During the Episcopal vacancy in Newcastle, candidates for the role were invited to discern an orientation for the diocese and to present this to the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC). In discerning her own response, Bishop Helen-Ann focussed on three words that could form an invitation that the diocese could explore with regards to its witness and mission: Seeking, Sharing, Sending.
Seeking, Sharing, Sending orientates us as a diocese to consider how our Christian faith enables us to turn outward in mission, as well as becoming worshipping communities in which younger and more diverse voices are heard.
In 2024 it was discerned that the orientation offered via Seeking, Sharing, Sending, could faithfully and fruitfully build on work already underway in Newcastle Diocese (since 2022) in the Deanery Development Process. The 12 Deanery Development Groups (DDGs), in partnership with the Archdeacons of Lindisfarne and Northumberland and other diocesan colleges, reflected on five particular areas of the diocese’s mission and ministry and looked together for ways to enable creative and collaborative missional partnerships across the deaneries.
Whilst the work of DDGs is ongoing, their journey since 2022 has enabled the first stage of exploring Seeking, Sharing, Sending. Across Newcastle Diocese from October 2024, a “Year of Seeking” would prioritise prayer and discernment - as individuals, small groups, parishes, chaplaincies and deaneries - and seek to pay attention to where God is at work in our communities and contexts. The “Year of Seeking” doesn’t come with prescriptions of lots of new roles or activities, but begins with a simple invitation to pray attentively together.
Introduction to Year of Seeking
The discernment at the heart of the “Year of Seeking” is central to the next stage of our life together in the diocese. We are being invited to share together in prayer that helps us notice where God is working and to celebrate and amplify what we notice along the way. Rather than to focus on what we think we ‘should’ be doing, to turn together regularly in prayer to discern where God is working in our midst and to continue to seek to clarify the signs of God’s kingdom and how we might join in.
As we begin the Year of Seeking together a simple prayer resource has been prepared. It is hoped that the resource will be flexible enough for use in groups, by individuals, in church services, as part of any pattern of prayer. We also hope that by beginning with the same kind of prayer resource, we discern a sense of collective participation as a diocese in discerning God’s work amongst us. This first resource (available in October 2024) includes a card with a prayer cycle, a collect prayer and two postcards. We anticipate it will be followed at Advent 2024 by a second resource. The postcards are included so that you can collate what you have noticed of God’s work and share it with the Diocesan Communications and Mission and Ministry Team at Church House. If you’d rather share your discernments digitally, you can send them to colleagues in Communications via communications@newcastle.anglican.org.
Download discerning prayer resources:
“Signposts” as we begin a Year of Seeking:
28 September - sharing Year of Seeking resource with new Diocesan Synod
5 October - Deanery Development Groups check-in with Revd Mary Hawes on Seeking God’s work intergenerationally and with Children and Young People
19 October - “Seeking the gifts of others” Licensing Lay Ministry and the Year of Seeking
1 November - Launch of a revised Authorised Lay Ministry scheme, including learning communities on Seeking, Sharing, Sending (proposed for 2025).
27 November - “It came to pass…” The Bishop of Newcastle’s Study Day for clergy examining some themes in the Year of Seeking through Luke’s Gospel
1 December - Launch and distribution of further shared resources for discerning prayer in the Year of Seeking.
For more information on the above events, please contact the Director of Mission and Ministry, Ric Whaite, via: r.whaite@newcastle.anglican.org