The Revd Jo Trickey
Newcastle
House of Clergy
Jo Trickey, Diocese of Newcastle
I am standing for General Synod because I believe in this
Diocese. I want to ensure the voices of our parishes, clergy, and
laity are fully heard and felt in the councils of the Church.
Deep roots in Newcastle
The people and places of Newcastle have long had a hand in
forming me: I went to school here, and Newcastle was a
profound place of encountering God and discerning my
vocation. Here my understanding of church and calling was
shaped, long before my call to ordination became clear. It
was a joy when we felt God call us back here with a young
family to serve in this place, rich with a history of prayer, faith and deep spirituality.
Having served in the Diocesan Mission and Ministry team, completed my curacy at Holy Cross,
Fenham, and served on the team at St Thomas’, I have deep gratitude for the people of this
Diocese who have supported and shaped me.
I have shared in congregational life here, experiencing seasons of real difficulty as well as
growth. I understand the pressures facing our clergy and PCCs, including falling numbers in
some places, threat of closure for some, alongside ambitious church planting in others. I see
stretched budgets, managed alongside a deep, ongoing desire to see the church shape
communities that have too often felt overlooked. This is not an abstract interest for me. It is
my home, my ministry, the place I am bringing up my family. Newcastle is the place I remain
committed to for the long term.
Working for the flourishing of all God’s people
Training and serving in Guildford Diocese across both town and village communitiestaught me
to value our theological and stylistic diversity as a gift. These communities have helped to
shape me into someone who sees the richness of our diversity as a gift of God’s abundant
creativity. A large part of my early ministry was with students and young adults, building
spiritual communities of welcome and deep connection. During that period I was able to
support many people to explore their vocation for ordination, and several of them are now
ordained clergy.
My work has taken me deeper into exploring what it means for the whole Church to flourish.
Later, through my work for LICC (The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity), I
explored what whole-life discipleship looks like as faith meets the reality of ordinary work,
family life, suffering, and hope. I wrote about the joys and challenges of the North East and
advocated for social change. I walked alongside church leaders from a variety of
denominations to help them reflect on and shape their own spiritual disciplines and those of
their congregation. Whether writing for press, or contributing to resources used by clergy
across the country, my consistent conviction has been this: every Christian, in every context,
has a calling worth taking seriously, and the Church’s task is to equip them for it. This
shapes my whole life, serving God and the people he has placed me among.
That conviction shapes my role at the Gregory Centre for Church Multiplication (CCX),
where I lead on learning and partnership development. I work alongside bishops, dioceses,
local clergy, church planters, and national teams to help churches reach new people in new
and renewed ways so that everyone can find their place in the life of the church. I seek to
follow in the work of church planting saints such as Gregory, and I am inspired by our very
own Bede and Cuthbert to work together in unity as we seek to build the church in this
generation.
For me, this involves helping churches that are facing the challenge of significant decline
and closure; those who are missing the ‘good old days’, and those who are ready to grow, to
find new and renewed ways to reach the people in their parishes. To navigate the challenges
of unequal resources. It also involves helping revitalised churches navigate the complexity of
their early days as they seek to bring refreshment to places that have become dry. I do this
in urban centres, in places of deprivation and wealth, in rural areas, among diverse
ethnicities and among people the wider Church has often struggled to reach. I know, from
the inside, both the extraordinary potential of church growth and multiplication, and the hard
realities of doing it well and sustainably.
I would bring that same practical, listening approach to Synod: not chasing headlines, but
doing the patient work of understanding what actually helps a parish grow, a plant take root,
and a congregation flourish.
A concern for genuine representation
Newcastle Diocese is richly complex. It is market towns and mining villages, university
chaplaincies and estate parishes, congregations wrestling with closure and congregations
planting new expressions of church. I believe every member elected has a duty to make sure
the full range of that experience, theological, geographical, and practical, is genuinely
represented, and not quietly crowded out. That is the kind of representative I want to be,
listening well to God and to his church, asking honest questions, and making sure
Newcastle’s voice, in all its variety, is not lost.
Church growth and the years ahead
I stand for Synod, above all, because I believe God is calling us to flourish, that we would
have life in all its fullness, in numbers, in depth of discipleship, and in our capacity to serve
communities that need it. That means honest conversations about resourcing, about
vocations, about how national strategy actually lands or fails to land in our diocese. The
challenges that lie ahead are considerable. I understand the realities of parish life in
Newcastle and represent that directly into those conversations.
If elected, I commit to continuing to champion you and to representing this Diocese to
General Synod with the same care and attention I have tried to bring to every ministry role I
have held. I would be honoured to have your support.
In Christ,
Jo
church growth,church planting,curacy,dioceses,discipleship,mission,ordination,pccs,prayer,vocations,young adults
church growth,church planting,discipleship,mission
prayer
curacy,vocations
dioceses,ordination,pccs,vocations
young adults
