In 1945, Kearns was appointed senior minister of the Wauwatosa Avenue Methodist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he served until elected a bishop.
Kearns was elected to the episcopacy by the 1964 North Central Jurisdictional Conference of the Methodist Church and assigned to the newly created Ohio East Episcopal Area.
During his 12 years as the resident bishop of the East Ohio Annual Conference, he saw many strategic changes made, being a steady guide as those changes took place.
Kearns served on various denominational boards, was a delegate to World Methodist Conferences in Europe and the United States, was a member of the Rotary Club of Sebring and a 33rd degree Mason.
In 1988 he and his wife moved to Copeland Oaks, a retirement complex in Sebring, Ohio, related to the United Methodist Church.
Will you maintain and set forward, as much as lieth in you, quietness, love, and peace among all men; and faithfully exercise such discipline in the Church as shall be committed unto you?Bishop Boulton then remarked, "Francis said he would, with the help of God.