When he initially got the call to let his name stand for bishop of Saskatoon, the Rev. Chad McCharles, a Manitoba priest and part-time school bus driver, said his first impulse was “a hard no.” He was happy in his current ministry situation and at home in a community his family had been part of for nearly two decades.
However, his wife convinced him the family should at least pray about it. “And so, like a husband in training still after 25 years,” he said, “I respected that and came to a place where I [believed] the only way to find out if this is God’s will is to put the fleece out.” The best way to do that was to let his name stand for the vote, he said, and in the process, he grew to love what he learned about the diocese of Saskatoon. And based on the outcome of the vote, he said, the diocese must have seen something it liked about him.
McCharles was elected bishop of the diocese of Saskatoon March 8. Elected on the first ballot, he will succeed former bishop of Saskatoon Archbishop Chris Harper, who stepped down in January 2023 when he became national Indigenous archbishop.
McCharles’ CV, included with pre-election materials introducing the three nominatees for bishop of Saskatoon, describes him as an experienced rector of both urban, multi-staff and rural multi-point parishes. He is currently rector at Neepawa United-Anglican Shared Ministry, a joint Anglican and United Church parish in Neepawa, Man., and has served in parishes in the diocese of Brandon and Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. He received a diploma in applied theology from St. John’s College and Seminary at the University of Manitoba, a certificate of pastoral clinical education from the University of Winnipeg and completed the leadership and youth theology program at Huron University College and Seminary. McCharles has studied Benedictine spirituality and took temporary vows as an Anglican Benedictine in 2019. In his current parish, he also drives a school bus twice a day, supplementing his income to support two children in post-secondary school.
In an interview with the Anglican Journal, McCharles said he had often felt atypical as a priest due to his comparatively non-academic educational background. He approached ministry later in life than many do, taking on his journey toward ordination with two very young children, and did not attain an M.Div., as some clergy do. But when he went to work at a five-point parish right out of seminary, he was thrown right into the deep end, he said, where it became clear the down-to-earth attitude, rural life experience and practical organizational skills that came with his youth as a farm boy and first profession as a baker were an asset in his ministry.
“And golly, do you get parish ministry experience” serving a parish with five churches, he said. He would drive back and forth between churches, sometimes making two different hospital visits in different communities in the middle of one night. His breadth of life experiences, he said, were also an asset in relating to parishioners who varied from academics to farmers and everyone in between.
A profile of the diocese submitted to the candidates, McCharles said, emphasized its intent to hold together and live the Christian life as one community despite not always seeing eye-to-eye. And that’s something that resonated deeply with him. In the church and in secular society, he said, he has been deeply concerned with the rise of a culture of polarization which seems to want to push people to hate those they disagree with more and more all the time. In his ministry as bishop he hopes to carve out a space for those who disagree to be compassionate with one another.
“[I’ll be] doing all I can to ensure that there is common ground and a place where we can be together,” he said. “Jesus called for peace more than he called for anything.”
Combining the Anglican congregation in Neepawa with a United Church community has been a practical experience in reconciling two different sets of ideas about how to be a church community, McCharles said. It has often both highlighted some of what is important to him about being an Anglican and illuminated areas where the church could learn from and ally more closely with other denominations, he said. These are lessons he plans to carry forward into his term as bishop.
