Joe Harris, churchwide men’s leader, returns to conference ministry

March 11, 2005

By Linda Green*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)—The man who moved United Methodist men forward for more than eight years is leaving his post to return to ministry in the annual conference.

The Rev. Joe Harris, top executive of the churchwide Commission on United Methodist Men, is leaving to become assistant to Oklahoma Bishop Robert Hayes and director of communications for the Oklahoma Annual (regional) Conference, effective Sept. 1.

Harris, who has led the men’s commission since it was established by the 1996 General Conference, said he is “extremely excited about the annual conference position I am going to, and am excited about where the commission has come from and is headed.”

Hayes said he is appointing Harris as his assistant and as communications director because he has proven himself “worthy to get the best position the annual conference can offer him.” He cited Harris’ experience as a pastor, district superintendent and general secretary.

“Joe Harris has the skills and tremendous gifts in being able to communicate with people, build bridges of understanding and preach the gospel to the people in the Oklahoma Annual Conference,” the bishop said. “I am excited about his coming and look forward to working with him.”

The commission became an independent organization in 1996 after being a division of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship in Nashville. Its mission is to assist men to know Jesus Christ, serve him, grow spiritually and seek daily to do his will. The agency develops programs of recruiting, training, and supporting and implementing men’s ministries in the United Methodist Church. It also coordinates the denomination’s scouting ministries.

“The commission is a lot stronger today than it was when it began, and it is getting stronger in affecting men and scouting ministry for Jesus Christ,” Harris said. He looks forward to his new position and “to being part of the itinerant ministry which moves ordained elders from one location to another for the sake of the entire church.”

The denomination’s 12-year limit on the tenure of top staff officials of churchwide agencies was an important factor in Harris’ decision to leave the agency, said Gil Hanke, president of the commission and a layman from Nacogdoches, Texas.

“Dr. Joe Harris is in his final quadrennium, as he became our general secretary after the GCUMM was created in 1996. Joe is also an elder and therefore is under appointment of his bishop in the Oklahoma Conference,” Hanke wrote to United Methodist Men across the church. 

“As you know and have experienced, Joe has provided outstanding leadership and has assembled and refined this new commission from its very beginning,” Hanke wrote. “Joe has taken a vision, a hope, a prayer and a vital need within the United Methodist Church, and has been the servant leader that birthed and nurtured the GCUMM to its present vitality. He has been a blessing to the GCUMM and to the entire church.”   

While feeling the time is right for the change, Harris said he didn’t want to leave until after the 9th National Gathering of United Methodist Men in July. He also has other duties to complete, including helping Bishop William Morris get acclimated as the interim general secretary of the men’s agency. Bishop James King is leading a search committee to find a new leader for the commission.

Harris said he is confident the search committee will “find the strongest general secretary, who along with a strong staff, will continue reaching men inside and outside the church and in strengthening scouting ministry.” He added that he has appreciated working “with the finest laypeople in the church, whose hearts are in strengthening the whole church through the ministry of United Methodist Men.”

Men across the church can be proud of where men’s ministry is today because of Harris’ work during the last nine years, said Robert Powell of Dothan, Ala., president of the United Methodist Men’s Foundation.

Powell noted that Bishop Morris has been a longtime supporter of men’s ministry. “He, along with a committed staff, will hold our work and ministry together until a new general secretary is hired.”

News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.