Re: Gods phone number
not quite the funny story i expected
The Bishop of Brixworth has announced he will leave Northamptonshire this year to take up a role in the North East after a "call from God".
Peterborough Diocese said the Rt Rev Frank White will take up a new role as Assistant Bishop in the Newcastle Diocese later this year.
The move marks a return to familiar territory for Bishop Frank, who originally hails from the North East and was
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Archdeacon of Sunderland before coming to Northamptonshire.
But it also continues the upheaval within the diocese, which will now look for its second new bishop in 12 months. It is almost a year to the day since the death of the then Bishop of Peterborough, who was officially replaced by the Rt Rev Donald Allister just last month.
Bishop Frank said: "I've been looking forward greatly to working with Bishop Donald in Peterborough Diocese and wasn't expecting to move - and certainly not so soon after his arrival - but when the approach was made to me I became convinced that this was a call from God.
"It will be something of a homecoming for us.
"However, it will also be a wrench because in the eight years we have been in the Peterborough Diocese we have grown to love and value the people, the churches and the area," he added.
Born in May 1949, the lifelong Newcastle United fan attended the city's St Cuthbert's Grammar School then studied at Consett Technical College.
After periods of pastoral training, youth work, social work and a role as a hospital chaplain for Durham and Chester-le-Street Hospital, in 1997 he was appointed as Archdeacon of Sunderland and also made an Honorary Canon of Durham Cathedral.
Commissioned as only the second-ever Bishop of Brixworth in 2002 after the retirement of his predecessor, he expressed worries about prostitution and beggars in the town at the time.
His new appointment will be taken up in late November, and he expects to finish his ministry in Peterborough Diocese at the end of September.
Bishop Donald - who replaced the Rt Rev Ian Cundy, who died on May 7 2009 - said: "Frank has not only held the diocese together during the latter stages of Bishop Ian's illness and during the vacancy, but also continued to lead it forward.
"When Frank told me some time ago that he had been approached about this job two things were absolutely clear to me.
"First, that Peterborough and I might be about to lose a wonderful friend and bishop.
"Second, that moving to Newcastle could be exactly right for Frank and his wife Alison.
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