 Laying the theological foundation of this innovation, Doane declared that a missionary bishop 
In addition to stressing the apostolic role of a bishop as one sent to preach the gospel, this innovation was premised on the view that the presence of a bishop meant that the Church itself was present and that a bishop in such circumstances had authority to “grow the church” from that simple fact of presence.As a voluntary society, the Church Missionary Society in the Church of England, by contrast, believed that the episcopate should be the culmination, not the foundation, of church growth and that, in any case, the first bishop should be an indigenous Christian, not a missionary.The 1835 convention employed the new office first to build the Church's work on the western frontier and elected missionary bishops for the northwest and southwest.