New Bishop of Newcastle Announced

The Venerable Christine Elizabeth Hardman has been announced as the new Bishop of Newcastle.

Diocesan announcement ~ Wiki page ~ tributes from Southwark Diocese on her retirement as Archdeacon in November 2012 (pdf) ~ Thinking Anglicans ~

The press release says:

No 10 Downing Street has announced this morning that Her Majesty The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Christine Hardman BSc(Econ), M.Th, formerly Archdeacon of Lewisham and Greenwich and now Honorary Assistant Priest in the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie Southwark, for election as Bishop of Newcastle in succession to the Right Reverend Martin Wharton, BA, on his resignation on 30th November 2014. 

She says,

I don’t really have the words to express my excitement at coming to this vibrant, warm and proud part of the world.” 

From my own faith journey I know the key significance of warm, lively, welcoming church communities with worship that transforms us and sends us out into the world - bringing the depth of Christian hope to places where hope is thin on the ground. 

God cares about the world - not just about the Church. The rule of Christ is over the whole of our lives. That’s why it’s so important for Christians to engage and work with key partners for all that leads to the flourishing of communities. As Bishop of Newcastle I will take every opportunity to engage in the public square and especially to speak on behalf of those whose voices are not heard, 

It will be such a privilege to be your Bishop and to lead you on the next stage of the journey. In all of this I will be relying on God’s grace and your prayers.

The Right Reverend Frank White, Assistant Bishop of Newcastle, said, 

This is such a good moment to welcome Christine Hardman to be our new Bishop and I look forward with eager anticipation to serving alongside her. 

Her wide interests and experience and her desire to encounter and learn from the spirituality of this region offer us all real opportunities for growth. 

Christine's gift for the intelligent engagement of the good news of Jesus Christ with the challenges of our times dovetails wonderfully with the vision of this diocese.

Her CV 

The Venerable Christine Elizabeth Hardman, aged 64, holds a B.Sc (Econ) from the University of London and trained for ordination on the St Albans Ministerial Training Scheme. 

She later studied for a Master’s degree in Applied Theology from Westminster College, Oxford. 

She became a Deaconess in 1984 and was ordained Deacon in 1987, serving as Curate at St John the Baptist, Markyate Street in the Diocese of St Albans. 

She took up the role of Tutor and Course Director on the St Albans Ministerial Training Scheme from 1988-1996. During this period the Scheme merged with the Oxford Ministry Course and she became its Director of Mission Studies. 

Christine was ordained Priest in 1994 and became Vicar of Holy Trinity and Christ the King, Stevenage in 1996 and also Rural Dean of Stevenage in 1999. She served as Archdeacon of Lewisham and Greenwich from 2001 to 2012. 

In 2012 Christine became Assistant Priest at Southwark Cathedral and received the Bishop’s Permission to Officiate in the Diocese of St Albans where she has been acting Warden of Readers. She has a special interest in mission studies and the social implications of the Gospel. 

Christine has been a member of the General Synod since 1998, with one brief break, when she moved from St Albans to Southwark Diocese, and has served on many different committees including the Synod's Eucharistic Prayers Revision Committee, the Dioceses and Pastoral Measures Review Group and the Ethical Investment Advisory Group. Her major area of work on General Synod was the legislation to allow women to be bishops. 

She was Prolocutor of the Province of Canterbury in the last Synod 2010-2015 (which came to an end with the July session) and served on the Archbishop’s Council. 

She is married to Roger and they have two daughters and four grandchildren.
Immediately after graduation Christine worked as an articled clerk and with an estate agency. Her interests include making connections between the worlds of economics and Christian faith, being in the mountains, cycling (especially bike tours in other countries and cultures), theatre and cinema. For many years she enjoyed running, completing the London Marathon three times and the Newcastle-based Great North Run.
Dates have yet to be announced for her Consecration as a bishop and the inauguration of her ministry in the Diocese of Newcastle.

She has her own Wiki page

What we want in a new bishop

I attended the open meeting for the people considering the appointment of a new bishop for Newcastle  Diocese.

Edward Chaplin

We met with Caroline Boddington (Appointments Secretary of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York) and Edward Chaplin (Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary) Oxford Mail photo They made copious notes and explained a little of the process. They gave nothing away.

Over 80 people were present and everyone who wanted to was able to have their say.

Most people who spoke were Anglicans but there were also contributions from City Church and from Colin Carr OP, from the Roman Catholic St Dominic's Priory Church.

A representative from Jesmond Parish Church spoke first. She mentioned the size of the church (1,000 regular attenders and over 5,000 at peak) and then said that they were looking for someone who would emphasise evangelism and support the teaching that marriage was between one man and one woman. Someone else from the same church made the same point later, citing scripture.

However I think they were the only people who tried to say: 'the next bishop must fit to what we think'. And as this was a meeting for people who didn't have a direct line into the appointment process I suspect their view will not have much sway.

