Tessa Moon Leiseth, Moorhead, Minn., was elected Aug. 16 to serve a six-year term as bishop of the Eastern North Dakota Synod of the ELCA. The election took place during an online synod assembly.
Moon Leiseth was elected on the fifth ballot, with 168 votes. Jessica Daum, the synod’s director for evangelical mission, received 128 votes.
The bishop-elect has served as interim senior pastor of Horace Lutheran Church in Horace, N.D., since 2019. She served as interim pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Moorhead from 2018 to 2019, Southern Africa country coordinator for ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission from 2012 to 2017 and campus pastor at Concordia College in Moorhead from 2008 to 2012. Moon Leiseth also served as associate pastor of Our Saviour Lutheran Church in East Bethel, Minn., from 2000 to 2006; youth and family pastor of Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Mounds View, Minn., from 1998 to 2000; and intern pastor of Baudette Lutheran Parish in Baudette, Minn., from 1996 to 1997.
