A US pastor has become the first openly transgender person to be installed as a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Earlier this year, Rev Meghan Rohrer was appointed as the bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod to serve a six-year term leading one of the 65 synods, overseeing nearly 200 congregations in Northern California and Nevada.

During the installation service, Rev Rohrer said: “My call is ... to be up to the same messy, loving things I was up to before.”

"But mostly, if you'll let me, and I think you will, my hope is to love you and beyond that, to love what you love."

Rev Meghan Rohrer

The Lutheran and Episcopal church are the only two Christian denominations in the US that allow transgender people to become clergy.

"I step into this role because a diverse community of Lutherans in Northern California and Nevada prayerfully and thoughtfully voted to do a historic thing," the bishop said in a statement.

"My installation will celebrate all that is possible when we trust God to shepherd us forward."

Rev Rohrer, 41, was the first transgender person to be ordained in the ELCA in 2006 and the first to lead a church in 2014.