College of Bishops granted their approval of the election. We will consecrate the Suffragan Bishop-Elect on September 9, 2023 in Atlanta.

The election took place at a special Diocesan Convention on April 29, 2023. All C4SO clergy and lay representatives from each C4SO church voted to elect the Rev. Dr. Brian Wallace as C4SO’s new Suffragan Bishop-Elect.

The consecration is slated to take place in Atlanta on September 9, 2023. This event is open to all C4SO clergy and parishioners. Learn more.

We will post timely updates on this landing page.

In the election of a Diocesan Bishop, we would solicit a wide breadth of recommendations. However, in the election of a Suffragan Bishop, it is most important that he 1) have specific skills and gifts to fit the unique job description and 2) work seamlessly with Bishop Todd. So we only accepted recommendations from the ELT, C4SO’s Regional Deans and the C4SO Ministry Team, who, knowing Bishop Todd and the diocese well, have firsthand observations to make recommendations. At the special Diocesan Convention on April 29, 2023, C4SO clergy and delegates from each church elected the candidate recommended by the ELT.

Email your questions to Eric Vinson, C4SO’s Director of Administration.

MORE QUESTIONS? EMAIL US.

Stay Informed About the Process

For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

— Titus 1:7-9 ESV