Kenneth H. Carter, Jr. is resident bishop of the Florida and Western North Carolina Conferences of the United Methodist Church which is made up of over 800 congregations, fresh expressions of church, campus ministries and outreach initiatives. He came to the Florida Conference in 2012, following a ministry of almost thirty years in Western North Carolina, twenty-nine as a local church pastor.

Bishop Carter served as the president of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church from 2018-2020, and he was one of three moderators of The Commission on a Way Forward, from 2016 to 2018.   In addition to his responsibilities with the Florida Conference, he serves as bishop-in-residence and a consulting faculty member at Duke University Divinity School.

Bishop Carter is author of fifteen books, most recently Fresh Expressions:  A New Kind of Methodist Church (with Audrey Warren; Abingdon Press, 2017); Embracing The Wideness of God’s Mercy: The Shared Convictions of United Methodists (Abingdon Press, 2018); A Beginner’s Guide to Practicing Scriptural Imagination (Upper Room, 2019); and Fresh Expressions of People Over Property (with Audrey Warren; Abingdon Press, 2020).  His editorials have appeared in the Miami Herald, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Orlando Sentinel,  and his commentary on Christianity in the United States has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and on National Public Radio.

His great hope for the church is that she will rediscover an orthodox Christian faith which offers the radically inclusive grace of God to all people, and at the same time calls every follower of Jesus to inner holiness, missional compassion, justice rooted in the gospel and hopeful witness. He travels extensively across the state, preaching in local churches and encouraging lay and clergy leaders.  

Bishop Carter and his wife, Pam have been married for over forty years.  Pam has served as an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, most recently in disaster recovery.  They are blessed with two adult daughters and two grandchildren.