
Episode Ten Guests
Bishop Bill McAlilly

William T. (Bill) McAlilly is the bishop of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference (previously the Nashville Episcopal Area of the United Methodist Church, including the Tennessee & Memphis Conferences)
He was elected to the episcopacy at the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference in 2012 and was assigned as the resident bishop of the Memphis and Tennessee Annual Conferences beginning September 1, 2012. He was given the task of merging these two conferences to form the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church which was overwhelmingly adopted December 4, 2021.
A native of Mississippi, Bishop McAlilly earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religion, Millsaps College, Jackson, MS (1978) and a Masters of Divinity, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA (1981).
He was ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church in 1979 and ordained elder in 1982. In the spring of 2017, Bishop McAlilly received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Rust College in Holly Springs, MS.
McAlilly has served in a wide variety of ministry settings in Georgia and Mississippi–a small membership church, a new congregation, a county seat church, a newly organized congregation, and a large membership congregation. Likewise, he has served in a variety of roles including youth minister, associate minister, and lead pastor.
In 2006, he was appointed to serve as the District Superintendent of the Seashore District of the Mississippi Conference in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and worked closely with Disaster Response and United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).
He served in many capacities in the Mississippi Annual Conference including the Millsaps College Board of Trustees; Mississippi Methodist Foundation; Board of Ordained Ministry; Design Team for the Residency in Ministry Program; and Development of the Transitions Seminar for Moving Pastors. He has been a delegate to four Jurisdictional Conferences and three General Conferences.
He led the Council of Bishops’ Leadership Team on Leadership Development and serves on the Leadership Discernment Team from 2016-2024. He also led in 2023 the Quadrennial Orientation for New Bishops.
He served as president of the Southeastern Jurisdiction College of Bishops in 2016-17 and continues to serve on the Southeastern Jurisdiction Committee on Coordination & Accountability. He served as Chair of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM) from 2016-2021.
Bishop McAlilly currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Emory University, Atlanta, GA and previously served on the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare Board, Memphis, TN.
A lover of books, music, and movies, Bishop McAlilly also enjoys writing, golf, grilling, and travel. He and his wife Lynn have been married since 1978. They have two married adult children: Chris McAlilly and Laura McAlilly Paulk, and five grandchildren.
Compassion for the least and last has been at the heart of his emphasis on missions throughout his ministry—locally in the communities in which he has served and globally in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Under McAlilly’s leadership, the Nashville Episcopal Area built the Mama Lynn Center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Named after Lynn McAlilly, the Mama Lynn Center is a sanctuary for women to receive care and find restoration. It provides space for women to get medical attention, counseling, and faith-centered nurture to address problems related to what they have experienced and helps them recover self-respect, dignity, and a sense of joy.
In retirement, Bishop McAlilly will be engaged in coaching and consulting next level leaders and congregations.
Bishop McAlilly has a pastor’s heart with a vision for the reign of God.
Dr. L. Gregory Jones

Gregory Jones is President of Belmont University, a position he has held since June 1, 2021. He was educated at the University of Denver (B.A. and M.P.A.) and Duke University (M.Div. and Ph.D.). He holds honorary doctorates from Lycoming College and North Carolina Wesleyan University. He is committed to serving in the Nashville and middle Tennessee region to strengthen partnerships and cultivate flourishing across the region.
Greg is known as a leader and strategist whose creative engagement has helped institutions across the world and in local communities to create transformational resource models. Greg’s global imagination has guided business, education, and religious leaders in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. Greg has a particular gift for incubating talent, ideas, and networks across disciplines and sectors. He is passionate about re-shaping cultures within and across organizations and coined the term 'traditioned innovation' to capture how he re-frames complex challenges to seize significant opportunities. He is known for an entrepreneurial mindset as well as emphases on character and purpose in higher education, emphases in his leadership at Belmont.
Greg previously served as Dean of Duke Divinity School (1997-2010 and 2018-2021). Between 2010 and 2018, Greg served in a variety of roles, including Vice President and Vice Provost for Global Strategy and Programs at Duke University, and also as Provost and Executive Vice President of Baylor University. He has also served in strategic advisory roles with several foundations. He is the author or editor of 19 books, and has authored more than 200 essays/articles. He is known for books on forgiveness (Embodying Forgiveness and the co-authored Forgiving as We’ve Been Forgiven), Christian leadership (the co-authored Resurrecting Excellence) and social innovation (Christian Social Innovation). His most recent book is the co-authored Navigating the Future: Traditioned Innovation for Wilder Seas (2021).
In Nashville, Greg serves on the boards of The United Way, the Nashville Public Education Foundation, the Nashville Health Care Council, and on the Steering Committee for Nashville’s Agenda. He is a member of the Leadership Nashville Class of 2022. More broadly, he serves on the Boards of the John Templeton Foundation, the McDonald Agape Foundation, and the India Collective. He is an ordained United Methodist pastor. He is married to The Reverend Dr. Susan Pendleton Jones, also a United Methodist minister who currently serves in a variety of capacities at Belmont and in Nashville (including on the boards of The Store and Siloam Health). They have three children, all married, and four grandchildren.