United Methodist Bishop Tom Bickerton will leave Western Pennsylvania at the end of his term later this summer. His next assignment will be announced in mid-July.

CRANBERRY TWP — Bishop Tom Bickerton’s tenure as head of the 23-county Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church comes to a church-mandated end later this summer.

Bickerton, who has overseen the 830-church conference which stretches from Erie to West Virginia and from the West Virginia-Ohio line to Altoona and contains an estimated 170,000 Methodists, will step down in July and be sent to another conference by Sept. 1, leaving the United Methodist Center at 1204 Freedom Road.

“I’ve reached my time,” said Bickerton, explaining the Methodist Church mandates no bishop remain leader of any conference longer than 12 years. Bickerton was the only bishop in one place for 12 years in the Northeast region.

Bickerton said the term limits were “purely political.”

“It used to be bishops could serve an unlimited time in any area. But the church thought bishops could have too much power if they stayed in one place,” Bickerton said.

Bickerton. “In July during the jurisdictional conference in Lancaster, two new bishops will be elected and then they will make the assignments. I will find out where I’m going and Western Pennsylvania will find out who they are getting.”

The soon-to-depart bishop could be reassigned anywhere from Boston to Washington, D.C.

Bickerton was elected bishop in 2004, one of two from West Virginia elected in the last 100 years.

He said the role of a bishop in the Methodist Church is to “oversee and supervise the pastors, to be spiritual leader of those places, guard the unity of the church and make sure those churches are operating according to church policy and discipline. I appoint all the pastors to churches.”

Bickerton said he grew up in the West Virginia panhandle so he has an affinity for this district.

“I don’t speak Yinzer very well, but I am able to understand it,” he said.

Noting the United Methodist Church boasts 12 million members across the world, Bickerton said, “I have international responsibilities as well. For eight years, I have overseen the church campaign to eliminate malaria.”

He added the death rate from the disease in Africa has dropped from one child every 30 seconds to one child every two minutes. He said his work on the anti-malaria campaign will continue in his next assignment.

Wherever he and his wife, Sally, are sent, it will be the first time they move as empty-nesters, the bishop noted. Their four children have left the house.

“There will be a learning curve no matter where I go, but it will be OK,” he said, noting he was able to do work in Africa “which is a radically different environment.”

It will also be an adjustment for the conference he is leaving behind, said the Rev. William B. Meekins Jr., who has been assistant to the bishop for the past two years.

“In the eyes of the church we are all itinerant pastors,” said Meekins, adding he believed the new bishop will continue the conference’s policy of “developing ecumenical partnerships and making the church open to receiving more people of color.”

The challenge he will face in his new conference, Bickerton said, is one faced by the church as a whole.

“The church is in a state of transition,” Bickerton said. “It’s a struggle felt by many old mainline denominations. There are internal issues that have to be addressed, issues of human sexuality and sustainability, how do we spread God’s message in an inviting way.”

But he admitted he will miss the Western Pennsylvania environment he and his family have lived in for the past 12 years.

“I don’t know what I will do with all my jerseys. I’ve been here for 2 Super Bowls and 2 Stanley Cups and the Pirates started to have winning seasons. I will always bleed black and gold,” Bickerton said.