Julian Dobbs

Julian M. Dobbs (born 1967) is a New Zealand-born American bishop. He serves as the missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a dual jurisdiction of the Church of Nigeria and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and as the diocesan bishop of the Missionary Diocese of CANA East, a diocese of the ACNA. Dobbs' ministry as a bishop includes overseeing congregations and clergy and teaching on Christian-Muslim relations. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States on 7 February 2014.

Dobbs was born and raised in New Zealand, where he married his wife, Brenda, and had three children. In 1991, he was ordained in the Anglican Church in New Zealand. He has an L.Th., Th.M. and a D. D. He planted three congregations, led the fastest-growing congregation in New Zealand and hosted a weekly hour-long television show in Nelson.

In 2004, Dobbs became executive director at the Barnabas Fund, promoting awareness of the persecution of Christians around the world, particularly in Laos, Malaysia, Syria, Egypt and North Korea. In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Dobbs' relief work in Aceh, Indonesia was recognised by the New Zealand government with the New Zealand Special Service Medal. In 2006, Dobbs and his family relocated to the Washington, D.C. area where he continued to work at the Barnabas Fund.

In 2008, Dobbs was appointed archdeacon and canon missioner in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, where he contributed to clergy development, worked to help North American Anglicans understand and the challenges posed by the rise of Islam in Africa, and develop a West African-American clergy and lay mission partnership. To continue this work, he was elected a bishop by CANA and the Church of Nigeria in spring of 2011, and consecrated by Nicholas Okoh in Lagos on September 25, 2011.

Dobbs has been active in opposing and publicizing the Boko Haram attacks on Christians in northern Nigeria and calling for international prayer and action. In August 2012, Okoh visited Washington, D.C., and through Dobbs' connections met with policymakers and officials to promote action against the Muslim militants in the north. He serves on ACNA's task force on Christian-Muslim relations.

On May 7, 2013, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, Dobbs became the first bishop of the newly formed Missionary Diocese of CANA East. CANA East stretcthes from Maine to Miami and from Tulsa, OK and The bronx, NY. The diocese has 34 congregations and over 75 clergy, it is one of the three dioceses formed out of The Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

Dobbs attended the GAFCON 2 meeting in Nairobi Kenya in 2013 and serves as a member of the International Board of Barnabas Fund, an organisation that supports suffering Christians.

In 2013 Dobbs wrote an open letter to the President of the United States, Barack Obama, calling for urgent intervention in support of persecuted Christians in Syria.

In January 2014, Dobbs was appointed as the Missionary Bishop of CANA by the Most Rev. Nicholas D. Okoh, Primate of all Nigeria. Dobbs will remain in his current role as bishop of the CANA East diocese while taking on the additional responsibilities of providing oversight and leadership to CANA’s overall ministry.

Dobbs wrote his first pastoral letter to CANA on January 24, 2014. In September 2014, Dobbs spoke at the "In Defense of Christians" forum in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of activists, including Christian clergy from across the Middle East and more than a dozen members of Congress attended a three-day conference aimed at training a serious policy-impacting force in Washington to protect persecuted Christians overseas. Dobbs presented a paper entitled "Why Christianity is Vital To the Middle East". He said: "Christianity is intrinsically linked to the Middle East. It is in the Middle East that Christianity was birthed in the backwaters of the Roman Empire and from where the message of the Christian gospel spread throughout the Roman Empire, to Ethiopia, and to the Persian Empire."

As missionary bishop, Dobbs presided over the 10th anniversary of the founding of CANA. In his anniversary address, Dobbs said "CANA was missionary then and she is missionary now. As a Convocation we exist not only as a jurisdiction for the 120 congregations and 450 clergy and chaplains who serve as members of our Convocation, we exist as a missionary movement called by Almighty God to replant biblical missionary Anglican Christianity across North America. This is the mission to which we in CANA have all been called by Almighty God."