Award Winning Performance Poet to Become a Deacon

An award-winning performance poet is one of the six people to be ordained a Deacon

at a special Petertide service at Derby Cathedral on Sunday 26 June 2016.

Ben Allison, 29, will become the Pioneer Curate, North Wingfield Team Ministry. Originally from Leeds, he will be the third generation in his family to be ordained. His father and grandfather are both still serving in the Leeds Diocese.

Married to Clare for nine years, Ben has a young family of three children; Amos (5), Alethea (3) and Edna (7 months). Currently training at Cranmer Hall, Durham, he will be moving to Derbyshire ahead of his ordination.

A very successful performance poet, Ben has won the Hebden Bridge Festal Slam, Greenbelt Festival Slam and Ted Hughes Festival Slam. He also has autism and dyspraxia and has reflected on his experiences for a church resource book on Disability.

Ben said: “Becoming a deacon means a change a in identity, laying aside my lay identity in order to serve the communities to which I am called in a new and exciting way. I hope to find new ways of doing church which don't just seek to draw those on the edge of my community into existing services and congregations, but rather build church around them.

“I’m most looking forward to finally be able to do what I love full-time: serving my community, and proclaiming the Gospel. It’ll also mean I'll no longer be a northerner! I have to learn how to minister in the strange, alien culture of North Derbyshire.

“To others considering taking the same step, I say do not be afraid of your weaknesses. Do not be afraid of being vulnerable. The God who has called you will not abandon you.”