Our Bishop
Hope Morgan Ward was elected a bishop of The United Methodist Church and appointed to Mississippi in 2004. She is believed to be the first woman to lead a mainline denomination in Mississippi and is only the second female bishop elected to serve in The United Methodist Church’s Southeastern Jurisdiction, which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. As resident bishop, she is the shepherding leader of 190,000 United Methodists in 1,147 congregations across the state of Mississippi.
Before coming to Mississippi, Ward was superintendent of the Raleigh District in the North Carolina Annual Conference. She previously served as North Carolina Conference director of Connectional Ministries and as a local church pastor. In 10 years as pastor of Soapstone United Methodist Church in Raleigh, the church grew from 35 members to 600. Her approach to ministry is to “take the next faithful step.” She has been called a shepherd, teacher, evangelist, church builder, missioner, and connector.
Bishop Ward grew up in rural eastern North Carolina. She and her four siblings were the seventh generation to grow up on the Morgan family farm in Corapeake, N.C. She was nurtured in Parkers Methodist Church, one of three churches on the North Gates Charge. The Morgan family life was centered in the Wesleyan tradition with weekly worship, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, youth choir, youth fellowship, covered dish dinners, and mission projects.
Ward attended Duke University, earning her undergraduate degree in English. Upon graduation from Duke, she became youth director of Fairmont United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C., where she discovered love of ministry and mission. In 1974, she participated in her first volunteer in mission experience in Cochabamba and Montero, Bolivia. The next year, she returned to Bolivia with other work team volunteers, including Mike Ward! In this work team experience, they established a strong and lasting friendship that grew into a deep and lifelong love.
They were married in 1977, and both continued to pursue graduate study, Mike at North Carolina State University and Hope at Duke Divinity School. Married eight months, they became teaching parents for a group of children in residence at the Methodist Home for Children.
Mike and Hope count their family as their greatest blessing. They have a son, Jason and daughter-in-law, Alison Greene and a daughter, Brooke. Jason and Alison met through Teach for America in the Delta. Jason taught third and fourth grades in Ruleville, MS, and Alison taught fifth grade in Helena, AK. Both Jason and Alison are historians with specialty in twentieth century America. Jason received his PhD from Yale in 2008 and teaches at Mississippi State. Alison continues working on her PhD at Yale from Starkville where they live with two dogs, Stirling and Huck. Brooke teaches English at Riverside School, an international school in Prague, Czech Republic.
Mike Ward has been a public school teacher, coach, principal, superintendent, and the founding director for the North Carolina Standards Board for Public School Administration. He served two four-year terms as Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of North Carolina and is currently a professor of educational leadership in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
The Wards have deep roots in eastern North Carolina, loving the dark soil and watery coastal areas of the state. They also count the world as their home, serving together and individually in work team and mission endeavors in Central and South America, Africa, and the Middle East as well as in Appalachia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. In 2005, they traveled with a group of Mississippians to Zimbabwe.