From the other end of the Anglican spectrum the representative of the Bishop of Beverley asked only that the new bishop (male or female, he didn't mind) would respect the guidelines put in place for parishes which would not accept a woman bishop.

Most people asked for their particular area of concern to be taken into account: sustaining small churches, the particular needs of rural churches and of those in poorer areas, mission and evangelism, ecumenism, the mothers' union, education, interfaith work, lay people and Readers, links with Norway and Winchester, links with the voluntary sector, Christian Aid and poverty.

Others were looking for particular qualities: an enabler, someone who would invest in leaders - especially young leaders, a pastor to the clergy, someone who'd cherish diversity.

A few wanted a spokesperson for the North East, well-connected in London, not least in negotiations over money.

Overall, I thought, the meeting did a good job of allowing anyone who wanted to to have their say. I also thought that very little was suggested that couldn't have been said for almost any diocese,

What did strike me was the occasional tone of being sorry for ourselves: that the diocese was poor, marginal, a long way from London, apparently unattractive to clergy from south of the Tyne. And yet (in a contradictory way) several people introduced themselves as incomers. Some told the meeting how many years they'd been here, perhaps to establish a right to speak while recognising that this right was limited.

Paul Bagshaw

  

Public meeting in preparation for a new Bishop

PUBLIC MEETING: 

All are welcome to meet

• Caroline Boddington (Appointments Secretary of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York) and 
• Edward Chaplin (Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary) 

to ask questions about the process of appointing the next Bishop of Newcastle and to express views about the needs of the Church, the Diocese and the region they serve.

The two Appointments Secretaries will be answering questions and listening carefully to views expressed as the process of identifying the next Bishop of Newcastle continues.

Date: Wednesday 14 January 2015

Time: 7.00pm (in order to avoid rush hour on the A1 and around Newcastle)

Venue: Newcastle Falcons Gold South Suite (First Floor), Brunton Road, Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle upon Tyne NE13 8AF.

Looking for a new Bishop

From the Diocese of Newcastle website

Vacancy in See Committee

Helping to find the twelfth Bishop of Newcastle

The Vacancy in See Committee is charged with writing a Statement of Need which will be used to help to find the next Bishop of Newcastle. To help to inform the Committee with its work a survey has been created and this provides you with an opportunity to highlight the qualities and skills you would expect to find in the next Bishop of Newcastle.

Use this link to complete the survey: www.surveymonkey.com/s/newbishop

The survey will be closed at midnight on Sunday 7th December 2014.

Some information about the Survey

There are five sections to the survey:

1. Spirituality, Theology and Faith
2. People Skills
3. Leadership
4. A Voice for the North
5. A Practical Bishop

The survey is anonymous but participants are asked to complete some general information about themselves (eg age range, gender, rural/suburban/urban location) before the completed survey can be submitted. The data collected through the survey will be used to help to inform the Committee's work. Please note, the Committee will not enter into communication or dialogue about the questions it has posed and data collected through the survey will be stored securely and deleted after the Committee has completed its work.

The Committee would like to thank all participants for their contributions to the survey and for taking the time to respond to this survey.

The survey will be closed at midnight on Sunday 7th December 2014.

Bishop Martin's retirment

After 17 years as Bishop of this diocese, Martin Wharton retires at the end of this month. Following his farewell service in Newcastle Cathedral he  gave the City of Newcastle a blessing from Cathedral Square. (Photos from the service.)

Tributes have been given in a number of places, amongst them:

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, in General Synod 

The Journal

from the Chronicle

The Chronicle 

National Wind Watch In 2013 he told The Journal that it was his Christian duty to speak out against turbines, which he felt were turning the rural North East into a “disfigured industrial landscape”. This led to his largest postbag ever from people on both sides of the debate.

Brief Biography (the Journal)

Bishop Martin was born in 1944 in Ulverston in what was then Lancashire, and after attending the local grammar school went to Van Mildert College, Durham, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, politics and sociology in 1969. 

He then went to Linacre College, Oxford, where he received a bachelor’s degree in theology and a Master of Arts in 1971. A year later he became a curate in Birmingham, before moving to a church in Croydon. Between 1977 and 1983 he was Director of Pastoral Studies at Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford, and between 1983 and 1992 he was the Director of Ministry and Training in the Diocese of Bradford and a residentiary canon of Bradford Cathedral. 

In 1992, he became area Bishop of Kingston-upon-Thames until he was appointed the 11th Bishop of Newcastle in 1997.

Bishop Martin in the House of Lords (BBC)

New Bishop
Now the search is beginning for a new bishop - though it may well be over a year before anyone  is appointed. Newcastle is the third Diocese (after Gloucester and Oxford) which will be able to choose a woman diocesan bishop.

The public is being consulted on what qualities they would look for in a bishop.

However the process itself is conducted in conditions of utmost secrecy (Wikipedia).  We wait and pray.