Beverly Shamana is "excited to be here", and listening to all

In her first days in office, Bishop Beverly Shamana has been getting acquainted with the people, possibilities and problems in the California-Nevada Annual Conference.

Seen often with a phone glued to her ear or in meetings at the UM Center in West Sacramento, the Conference's new team leader was interviewed by the Review on Thursday, Sept. 7 for the September 15 print edition.

During an interview with the Review, the new bishop says she's excited to be in this Conference, and wants to hear from lay and clergy to help her as she learns "how to bishop", as she put it. Shamana says there are good, exciting things happening within the Conference, and that she wants the Conference leadership to help nurture those kinds of things. You may e-mail her at bishop@calnevumc.org.

By Ted Langdell

Bishop Beverly Shamana is still unpacking boxes during the evenings she's at home, and has yet to begin unpacking boxes with many of the items for her office. Even so, she's managing to sail through the whirlwind of telephone calls, meetings and appointments she has at the United Methodist Center in West Sacramento.

"It was just a warm arrival," the Bishop said during a half-hour interview with the Cal-Nevada United Methodist Review. She arrived at the Episcopal Residence in Elk Grove Aug. 25, accompanied by a moving van. "With the help of some of the good folks of the Elk Grove and Florin (United Methodist) churches, I had a wonderful weekend of moving in. I felt very welcomed and veryŠ invited into the Conference", Shamana said. Church members and Conference staff "brought food, plants and flowers and just wonderful things that helped me move in." With no children, Shamana is the sole occupant of the home, "and that's going to work out just fine," she said, smiling.

She is looking forward to learning more and spending time with churches and individuals around the Conference. Her first Sunday in the Conference, she popped into Florin UMC, incognito. Greeted enthusiastically by a 12-year old boy in the parking lot, who asked if she'd ever been to the church before, and then showed the Bishop to the reception book. The youngster ­who might be a Review reader­thought she looked familiar, and burst out with "I know you from your picture!" as Shamana signed the book with her title and name.

Her first day at work was Friday, Sept. 1. She has spent quite a bit of time listening, and plans to do a lot more. "I'm excited about being in this Conference," Shamana stated, warmly.

"There are wonderful ministries that are happening here. I just spent two days with about 30 pastors in our 'New Pastor's Orientation'. Hearing their excitement about their churches, their congregations, their call to ministryŠ what they want to do in the communities where they're appointedŠ that's exciting for me." She said that being able to share her hopes for their churches was a great way to begin her first days as a Bishop.

Shamana noted "wonderful youth ministries, to older adults, to working families. I'm anxious to learn more about that, to help promote that so we can tell the story of our Conference to other people in the denomination, and let them know what marvelous things are happening in this Conference."

The Bishop said she was really open to going where she was assigned. "I would be with people who cared about Christ. People who wanted to spread the Gospel. People that were invested in what God was doing in their communities." People she's met tell her "they're very glad that I'm here."

Before her election to the episcopacy in July, Shamana was the Cal-Pacific Annual Conference's Associate Council Director of the Council on Ethnic, Justice and Outreach Ministries, a post she held for 11 years. Before that, she pastored a church in Inglewood where people of three cultures worshipped, and another in Los Angeles, where the primarily African-American congregation was made up of two churches that had merged.

Along the way to becoming a Bishop, her careers have changed, and so has her life. Now 61, Bishop Shamana was born Beverly Martin in Los Angeles. She became Beverly Anderson when she married, then divorced after ten years. Shamana earned a Music Education and Choral Conducting degree from Occidental College there in 1961, and began teaching performance and choral music in junior and senior high schools. "It was a wonderful time that I enjoyed very much. However, I did feel that 40 years from then I didn't want to be in a school district."

An entrepreneur, Shamana has owned several businesses over the years, which she says, are an outward expression of God-given ability. "I had a manufacturing and retail business that was designing and machine-knitting clothes for men and women," Shamana said. "It was handcrafts, it was art, it was designŠ something that I still support very much." "All of us have this creativeŠ essence that God has given us and really expects us to use as our talentŠ as our ability," Shamana said. "So we're admonished not to bury it. Through Scripture, we know that." She insisted that to do so honors and worships God. She continues to do so with a business called "Spirit of the Gourd".

Shamana discovered gourds during various church-related travels and brought them home. "I discovered in 1993 that I could make them myself, and it was a whole new world that opened up to me, and allowed me to discover more of my own creative talent." Through the gourd business, she's exhibited, sold, demonstrated and grown the vine vegetable, discovering more about "God within us, God's creation and God within me."

The urge to discover God led her to formal ministry. After interning at Southlawn UMC in Chicago, she graduated in 1980 from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree. Ordination that year brought a change of name again, to something that was "universal", Shamana told the Los Angeles Times. She wanted something female, without "man," "he," or "him" in it. "Then I get this name‹Shamana‹that starts with shaMAN and ends with MANa and has man in the middle of it! "God has a sense of humor, doesn't she?"

