Candidacy Announcement

ANNOUNCEMENT OF CANDIDACY FOR EPISCOPAL SERVICE – 2012

Millennium Maxwell House Hotel
Nashville, TN
Saturday, November 14, 2009

I, Clement W. Fugh, formally announce my Candidacy for Episcopal Service-2012 in the African Methodist Episcopal Church!

The Question that everyone is asking is, “What is the Recovery Movement?”

“Recovery suggests that something has been lost. If so, what was it and how did it happen?”

The Recovery Movement is not an indictment against the leadership of the Church.

The Recovery Movement begins with a long, hard, honest look at our state of affairs.  Look at them in light of the Church in her finest hour.  Remember the core values, the foundational principles, and the culture that was uniquely AME!

Now ask, “Is the AME brand equally as discernable today? Or have we abandoned, minimized or marginalized who we are and what we stand for?” “Are the factors that gave rise to its inception, and that have given it life and vitality for more than 200 years still relevant and needful in the present age?”

If your answer is YES, then let’s recover them!

Let’s accentuate them!

Let’s call attention to them whenever and wherever we see them practiced!

So, if we are serious when we embrace as a quadrennial emphasis, “A Great Past, A Greater Future, An Incredible Call To Serve,” then we are not assigning blame, but we are answering the challenge to make a difference in this present age.

It is too big a job for any one person to do alone, or even for a committee to accomplish.  It requires a Movement – a concerted, deliberate effort to bring about positive results!

Your next question to me is, “What inspired you to take the initiative in such an awesome task?”

I had a feeling that you would ask.

In addition to my passionate love for the Church, there are two other things.

FIRST, I came up “regular.”

I came up in the AME Church through the “classes” of the Board of Examiners!

I went on to seminary to receive my formal training for ministry.

I have kept the ordination vows that I made on my knees at the altar.  “I have reverently obeyed my chief ministers, and have followed with a glad mind their godly admonitions…”

SECONDLY, not only did I come up regular, but I have also “made full proof of my ministry.’

My first pastoral appointment was to Mt Pisgah AME Church in Lucy, TN.  There I conducted my first revival, took in 17 new members. 14 were converts, so I baptized them in the pond in the horse pasture that used to be across the road from the church.

When I was assigned to Greater Bethel, Nashville, TN, I met a people who had a vision to build a house to the glory of God.  For 28 years a ten foot tall cinder block foundation stood beside the sanctuary as a reminded of “a dream deferred.”  But under the mantra of “The Work Is All Divine,” in the place of those cinder blocks today stands a state of the art worship and service facility valued at $3.2 million that is a testimony of “a dream fulfilled!”

As General Secretary and Chief Information Officer of the AME Church, I can report today that the AME Church has a prominent address on the World Wide Web (www.ame-church.com).  We receive more that 20,000 hits per month.  Seven years ago, before “going green” came in to vogue, we already had electronic capabilities for pastoral reporting.  And in collaboration with the CFO, each General Conference has experienced new and more exciting innovations beginning with electronic voting; onscreen reporting; and a queue based PA system that has changed the whole tenor of our assemblies.

I have made full proof of my ministry in whatever venue the Church has given me the opportunity to serve!  I pledge to do no less as a Bishop in the AME Church.

When Jesus was sent to redeem fallen humanity, there was no failure in God.  No!  Jesus came because there was a perceived need.  And He did not go it alone.  First He called the twelve; then He commissioned seventy; and today we are added to that number.

I stand today in response to that “incredible call to serve!”

“Faithful, Faithful, Faithful is our God,
Faithful, Faithful, Faithful is our God.

“I’m reaping the harvest God promised me.
Take back what the Devil stole from me.
And I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all!
And I rejoice today, for I shall recover it all!”

AMEN!