Bishop Karen P. Oliveto serves as the leader of the Mountain Sky Area of The United Methodist Church. It includes 400 congregations in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and a small section of Idaho.
Bishop Oliveto was elected to the area after serving as the first woman pastor of the 12,000-member Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, Calif. She is the first woman to serve as senior pastor of one of The United Methodist Church’s 100 largest congregations. She served Glide from 2008 until her election as bishop.
The Mountain Sky Area covers all of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah and one church in Idaho. Bishop Oliveto is the co-author of Talking About Homosexuality: A Congregational Resource (Pilgrim Press: 2004), and the author of Our Strangely Warmed Hearts: Coming Out into God’s Call (Abingdon, 2018) and Stay at the Table: Embracing Diversity without Division (Westminster John Knox, 2018).
Bishop Oliveto is the first openly lesbian bishop in The United Methodist Church. Her wife, Robin Ridenour, a nurse anesthetist, is a deaconess in The United Methodist Church.