Bishop David Epps of Sharpsburg has been appointed by Archbishop Craig Bates of New York to provide Episcopal and pastoral oversight to the military chaplains of the United States Armed Forces.
Epps says he was led to a “personal awareness of my covenant relationship with God” by a United States Navy chaplain assigned to serve the Marines with whom Epps was serving.
“I seriously thought I was going to be a Navy chaplain when I finished my enlistment and entered college but, apparently, God had other plans.”
Epps went on to serve four years in the ministry of the United Methodist Church prior to entering the Assemblies of God where he served for 19 years. In 1996, he began ministry as a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church and founded what is now the Cathedral of Christ the King in Sharpsburg.
Epps presently serves as a law enforcement chaplain for the Peachtree City Police Department. He has also served as a chaplain to the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department, the Senoia Police Department, the Atlanta Division of the FBI, and to a local detachment of the Marine Corps League.
Epps will serve in the Department of the Armed Forces for the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church and will be accountable to the Patriarch’s Office. He will continue to serve as the rector of the Cathedral of Christ the King and as the Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-South.
“When I was appointed to serve the military chaplains, it was as though I had come full circle,” he said. “I would not be where I am had it not been for the care and ministry of a Navy chaplain. Now, to be appointed to serve those who serve our men and women in uniform is a tremendous honor and a very great privilege. It is also very humbling to serve and assist those that I have always considered to be among my heroes.
