Meet Rev. George Winkfield: Area Director of Beloved Community & Community Engagement
The Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Episcopal Area is pleased to welcome the Rev. George Winkfield as the new Area Director of Beloved Community & Community Engagement. Effective June 22, Winkfield joins the Area leadership team with a passion for helping congregations deepen discipleship, strengthen relationships, and more fully embody the love of Christ in their communities.
For Winkfield, this ministry isn't simply about leading a department or launching new initiatives. It is about helping the Church live more fully into its calling. If you ask him to define Beloved Community, he doesn't begin with a program or a mission statement. Instead, he points to Jesus' greatest commandment.
"We are to love God with all our heart, strength and soul, and love our neighbors as ourselves. What does that actually look like in the context of our lives?"
A native of southern West Virginia, Winkfield has spent more than 20 years serving churches throughout the Baltimore-Washington Conference. His appointments have included rural, suburban, urban and multicultural congregations, experiences that have given him a broad understanding of both the diversity and the shared hopes of the communities the Church serves.
His passion for Beloved Community was shaped not only through ministry, but through personal experience. Growing up amid racial division helped form a lifelong commitment to justice, reconciliation and creating spaces where every person is seen, valued and loved. Those experiences led him to dedicate much of the past two decades to ministries addressing racial justice, food insecurity, housing insecurity and other community needs.
Throughout his ministry, Winkfield has also become well known for his work with cross-racial and cross-cultural appointments. As a CRCC Guide, he has helped congregations embrace new pastoral relationships with celebration rather than apprehension.
"When churches recognize and celebrate a cross-racial, cross-cultural appointment from the beginning," he said, "it becomes something they can embrace and really enjoy."
That passion also shaped his doctoral studies on Beloved Community. As he explored what it means to build inclusive congregations, he worked with his church to create practices that celebrated the cultures represented in the congregation. One example was a church-wide gathering where members brought food from their cultural traditions, creating opportunities for people to learn from one another and experience the richness of the community God had formed.
Winkfield believes Beloved Community is not a stand-alone ministry but a way of life that should shape every aspect of the Church's witness.
"Justice work is all good work. It's not all the same work, but it's all good work," he says.
Rather than expecting every congregation to begin in the same place, he hopes to help churches discern where God is already calling them to serve and then continue growing together.
"You may have a congregation that's not ready to do this," he said. "But they may be ready to do that. How do we help each church do the things they're ready to do, while lovingly moving people toward seeing the humanity of everyone?"
He also hopes to make the language and practices of Beloved Community more accessible.
"I love reading," Winkfield said with a laugh. "But most people don't have time to read a 400-page book. When we allow people to interact with it in a way that is approachable, I think most people, especially Christians and especially United Methodists, find this work attractive.”
As Area Director of Beloved Community & Community Engagement, Winkfield will provide leadership for ministries that strengthen Beloved Community, community engagement, multicultural ministries, accessibility ministries, wellness and missions, and related connectional ministries. He will collaborate with congregations, clergy, laity and ministry partners throughout the Episcopal Area to deepen discipleship, cultivate belonging and expand the Church's witness in local communities.
At the heart of it all, he hopes people remember one simple truth:
"You become a Christian as an individual, but Christianity is fully expressed through community."
When he's not serving the Church, Winkfield enjoys spending time outdoors with his family. He and his wife of 24 years enjoy camping, hiking and exploring nature together with their two daughters, along with watching movies whenever they can find the time.
Please join us in welcoming Rev. George Winkfield into this new role and praying for him as he begins this next season of leadership and service.