Bishop’s Page

The Right Rev. Lucinda Beth Ashby is the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real and was ordained and consecrated as Bishop on January 11, 2020.

Exploring New Church is a significant part of Bishop Lucinda’s vision for our Diocese. Being New Church means being mobile, adaptive, and relevant. It calls us to travel light, being mindful of what is essential for our ministry and mission; stay in balance, taking into account the beauty and grounding of our tradition while exploring what is creative and innovative; having the courage to be lost, being brave enough to step forward even when especially when we don’t have all the answers. Being New Church is about walking a faithful path of pilgrimage, trusting in God, and taking each step with those we meet along The Way.

As part of that exploration, Bishop Lucinda and the Diocese of El Camino Real established the Community Trailblazer Role. The Trailblazer is a recent seminary graduate invited to return to our Diocese and work with a parish, a group of parishes, or a region to help churches connect with their communities in new and vital ways. All with the aim of helping lead the church outside the walls.

Bishop Lucinda knows the importance of forming leaders for the church we are becoming. To that end, she established a School for Ministry based on the curriculum from the Iona Collaborative. A bilingual school, this program quickly attracted the attention of two other dioceses, San Diego and Northern California, who joined our Diocese to form a three-way partnership for forming people for lay and ordained leadership called the West Coast Collaborative. During her episcopate, Bishop Lucinda has worked tirelessly to build the best team for the Diocese, both in her staff at Sargent House and in the Diocesan Leadership.

Bishop Lucinda’s life pre-ordination gave her a perfect background to lead our Diocese. She taught Spanish and music in grades 7-12 and was Head of School for a private school in Sacramento. She also founded and built a school for Native Americans in Capay Valley, Calif. While in seminary, she served as Chaplain at St. Michael’s Episcopal Day School in Carmichael, Calif. Ashby grew up in Peru and northern New Mexico and speaks fluent Spanish. She and her husband, Bob McEvilly, share two dogs, Charli and Sammi, along with three grown children who reside in California with their spouses.

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