A former police officer, a conveyancer, and a husband and wife, are just some of those being ordained into the Diocese on Saturday 27 June.
Eleven people will be ordained either deacon or priest during two ordination services. Both are being livestreamed on the diocesan YouTube channel.
- Join the livestream for the ordination of priests (11am)
Download a service sheet
- Join the livestream for the ordination of deacons (3pm)
Download a service sheet
All of the ordinands bring a variety of talents and perspectives, adding to the diversity of our Diocese. More details will be shared throughout the week leading up to the ordinations.
Please pray for each of them, as well as their families and friends, and the communities they will serve.
God has a plan for each and every one of us. Explore how God may be calling you. Visit: www.rochester.anglican.org/everyday-faith/gods-plan-for-you/
Ordained ministry
Some Christians feel that God is calling them to be ordained and to serve the Church as clergy. The ordination service is the start of someone's public ministry.
It often follows a long journey of exploring their calling, of having their calling tested by the Church, and several years of training.
During the service, the bishop lays their hands on the person and asks God to ‘send down the Holy Spirit' onto each candidate, beginning their ministry.
The bishop also prays that God will give them the gifts, the grace, and the strength, they need for serving the Church as ordained ministers.
Being ordained a deacon
Being made a deacon is the foundation of all ordained ministry. For most clergy, after a year, they will be ordained as priest.
It is the moment they will be given the title ‘the Reverend’, and lead services as an assistant curate (trainee vicar) in their parish.
Following their ordination, our deacons will spend the first three or four years of their ministry working as curates in a church with an experienced priest.
These priests will work with the curates to prepare them for their future ministry in the church - a bit like an apprenticeship.
The deacons will continue to listen to God, and how they may be being called to other ministries, perhaps in hospitals, schools, or prisons as chaplains, and growing in their faith.
Those being ordained deacon this weekend:
- Danny Branch to serve in the benefice of St Mark’s, Gillingham
- Hazel Koungoue to serve in the benefice of St George and St Barnabus, Beckenham
- Ian Packer to serve in the benefice of St Mary the Virgin, Stone
- Craig Spickernell to serve in the benefice of St James’ Church, Tunbridge Wells
- Jess Spickernell to serve in the benefice of Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells
Being ordained a priest
After a year of curacy, some of those who have been ordained may continue in ministry as distinctive deacons.
For most, the next step is ordination as a priest. Those being ordained priest this year are:
- Amy Brown to serve in the benefice of Erith, St John and the benefice of Christ Church Erith
- Patricia Hart to serve in the benefice of Kent Downs and Malling Team
- Stephanie Maurel to serve in the benefice of St John, Sidcup with All Saints, Footscray
- Scott Norwood Witts to serve in the benefice of Fawkham and Hartley and the benefice of Longfield
- Ann Ruby to serve in the benefice of Holy Trinity, South Chatham
- Amanda Willmont to serve in the benefice of St Luke, Tunbridge Wells
God has a plan for each and every one of us. Explore how God may be calling you. Visit: www.rochester.anglican.org/everyday-faith/gods-plan-for-you/
Meet our deacons:
Craig Spickernell
I first sensed God calling me as a young man (which was quite a few years ago now!) At the time I concluded that if it really was God, he would make it happen without too much help from me, so I put the idea on the back burner and set off on a career in marketing, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Meanwhile, one of the most significant moments in my Christian journey came when I met a gifted Bible teacher in my church, Paul Woodward. Hearing him explain God's grace — that God loves us unconditionally, that there is nothing we can do to make him love us more or less, and that he rescues us because of his love — was a profound lightbulb moment for me.
That message has shaped my life and ministry ever since, and it is why the word ‘GRACE’ is embroidered on my ordination stole. Some years later, I sensed God's call again and left my career to serve in church leadership, helping to pioneer a new church plant. When that season came to an end, I assumed I had ‘done my bit.’
God, however, appeared to have other ideas, and around 25 years after first sensing his call, I found myself hearing it once more—this time clearly and unmistakably to ordained ministry. And so, after a journey that has taken a few unexpected turns, I am humbled to be stepping into ordained ministry.
Alongside my wife Jess, who is also being ordained this year, and with the support of our three grown-up children, Elisha, Amy and Reuben, I look forward to serving as I begin curacy, helping people feel welcomed into God's family, and discovering for themselves the transforming love and grace of God.
Jess Spickernell
I became a Christian when I was very young. I loved everything I heard about Jesus and enjoyed being part of church. Over the years many dedicated Christians taught, cared for, and encouraged me, and I’m grateful for all of them.
Church has always been important to me as a place to discover more about God, meet with him, and build relationships with people seeking to care for one another and the wider world. I began working life as an RE teacher and later found myself using those same gifts of teaching and communication while supporting my husband as we helped lead a church plant in another denomination.
Twelve years ago, God called us back to the Church of England, and over time it became clearer that God was calling me to ordained ministry.
As I served, I found myself increasingly drawn into the life of the church; teaching, preaching, leading worship, encouraging others in their gifts, and walking with people through significant moments of life and faith.
I especially love working with people of all ages- the fun, creativity and openness of young children, and the wisdom, depth and rich life experiences of older adults.
