Bishop Duncan Gray Retires from The Gathering of Leaders

The Gathering of Leaders
Posted Feb 9, 2023

Bishop Gray at the Bi-Vocational Gathering in San Antonio, 2022

It is with great gratitude and thanks that the Board of Directors for The Gathering of Leaders announces The Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray, III has retired from the Board of Directors after 18 years of faithful leadership. During its annual meeting in January, the Board elected The Rev. Emily Mellott and the Rt. Rev. Susan Brown Snook to serve as interim Board Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, with plans to elect a new Board Chair later this year.

Gray began his career in ordained ministry after graduating from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1975. He went on to serve parishes in New Orleans, Memphis and Mississippi before being consecrated in 2003 as the ninth Bishop of Mississippi, from which he formally retired in 2015. Throughout his career Gray was passionate about new models of leadership to address the challenges of a postmodern era.

Bishop Gray has been an integral part of The Gathering of Leaders since the organization’s founding in 2004, he helped to imagine and launch the organization and has been a Board Member for 18 years, serving as Chair of the Board since 2017.

Under Bishop Gray’s tenure as Board Chair, The Gathering of Leaders has achieved significant growth and development, while maintaining its core purpose to connect creative, innovative, and hope-filled leaders dedicated to mission and evangelism. He was instrumental in engaging the network in racial reconciliation and discipleship, deepening the diversity in leaders’ voices in the network, pivoting through Covid with new initiatives to keep GOL’s leaders connected, forging GOL’s partnership with the Episcopal Church Foundation, and casting vision as GOL embarked on adding Lay Leader and Bivocational Clergy to the leaders in the GOL network.

In honor of Bishop Gray, the Board passed the following resolution:

Resolution of Appreciation for The Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray, III
as he retires from the Board of Directors of The Gathering of Leaders

Whereas, The Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray, III, has been and remains a faithful member of the body of Christ, serving The Episcopal Church in many ways, both formally and informally, 

Whereas, he was instrumental in originating and launching The Gathering of Leaders in 2004, 

Whereas, he has served for 18 years on The Gathering of Leaders Steering Committee and now Board of Directors, 

Whereas, he has served since 2017 as the second Board Chair for The Gathering of Leaders, guiding the organization through a period of significant growth, development, and diversification, 

Whereas, he has consistently modeled generous, faithful and hopeful leadership,

Whereas, he has been dedicated to ensuring that The Gathering of Leaders stays on course, focusing on Jesus, mission, and evangelism, 

Whereas, he has kept The Gathering of Leaders “ship” steady in a time of changing conditions while preparing to take advantage of new opportunities and favorable winds, 

Whereas, he has been instrumental in creating and developing partnerships with dioceses and organizations throughout the church, including the transformative partnership with the Episcopal Church Foundation,

Whereas, he has accomplished all this good work with faithfulness, joy, vision, and encouragement for all,

Be it therefore resolved, on this fourteenth day of January in the year of our Lord Two Thousand Twenty Three, that the Board of Directors for The Gathering of Leaders extend their gratitude, hearty thanks, and deep appreciation to The Right Rev. Duncan Montgomery Gray, III for his loyal service and continued dedication to the missionary call of Christ, The Gathering of Leaders, and the Episcopal Church as a whole, and bid him Godspeed as he leaves this Board, but not the wider community of The Gathering of Leaders.

 

The Gathering of Leaders Board and Staff wish Bishop Gray well in his retirement and are thankful for his years of faithful service.


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