Our Mission
Lindisfarne exists to support the Church in the North East by encouraging discipleship and growing ministers in intentional communities of Christian hospitality, learning and prayer.
Our Aim
To advance the Christian faith by the promotion and delivery of education for discipleship, initial ministerial education, and continuing development for ordained and lay members within the region.
Our History
Lindisfarne College of Theology was formed in 2009.
Background: Lindisfarne was set up as ‘Lindisfarne Regional Training Partnership’ (LRTP) in 2009, serving the Church of England across the North East in Newcastle and Durham Dioceses. This was a result of a reorganisation of ministry training in the North East. Previously ordinands trained through the Northern Ordination Course (NOC), and its successor the North East Ordination Course (NEOC). Then our Yorkshire based colleagues moved to a new arrangement for training in Yorkshire. We also integrated ordination training alongside other forms of ministry training: readers and various other licensed and authorised lay ministries. So in 2009, Lindisfarne was born. Initially we were co-teaching alongside a range of other partners including the Methodist and Roman Catholic churches. When those traditions stopped training ministers in the North East, we moved towards being a Church of England college – known as a ‘TEI’ (Theological Education Institution).
Now: The result of all these changes was that Lindisfarne became its own college, renamed ‘Lindisfarne College of Theology’ (LCT) in 2018. We are a non-residential college and we own no buildings of our own. We mainly teach in local diocesan centres and retreat houses. We are often asked if we teach on Holy Island, Lindisfarne, itself. Sadly: no, we do not. But we do try to organise trips or pilgrimages there sometimes.
Our Future: We are excited about the future for LCT. The world we live in needs lively and informed Christian witness, ministry, and teaching. That is what we are passionate about providing. We are not trying to train academics, although we do aim for good academic standards. But we are trying to train ‘theologians’ – people who will think about the challenges of the 21st century, in the North East, in terms of what God is doing and saying to us. ‘Theo-logy’ = the study of God. So come and join us, and join in the joys and the struggles of faithful Christian ministry, here and now, in the North East.
