Bishop Lanette Plambeck has been assigned as the resident bishop for the Dakotas-Minnesota Area effective Jan. 1, 2023. She was elected to the episcopacy at the 2022 North Central Jurisdictional Conference. Before her election, she served as the assistant to the bishop and director of clergy and leadership excellence in the Iowa Annual Conference.
Ordained an elder in the Iowa Conference in 2005, Bishop Plambeck earned a B.A. in religious studies and political science from Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa. After serving as an intelligence analyst in the United States Army, she worked as an executive and therapist for person-centered agencies. In 2001, she completed her master of divinity with an emphasis on evangelism at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, Kansas, then received a doctor of ministry in church leadership excellence in 2013 from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.
Before joining the staff of the Iowa Annual Conference, Bishop Plambeck was the lead pastor for Broadway United Methodist Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa; First United Methodist in Atlantic, Iowa; Manning United Methodist Church in Manning, Iowa; and Emmanuel United Methodist Church in Granger, Iowa. She also served as the chaplain at Morningside University.
She says the measure of her leadership is three questions she asks herself at the end of each day: Did I glorify God? Did I point people to Christ? Did I love? She describes herself as “unapologetically Wesleyan and so in love with Jesus and his ministry marked by compassion, grace, and justice.” A gift she brings as a leader is “to inspire others to live lives of significance as we work for ‘kingdom on earth as it is in heaven’ through active discipleship as we respond to the suffering in the world. I am committed to developing leaders (clergy and laity) to grow into the very best versions of themselves so that they can be at their very best for God.”
Bishop Plambeck has one adult daughter who lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
Watch a video introducing Bishop Lanette.
Janet Beard is the administrative assistant in the Episcopal Area office, a role she assumed in April 2021.
Since 2015, Beard has served as conference secretary for the Minnesota Conference, and more recently, she also became its Board of Ordained Ministry registrar.
Beard—whose husband, Rev. Jim Beard, serves Bethel UMC in Mound—has had an interesting career path.
After earning a degree in elementary education, she spent two years at a Montessori school before having children and staying home with them for several years. When her youngest son went to kindergarten, she began doing administrative work for a horse feed manufacturer while Jim was in seminary.
Later, when Jim was appointed to a church in Delano, she spent seven years as a Title 1 teacher there. Then in 2008, when Jim was appointed to a church plant in Big Lake, she worked alongside him, making connections and inviting people to join their worshipping community.
Janet and Jim have two adult children and two granddaughters, whom they love spending time with.
Contact Bishop Lanette or Janet Beard at the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area office at (612) 230-6152. Mailing address is 122 W. Franklin Ave., Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55404.
Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
122 West Franklin Avenue, Suite 400 Minneapolis, MN 55404
(612) 870-0058