The 144th Session of the Central North Carolina Annual Conference was held on November 8 -12, 2023. In the spirit of our connectional life, both lay persons and clergy came together to celebrate the end of one conference year and the beginning of another. The grandeur embedded in the familiarity of the occasion, the music, and the jovial greetings framing the stimulating workshops, inspiring sermons, and, of course, our episcopal address made the experience festive and memorable for yet another year. In addition to the normal business, this year, we elected lay and clergy delegates to the General Conference. All in all, however, this year’s conference was much the same as it has been every year, except it was not the same as it had been every year. The 95th Bishop in the line of succession in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Presiding Prelate of the Eastern North Carolina Episcopal District, the Presiding Prelate of the South Atlantic Episcopal District, and the senior bishop of our church was presiding over his last conference with us as our bishop.
In honor of his living legacy, we celebrate the man, his ministry, and his uncommon leadership.
Bishop Kenneth Monroe has been a leader of leaders in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He is a wealth of wisdom, prudence, and love. His fatherly inquiry, “Are y’all living right?” has been a notable cog in our conference and episcopal gatherings. He hails from Red Springs, North Carolina, and is a faithful member of St. James A.M.E. Zion Church, but he proudly admits he has been everywhere. He owes his journey to the call. – a call that only God can articulate in one’s soul. The call is loud and yet soft, colossal and yet simple.
He was only 17 years old when he received the call, but Bishop Monroe answered that call. Although young, he did not allow his youth to prevent him from taking this monumental step. “I was surrounded by people who encouraged me along the way. Sometimes when you’re called, you don’t answer right away,” Bishop chuckled as he reflected on the magnitude of receiving a call from God. He was ordained by Bishop W. A. Hilliard in 1972 as a deacon and then in 1974 as an elder. At 22 years old, he began to pastor two circuit churches – Taylor’s Chapel and St. Mary A.M.E. Zion Churches. “God sends people, situations, and opportunities around you so you can respond to His call. They cause you to take a look at your life and what God has in store for your life.”
Beginning his undergraduate studies in our own Livingstone College where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies, he continued his graduate studies at Duke Divinity School. It was there that he received a Master of Divinity, and at Hartford Seminary, he received a Doctor of Ministry degree.
He spent 31 years pastoring six congregations in North Carolina, Kansas, and Connecticut. Monroe also served as a presiding elder to the Kansas City District, which included churches in Kansas City, Kansas, Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska. He has also served as a presiding elder for the Nassau District of the Bahamas Island Conference. As a pastor and a presiding elder, he experienced the highs and lows within the challenges of ministry. Unlike many, though, the driving force behind his service to the church was not a superficial one but one rooted in his call.
Of course, the highs can be really high, and the lows can be difficult, to say the least. After pastoring Taylor’s Chapel and St. Mary, Bishop Monroe recalled a congregation he pastored at the age of 23. He gives a gentle laugh as he says, “I ran into some opposition.” The church was being changed from a circuit church to a station church. He comments with joy “that it is still a strong church today.” Trinity of Southern Pines came next. It was there Bishop enjoyed a nine-year tenure that included a teaching position at Sandhills Community College and a renewed friendship with his classmate, who was then the town manager, Neil Coleman.
Longtime members of Trinity still consider him their young pastor. Our retired bishop was in his early 20’s when accepting that call. At 34, he began the call in Kansas City. There were many sweet memories made there, as well as important work accomplished in the community. Bishop Monroe, along with two other Baptist preachers, created the Concerned Clergy Coalition. Through their leadership, they were able to secure $1.2 million for jobs for summer youth employment. He continued his community leadership by organizing a gang summit to address the problems of gang violence. Although his church, Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion, suffered vandalism (broken windows of the glass doors and a broken windshield on the church van), the call continued to move Bishop forward. The gang summit was held, and it was a successful venture. It was also here that he met Emanuel Cleaver, the first African American mayor of Kansas City, now serving in the United States House of Representatives. Most recently, Bishop was reunited with his friend at Clinton College’s Commencement Ceremony earlier this year. Kansas remains a home to this day for his children and grandchildren. From Kansas City, Monroe was sent to Hartford, Connecticut, where he served for ten years.
In July of 2004, he was elected the 95th Bishop in the line of succession of our church. He was assigned to the Western West Africa Episcopal District. In December of 2005, he was given the responsibility of supervising the Kentucky and Missouri Annual Conferences. In October 2006, he was able to dedicate the new Janie Speaks Hospital in Afrancho, Ghana, with the support of the W.H.O.M. Society. From 2008 to 2016, he served as the Presiding Prelate of the South Atlantic Episcopal District. In 2012, Bishop Monroe was assigned to the Central North Carolina and Virgin Islands Conferences. During this time, in 2014, he completed the Kenneth Monroe Transformational Center in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He was declared the senior bishop of our church in 2021, and in 2022, he was once again assigned to the South Atlantic Episcopal District after the death of Bishop Mildred Bonnie Hines.
In Africa, particularly in Ghana, Bishop was able to witness God’s work through his overseeing:
In all his pursuits, it was always the call that led the way. “The call is an act of faith because you don’t know what you’re doing.” “It’s like when I was a young boy, we lived in the little, small town of Red Springs. Telephones were there, but everybody didn’t have one, and you could hear people calling, calling someone’s name. You would have to stop and listen to say, ’I think someone is calling me,’ and you would respond to that call.” Bishop Kenneth Monroe will be retired in the 2024 General Conference of our church, but he will still be answering the call wherever it leads him and whatever it leads him to do. In Bishop’s words responding to that call and moving closer to its sound makes the call clearer and clearer to hear and to understand. Monroe’s determination to follow each call he received has made his leadership one of extraordinary greatness.
I believe that the character of a person is not in all that they say and do in the public’s eye but in the small, seemingly insignificant events done privately. One preacher in our conference shared a story with me about the deaths of his twin infant boys. He was not a preacher then, and he and his wife had not been attending service anywhere, but he knew Rev. Kenneth Monroe. His mother wanted him to ask Rev. Monroe to conduct the service for his infants, but he was reluctant to ask. The day of the babies’ burial came. It was a rainy, gloomy day. The parents sat with the funeral director at the cemetery only to see Rev. Monroe walking through the muddy terrain to support the young parents at the grave site. That father was inspired to begin attending church again. This is yet another life that the call has impacted.
“You must understand God never stops calling you. It’s never a one-time thing. There are so many things that HE has created for us to do. We won’t know until we’ve responded to the calls.”
Our retiring Presiding Prelate has answered his calls, and we are left with his living legacy to do the same.
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