Bishop reuben job biography

Learn the three simple rules to mutual respect, unity and a deeper daily relationship with God.

About the Author

In the fall of 2013 when I was installed as the first holder of the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation at Garrett-Evangelical, I understood well that I was not only assuming responsibilities for my students, but that I was shouldering the on-going work of the man whose name graced the chair that I hold.  His prayerful, measured, and visionary leadership stretched across six decades, touching people in the Dakotas, the Armed Forces in Europe, and Iowa.  His work on behalf of the United Methodist Church and his prolific work as a writer extended his influence far beyond that.  He wrote over 20 books in his lifetime, one of which sold over 300,000 copies.

To know him was to experience a man whose life was deeply grounded in the conviction that the Christian life demanded “radical trust in God’s presence, power, wisdom, and guidance.”  That conviction, which he so clearly articulated in his book, Three Simple Rules, powerfully shaped the way that he lived and ministered to the needs of others.  While he can be rightly credited with revitalizing a commitment to the spiritual life among United Methodists, he was also a leader, who engaged and confronted the challenges facing his church and the larger Christian family.

What some people might not know is that this gentle man of deep spiritual strength also labored for many of the closing years of his life with the constraints of a failing, physical heart.  Burdens of that kind have a way of eroding our ability to die as we have lived, but that was not the case.  We continued to correspond over the last few months while he was in hospice care.  In his last message, he wrote: “All is well here. Living or dying, God’s grace is enough.”

In a world that is anxious to minimize pain and escape discomfort, Rueben’s witness is an important one.  Debates about dying with dignity, managing pain, and the right to end our lives have distracted us from the far more important an

American bishop

Rueben Philip Job (February 7, 1928 – January 3, 2015) was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church. Elected in 1984, he served the Iowaepiscopal area and retired in 1992.

Birth and family

Job was born in Jamestown, North Dakota. On August 20, 1953, he married Beverly Nadine Ellerbeck of George, Iowa. They were the parents of four children: Deborah, Ann, Philip, and David, and had seven grandchildren. Job died in Brentwood, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville.

Education

Job earned the B.A. degree from Westmar College in 1954 (as did his wife, a member of the same class). He earned the Bachelor of Divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in May 1957. Bishop Job holds honorary doctorates from Westmar College (1975), Dakota Wesleyan University (1980), Asbury Theological Seminary (1984), the University of Dubuque Theological School (1989), Rust College (1991), Simpson College (1992), and Iowa Wesleyan College (1992).

Ordained ministry

On May 24, 1952, Job received a License to Preach in the Evangelical United Brethren Church (E.U.B.) from Bishop E. W. Pretorius. Job received a Student Appointment that summer. He was ordained an Elder by Bishop H. R. Heininger in 1957.

Job served several pastorates in North Dakota: Tuttle (1957–1960); Minot (1960–1961); Calvary Church, Fargo (1962–1965). In 1961–1962 he served in Europe as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. He served on the staff of the General Board of Evangelism of the E.U.B. Church from 1965 to 1968, and on the general staff of the U.M. Board of Evangelism and Discipleship from 1968 to 1977, following the 1968 merger of the E.U.B. and Methodist Churches that formed the United Methodist Church. In 1977 Job was appointed District Superintendent of the Northern District of the South DakotaAnnual Conference. He held this position until he became the World Editor of The Upper Room devotional publication, a highly popular Un

Bishop Ruben Saenz Jr. serves as resident bishop of the Central and North Texas Conferences of The United Methodist Church, assigned in January 2023. Before these assignments, Saenz served as the interim bishop of the Central Texas Conference (2022) and resident bishop of the Great Plains Conference (2016-2022).

As the episcopal leader in Kansas and Nebraska, Bishop Saenz notably led three former annual conferences to complete a unification process that began in 2014. Under his leadership, the Great Plains Conference embraced a unified vision grounded in four pillars: Love God. Proclaim Christ. Serve Others. Do Justice. 

In 2023, he began similar unification work for the Central, North and Northwest Texas Annual Conferences, casting a vision and laying the groundwork for a new, unified conference that will harness and direct resources and efforts to reach a rapidly growing and diversifying mission field.

Before his election to the episcopacy, Saenz served as director of conference connectional ministries and executive director of the Rio Texas Conference’s Mission Vitality Center, overseeing the conference’s missional strategies and objectives for congregational vitality, new church starts, clergy and lay leadership vitality and community transformation. He also served as the Southwest Texas director of congregational and new church development, helping to start 11 new churches.

As a pastor, Saenz focused on intentional spiritual practice and formation, developing a lay apostolate and giving people the tools and encouragement to move out of generational poverty. He has served congregations in East Dallas, Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood, El Paso, and at Edinburg’s El Buen Pastor, the largest Hispanic American United Methodist Church in the country during his tenure.

Saenz is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University and a South Texas native. Before his call to ministry, he worked as a high school teacher and football coach,