Charles vonRosenberg
Episcopal Bishop; Diocese of East Tennessee

Family: Wife, Annie; sons Glenn, 22, a student at College of Charleston, and John, 19, a student at St. Mary's of Maryland.

Role models: "My parents, Charles and Frances vonRosenberg. And my kindergarten teacher, who was a great believer in children and their dignity. When we had questions about our own children, we went back to her."

What he's reading: Evensong, by Gail Godwin. Other favorites: James Michener; mysteries.

What he thinks about Jan Karon's "Mitford" novels, featuring an Episcopal priest in a small Southern town: "Romanticized, but fun."

Favorite vacation: "I love to travel and I love the beach. Some combination of those, along with family time."

Biggest surprise in his new job: "The amount of administrative work. The challenge is to balance it with pastoral responsibilities."

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by Stephanie Piper

Charles vonRosenberg looks too young to be a bishop.

Imagine away the clerical collar and pectoral cross, and he might be a forty-something teacher. His face is unlined. His hair, though touched with gray, falls boyishly over his forehead. He's been a priest for 24 years, and he's moved often, started over in cities and towns across the South, learned the ways of new congregations.

This move is different. This time, he's a spiritual CEO.

In late February, vonRosenberg was ordained and consecrated third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee. In an ancient ceremony that included the traditional laying on of hands by other bishops, he became the spiritual leader of 17,000 Episcopalians from the Tri-Cities to Chattanooga.

There was nothing ancient or traditional about the process that first brought vonRosenberg to Knoxville.

"It was a computer match," he says, settling into a booth at Chesapeake's for crab bisque and salad. "All Episcopal clergy are on the computer at the Clergy Deployment Office in New York. A profile was sent in from East Tennessee describing what they were looking for in a bishop, and my name came up."

The computer's choice was only a starting point. He was one of 11 nominees for the job who were later interviewed at length by laity and clergy from the area. The final decision was made by a majority vote of clerical and lay delegates at a diocesan convention.

When the New York computer churned out his name, vonRosenberg was rector of St. James Church in Wilmington, N.C. The thriving Episcopal community of 1,500 "is a great place with a great history," he says. "It was founded in 1729. I was very happy there." But East Tennessee drew him, he says, with needs and interests closely aligned to his own.

"There's a mission strategy in this diocese that allows local areas to be responsible and accountable for any mission work or outreach that they do. I've worked in a similar way in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina. I've also been especially interested in mission work in Haiti, and East Tennessee has been involved in that for 10 years."

A veteran of several mission trips to the impoverished island, vonRosenberg served as chair of the World Mission Program Group for the Diocese of South Carolina.

Still, the decision to leave Wilmington was not an easy one. Like vonRosenberg's other moves in his two and a half decades of priesthood, it involved plenty of soul searching.

"Part of being under orders is to see if God through the church is leading me to do something else," he says.

Growing up in a church-going family in Fayetteville, N.C., vonRosenberg had the first inklings of a call to the ministry as a teenager. "I saw the priesthood as a possibility in high school," he says. "In college, I got away from church as many young people do."

He went to Sewanee and then to Chapel Hill. After graduation, he taught high school English for a few years. One day, feeling isolated and lonely, he walked into an Episcopal church in rural North Carolina.

"I had a profound experience of going home again," he recalls.

When he enrolled at Virginia Seminary in Alexandria, Va., it was with "more questions than answers," he says. "There was uncertainty, but I was aware of the need to go on the journey. I grew into the call while I was there."

He met his wife, Annie, on a blind date in his first year. They were married during his third year of study, and after his ordination as a deacon, moved to Eastern North Carolina.

"I dragged Annie away from Washington to Bellhaven, N.C., population 2,500," he recalls. "She's been with me on this journey ever since."

His first assignment was as a "sort of circuit rider for four small churches between Washington, N.C., and Nags Head," he says.

First as deacon, later as priest-in-charge, vonRosenberg served the scattered communities. "They were very patient with me," he recalls of his first parishioners. "I learned a lot from them."

And the work flourished.

"Slatesville, a fishing village, hadn't had a service for three years. The bishop told me later he had thought of closing the church there down. But it became one of the most vibrant churches in the area."

He went on to Beaufort, N.C., where a diverse community of artists and educators, longtime residents, and inland waterway transients "shared space" at St. Paul's church.

After serving as rector and vicar at churches in the Carolinas and Georgia, vonRosenberg moved to Columbia, S.C. as a member of the bishop's staff. He returned to parish work in 1994 as rector of St. James in Wilmington.

His most challenging assignment to date, he says, is "this one."

"It's a career change. The bishop is always something of an outsider—the first loyalty of parishioners is to their own churches. On the one hand, there's a loss involved, the sense of not having a parish family.

"This is a new part of the world for us. This is the first place we've moved without our sons. That's complicated and another adjustment."

But exchanging the support of a parish for the support of 47 parishes has its advantages, vonRosenberg says.

"The diocese is large enough to have resources, but small enough to get to know people."

It's a task he already has well in hand, with frequent visits to his far-flung flock. "I'm on the road a good deal of the time," he acknowledges. "I was in Rugby last Sunday; tomorrow I'll be in Copper Hill. It's important for me to go to where the people are."

The Episcopalian population of East Tennessee hovers between 2 and 3 percent, and the churches of the diocese run the gamut from tiny Rugby, with around 15 members, to Knoxville's Church of the Ascension and Chattanooga's Good Shepherd. Whatever the numbers, the Episcopal Church faces hard questions as it enters a new millennium.

"The key issue is whether we will be an issue-driven church or a gospel-driven church," vonRosenberg says. "I've seen too many churches torn apart by debating issues, having to vote up or down on matters of doctrine or discipline and the losers feeling they have to leave. I would hope that the Episcopal Church would be more inclusive than that. We have always been a church that celebrates the diversity of its membership."

He's encouraged by the growing numbers of young people interested in the church.

"They're interested in the spiritual dimension of life, in a sense of community, in belonging to a group that's oriented beyond itself. They're not so interested in some of the structures of the church that our generation holds dear."

The Episcopal Church of the next century must be a "missionary community," vonRosenberg says. "By that I mean that we share beyond ourselves what is important and at the core of our lives and that we invite others to share that with us."

He had a powerful experience of such sharing during his visits to Haiti, he says. But the real "missionaries" were the Haitian people.

"We went thinking we were going to provide all kinds of services and goods to the people there. We went away knowing we were the recipients far more than the givers. I encountered the poorest people I've ever seen, and the most joyful. They have managed to break the American combination of poverty and unhappiness.

"The source of their joy is community life, thanksgiving to God for life itself, and a great sense of wonder at small things which we take for granted. It's humbling to be in their presence."

Both at home and abroad, vonRosenberg says, he finds his inspiration in "everyday kinds of folks. They're important to me for their authenticity, the way they live their lives and the way they live their faith, the way they keep the doors open through tough times and good times."