These are the parts of ministry which bring me real joy. In 2019, when my husband and I were invited into a lay leadership role, it became a significant moment of surrender and trust, and it was in that step that my sense of vocation deepened.
Through discernment and training I’ve felt a growing sense of rightness, as though I’m stepping more fully into who God has made me to be. I am now looking forward to beginning my curacy, joining a new church family, and participating in whatever God is already doing in that place.
Danny Branch
In hindsight, I can see God’s call to ordination and his providential guidance long before I became a Christian. I was not brought up in a Christian home, although my family was nominally Church of England. As a child, I was fascinated by the role of the minister in church and vividly remember being captivated by what the vicar said during my brother’s baptism service.
When I came home afterwards, I asked for a Bible and announced that I wanted to be a vicar! Many years later, as a sceptical teenager, I was invited to Alpha. After the first session, I vowed not to return, yet somehow, I found myself back each week. During the Holy Spirit weekend, I had a profound encounter with Jesus, and my life was transformed. Since then, I have felt a deep desire to share the gospel and the love of God with others.
This has shaped both my vocation and the areas in which I have worked, including the charity sector and within hospitals, most recently managing volunteers at UCLH NHS Trust. Throughout these roles, I have sought to serve and support people from all walks of life. Although I sensed God’s call to ordained ministry for many years, I resisted it for a long time.
Through the encouragement of my church house group, family, and friends, I finally stopped trying to outrun God’s call and, rather like Jonah (though thankfully without the fish) said “yes” to where he was leading me. I am so excited to be serving my curacy at St Mark’s and St Mary’s Island, joining a church with a rich history and a significant legacy of pointing people to Jesus. I look forward to growing alongside the staff team and congregation, engaging with our local community, and expecting great things from our God and Saviour.
Hazel Koungoué
It was at the age of five, that I first hopped onto the church bus that travelled around my neighbourhood in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, collecting children for church on the outskirts of the city. My sister, who is two years older than me, and I would get ourselves ready each Sunday and meet our friends at the bus stop before heading off to Sunday school on our own- something that would be considered a safeguarding nightmare by today’s standards! We loved it.
Throughout my teenage years, I sensed that one day I would live in the United Kingdom. I did not know when, how, or why, but the words “destiny” and “United Kingdom” kept returning to me. In 1998, I arrived in London to study law. I later worked as a Paralegal in conveyancing, initially on affordable housing schemes and subsequently acting for developers selling new-build properties.
In 2012, responding to that still, small voice, I left my legal career and retrained in the care sector, specialising in dementia and end-of-life care. After working in local communities, I felt called to serve nationally, which was a great privilege. Throughout, this time, I was nurtured within my church family at St Paul’s, Brackley Road, where my discernment journey began. It took nineteen years from the moment my vicar first encouraged me not to rule out ordination to finally arriving at this joyous point.
Ian Packer
I was formed by a loving Christian community in Southampton. On leaving the Army I settled in Aylesford, Kent. After serving for some time as a Police Officer, I felt called to explore my vocation as a Priest.
Following the discernment process I started training for Ordination at St Augustine’s College in West Malling and I have been wonderfully supported through my studies.
My family and I are excited to be moving to our new home and parish and look forward to getting to know the people I have been called to serve. Each of every one of us is beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God and I am excited and feel immensely privileged to be able to travel alongside people through their life’s journey and explore with them what God is doing.
I would encourage anyone who feels they are being called, to any form of ministry, to explore what that calling may be. There are so many people to thank who have journeyed with me to this point in my life. Without their love, support and prayers, I would not be the person I am today.
As my best friend said, “God has a wonderful sense of humour” and I hope to be able to continue to laugh at the amazing things God does, in and through me.
Nick Batt (being ordained at a service in September 2026)
My parents came to know Jesus through the ordinary kindness of a curate’s wife and the preaching of Tony Baker at Christ Church Beckenham. My mom and I were baptised on the same day, by Tony and Marrian Raikes respectively.
It wasn't until I was seventeen that I came to saving faith. A school teacher gave me some Friedrich Nietzsche to read, and his writing convinced me that as there was no God, then there could be no real objective morality. I tried to live that out with all the naïve of a teenager, but found it impossible. My own missdeeds were obvious to me and I was convinced even more deeply of the real wrongness of them.
The reality of wrongness pushed me back toward questions of God. Nietzsche had been a surprisingly good guide: if real wrongness existed, then there must also be a real author of the goodness it falls short of—God. I went on a weekend away thinking it was the sort of thing someone who now believed in God should do.
Someone spoke about Christians being free from guilt, which frustrated me deeply because I still felt mine. Afterwards I confronted a man, who gently explained that of course I still felt guilt—I had never asked Jesus to forgive me.
He described the great exchange of the cross: Christ taking all my sin and the judgment it merited and in return gave me all his righteousness, sonship, and life.
It was electric. From then on, I wanted to share the fullness of this gift of life with others.
That desire shaped my studies taking me to read theology, then as a teacher in a comprehensive school in the diocese, and my work amongst families at Christ Church Bromley. Where I met my wife Louise, had two sons and left for formation at Oak Hill. We return with a new little girl and excited to be used by God in all the most ordinary ways to serve his people.