Kansas Area Bishop Scott Jones will be preaching at a combined worship service Sunday morning at 10:50 am and leading a workshop on Evangelism Sunday afternoon at 1:30 pm. Here’s a very short biography provided by his office.

Scott Jameson Jones currently serves as the resident bishop of the Kansas Area of the United Methodist Church with offices in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas. He was born in 1954 in Nashville, Tennessee and was raised in Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana and Colorado. He received degrees from the University of Kansas (B.A. in Philosophy), Perkins School of Theology of Southern Methodist University (Master of Theology) and Southern Methodist University (Ph.D. in Religious Studies). His dissertation research was focused on Wesley Studies and the History of Biblical Interpretation.

He was ordained deacon in the Kansas East Annual Conference and elder in the North Texas Annual Conference. From 1986 to 1997 he served as pastor of three congregations: the United Methodist churches in Prosper, Howe and Commerce, Texas. In 2003-2004 he served as interim pastor at Stonebridge UMC in McKinney, Texas. From 1997 to 2004 he served on the faculty of Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. In 2004 he was elected a bishop by the South Central Jurisdictional Conference and assigned to serve as the resident bishop of the Kansas Area as of September 1, 2004.

His most recent books are United Methodist Doctrine: The Extreme Center and The Evangelistic Love of God and Neighbor: A Theology of Discipleship and Witness, (Abingdon Press). He has been named associate editor of volumes 5 and 6 in the Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, the scholarly edition of Wesley’s Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament.

Scott and Mary Lou Reece have been married since 1979. They have three children. Jameson, Arthur and Marynell.

A short (as opposed to the above very short) biography can be found on our website in the downloads section.