Her name is a combination of "Shaman" and "mana". "Shaman" is the name generally given to American Indian medicine men, and to priests of a primitive religion who interpose themselves between the unseen spirits and the visible world. "Mana" is a Polynesian term for "a pervasive supernatural power that may inhere in persons or things," according to Funk and Wagnalls' dictionary.

Her adopted name may be appropriate for her immediate role within the Conference. Asked: "Based on what you know now, what do you see as the top three things that the Conference needs to do in the year that began July 1, 2000?", Bishop Shamana said one thing would be "to build bridges towards each other." Acknowledging that there has been tension within the Conference, she said "Some churches and individuals feel isolated from each other." "I want to talk to many of the pastors, many of the church leaders, and to see together how we might do that."

One of her first major opportunities to meet a large number of Conference leaders will happen at the former "Pastor's School", now called the "Spiritual Leader's Summit", to be held the last week of September. Clergy and lay leaders from around the Conference will gather at the Asilomar conference facility in the Santa Cruz mountains for three days of renewal and reflection.

Shamana will have her first large all-clergy gathering November 14, during a Convocation of Elders at Stockton Central UMC. Bishop Shamana is expected to lead worship at this gathering. "I'm not sure what I'll talk about, but I know I'll learn what's on the hearts of pastors and church leaders," Shamana said. "I'll use what I learn there in terms of what I'll be doing in the next weeks and months." Asked what she saw as her role or roles in the Conference, the Bishop said, "One role would be to be an interpreter of what God is doing among us. One who is able to say, 'There's where God is. Let's go there!'" Another role is to reflect what's happening within the Conference. "To hold up a mirror and say: 'This is what I seeŠ this is what we can see together. How can we work on this to either enhance it, to modify it or change it?'"

Speaking to churches which may be thinking about departing the United Methodist Church, Bishop Shamana wanted them to hear that, "I love them. And, that God does, too." "I don't know those who have left," the Bishop acknowledged. "But, I know that whatever feelings they left with, we still care about them, and that we loved them while they were United MethodistsŠ and that whatever congregation or group they become a part of, they're still a part of the Body of Christ. That's the most important thing" For those still here, "and who want to strengthen our Conference, continue the ministries that are going on within the churches, I want them to know that I want to support them. And, that we want to support them as leaders in the Conference."

Shamana looks forward to continued church growth in Cal-Nevada. "Churches have found creative and innovative ways to grow their congregations. I would like to enhance the ways that we can help share those resources," she said.

Review readers submitted questions for the Bishop. One came from the Rev. Robert Kuyper, president of the newly renamed "Renewal Fellowship within the California-Nevada Annual Conference", the former Evangelical Renewal Fellowship. Kuyper asked whether there is a "scorched earth" policy against evangelical-conservative pastors within the Conference, as "Good News"magazine and former UMC evangelical pastor Ed Ezaki constantly allege. If so, would she continue it, or stop it?

"I believe we are all evangelical at our roots. That grows out of the Gospel," she said, "and the mandate of our founder, John Wesley." The Bishop hoped "we can see the commonality that we have as being an evangelical people called to make disciples for Christ."

Fort Jones UMC member Pat McCallister asked, "whether or not Bishop Shamana will, in a pro-active manner, address the 'divisive issues' in our Conference? That is, will she soon start meeting with representatives of both camps to work toward mutual forgiveness and the beginning of a new and productive relationship in and for Jesus Christ?" "I do want to listen to different points of view about what has been divisive among us," Shamana replied, "and then find ways where we can come together and begin to bind up and heal our wounds."

Developing an "Ask the Bishop" forum is one communication tool the Bishop said she was willing to explore. "I think it would be an opportunity to really shape the future together and to get to know each other in different kinds of ways that perhaps, haven't been explored before. Technology. It's here for us. Let's use it," she said, as she noted that a desktop and laptop computer would be in her hands before the end of the week.

Another way the Bishop believes she'll learn more about the Conference is by visiting local churches, particularly as they celebrate milestones and anniversaries. She and Shasta District Superintendent Ruth Ocera Cortez "talked about a list of places I would go, because I've got a stack of invitations," Shamana said. "So I just laid them out and said, 'Now where do I need to be, given that I can't be everywhere?'"

Calling the episcopacy a "high honor", Shamana said she's humbled at the same time. "It's a way in which I would want to honor Christ, honor my colleagues and honor God's people. But I can't do this alone," she said. "This is the first time I've ever done this," she chuckled. "My fourth day in the officeŠ and so clearly, I have a lot to learn."

"Learning to Bishop", as she put it, is not a learning curve. "It's a wall. Straight up! So I going to be calling on you, and my colleagues, and people in churches to help me learn this job." "So, don't' be surprise if I come to you and say, 'Now, how would you do this? You think about it.' I don't have a preconceived notion of how 'Bishoping' is done," she concluded. "I've seen a lot of other people do it, but it's different for every person. And, so I'm going to have to shape it to my tenure and my time and who I am, but I'm not going to do that alone. I'm going to call on God's good people to do it with me."

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