Dean Terry Dance is new Huron suffragan bishop

Dean Terrance “Terry” A. Dance was elected the new suffragan (assistant) bishop of the London, Ont.-based Anglican diocese of Huron on March 28.

Bishop-elect Dance, who was dean of the diocese and rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Ont., was elected on the fourth ballot. He received 198 votes from lay delegates and 75 from clergy during an election that drew 400 delegates to St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was one of 10 candidates.
He succeeds Bishop Robert Bennett, who was elected diocesan bishop last October.

“I believe effective leadership in the church at all levels must be encouraging and enabling. Authoritarian leadership, thank God, has had its day,” he has said in a written response to a question posed to nominees of the election: “What does leadership in the church mean to you in today’s environment?”

He said that “micro-managing, while perhaps efficient, denies the God-given gifts of all of the baptized and limits perspective. Leadership which grows out of a shared vision and which recognizes, encourages and enables the gifts of all of the baptized promotes a sharing of responsibilities and a sense of being connected.”

Asked what skills he would offer to support the diocesan bishop’s ministry, Bishop-elect Dance pointed to his 32 years as a priest working in “city, experimental, rural, small town and inner city ministries” and in various administrative capacities as archdeacon and dean of the diocese.

Bishop-elect Dance was ordained a priest in 1977.