Bishop Bruce Ough, of the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area of the United Methodist Church, was recently honored with an honorary doctor of divinity from Dakota Wesleyan University during the Dakotas Annual Conference in Sioux Falls.
Ough is a native of North Dakota and a 1973 graduate of North Dakota State University. After earning his bachelor's degree, he spent two years as a school counselor at Standing Rock Indian Reservation. He then attended Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and earned his master of divinity degree in 1978.
During his seminary years, Ough served as an associate pastor at Grace United Methodist Church in Chicago, and he interned with the Dakotas Area program staff. In addition, he has done graduate work at Northwestern University and completed the Upper Room's two-year Academy for Spiritual Formation. In 1979, he was ordained an elder in the former North Dakota Conference.
Ough served as council director of the Dakotas Area, followed by three years as director of the Oakwood Spiritual Life Center in the North Indiana Conference. From 1985 to 1992, he served as the council director for the Iowa Conference, followed by five years as district superintendent of the Cedar Rapids District of the Iowa Conference. In 1997, he was appointed senior pastor of St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was in this position when he was elected to the episcopacy by the North Central Jurisdictional Conference in 2000, and assigned to the Ohio West Area. In 2012, Ough was assigned to the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area.
He has also chaired the United Methodist Connectional Table for the 2012-2016 quadrennium, and in May, became president of the Council of Bishops.
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He has served as a member of several jurisdictional and general church agencies, most notably the North Central Jurisdiction Committee on Episcopacy, the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women, and the General Board of Global Ministries, which he served as president from 2009 to 2012. He was appointed bishop of the Southeast Asia Mission, serving Vietnam, Laos and Thailand from 2010 to 2015, and he has served as the president of the North Central Jurisdiction College of Bishops and chaired the Council of Bishops' Plan Team on Missional Focus.
His work has included training events, seminars and retreats in the areas of spiritual formation, leadership development and new church development.
He also is a current member of the Dakota Wesleyan University Board of Trustees.
Ough has received numerous honors and awards, including the inaugural Social Justice Award from the Columbus Metropolitan Area Church Council in 2009.
He and his wife, Charlene, have three adult sons and five grandchildren.
