By james art 
Reverend Julius H. McAlighter Jr., senior pastor of Bethhel Ame church in Talahassi, was confirmed as 144th elected bishop of the African Methodist Bishopal Church on Monday.
The election was made during the 52nd four-year session of the African Methodist Bishopal (AME) Church in Columbus, Ohio. The conference was opened on August 21 and ended on August 28.
The Monday election culminates for a nearly two -year McAlighter campaign that travels a lot around the United States and abroad to share his message why he is seeking to be a bishop in the service of AME’s church delegations and their leaders.
The election signals a lifetime appointment for a macalister, 53, which will actively serve the position until it reaches the compulsory retirement age of 75 years. There are 21 active bishops around the world that monitor the administration and organization of the African Methodist Bishopal Church (AME), along with a team of general officers who run departments in the AME church.
Monday elections are also significant in that there were seven episcopal positions available. Among the retired bishops are the father of McAlighter, Bishop Julius H. McAllister Sr., senior Bishop Adam J. Richardson Jr., a former senior pastor of the Bethe Ame Church in Talahassi, which was elected in 1996, and Frank Madison Reed III, the bishop who led the 11th The Bishopal County, which includes the Bethel Ame Church. The late father -in -law of McAlighter Jr. was Bishop McKinley Young, who died in 2019.
It also means that the Bethel Ame Church will be in line with a new senior pastor for the first time in 16 years.
According to the biography of his campaign, McAlighter Jr. responded to the 1992 ministry call. He was licensed to preach and was admitted to the Northeastern Annual Conference of the Seventh Bishopal County (South Carolina) of the African Bishopal Church in 1993. It began its pastoral Services as a member of ministerial staff at the Mount Zion Ame Church in Florence, South Carolina and the Big Bethhe Ame Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
Prior to being appointed to Bethel Ame Church in 2008, McAllister Jr. was a youth minister at the Oak Grove Ame Church in Detroit, Michigan, and subsequently served as a pastor of Payne Chapel Ame Church in Chicago, Heaths, Illinois and GREATER Church in Chicago, Illinois.
McAllister received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the State University of South Carolina in Orangeberg, South Carolina in 1993 and a Master’s Degree in Theology from the Turner Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007. In 2007 he received a doctoral degree by ministry from the ministry The Chicago Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois.
McAllister is married to Deana Young McAlighter, assistant chief of school management and relations with employees in the school district of Leon County. They are the parents of three sons: Julius Harrison McAlighter III, Colin McKinley, Young McAlighter and Dylan David Jeremaya McAllister, whom McAlighter gently calls “the couple’s biggest investment.”
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Bethel Ame Pastor Mcallister Jr. elected for the 144th Bishop of Ame Church