Revd Becky Allright recalls the image that came to her during a time of silence at Mirfield, and how it connected with a vision that had shaped St Hild itself.
It was a dark November night at Mirfield, and the stars were clearly visible outside. Inside, Becky Allright, who studied at St Hild from 2016 to 2020, was feeling fed up and needed some clarity.
An ordinand training for the priesthood, she did not yet know where she would serve her curacy, and she was impatient to find out. “I was fed up because I didn’t know where I was going for my curacy,” she remembers.
Then, during a session on silence, something unexpected happened. “I felt I had a picture from God,” says Becky.
Arrows against the dark
The image was of someone taking arrows from a bag, setting them alight one by one, and sending them out into the night sky.
Becky was sitting next to Mark Powley, then Principal of St Hild, so she decided to share it with him. It turned out to mean more to him than she could have known.
“When I shared it with Mark it made sense to him because he’d had an image about three or four years previously that inspired him to set up St Barnabas,” she explains. Mark’s had been of stars appearing in the sky one by one. “Mark felt God was leading him to make that happen.”
Becky recalls that St Hild had only recently been created, following the merger of the Yorkshire Ministry Course and St Barnabas Theological Centre. Two pictures of light in a dark sky, one of stars and one of flaming arrows, now sat side by side.
“God really meant business”
For Becky, the moment brought reassurance in the middle of uncertainty. “I had the sense that God really meant business and was planning my curacy carefully,” she says.
She went on to look the image up in Scripture and found a resonance in Psalm 7, which speaks of God making ready “his flaming arrows”.
Today, Becky is Priest in Charge of the Benefice of Elloughton cum Brough with Brantingham in the Diocese of York, having served her curacy in the same diocese.
Formed at Mirfield
Becky came to St Hild with no previous theological training, and says the experience gave her a solid base. “I really enjoyed the modules, and it was a great foundation for mission and ministry.”
Her memories of Mirfield are warm. “I loved being at Mirfield, especially hearing the monks at prayer and being together with other ordinands,” she says.
She also credits the contextual pathway she followed with shaping her most. “I got to apply learning in context and reflect regularly on how things were going.”
That emphasis has stayed with her. “The importance of understanding context and tradition in planning for church growth” is the lesson she carries into parish life, along with what she calls “a focus on mission and outreach in ministry”.
A message to those following
Asked what she would say to current students, Becky is brief and encouraging: “The college is a great springboard into ministry.”
Her hope for St Hild over the next ten years is just as simple: “That the college continues to thrive.”
For a college that has always spoken of light shining in dark places, Becky’s picture of fire carried into the night sky seems a fitting image for where it has been and where it might go.
St Hild History: Roots and Growth
The Yorkshire Ministry Course was preceded by The Northern West Ordination Course (NOC), which started in 1970 and had been training ordinands in the region. In 1996, NOC began working with the Community and College of the Resurrection at Mirfield. In 2008, this work was refocused on the Yorkshire area under the new name of the Yorkshire Ministry Course (YMC).
In 2013, St Barnabas Theological Centre was launched in Sheffield. Initially, St Barnabas worked in partnership with YMC to deliver Anglican ordination training, Baptist ministerial formation and independent theological study in a new format. The merger in 2017 sought to build on the strengths of both YMC and St Barnabas in order to create a diverse and mission-focused college to strengthen Christian ministry in Yorkshire and the surrounding region.
The college has continued to grow since then, including developing a first-of-its-kind Centre for Church Planting and, more recently, a Centre for Baptist Ministry, becoming the 6th Baptist training college in Great Britain. In 2023, St Hild entered into a partnership with Lincoln Diocese, and the St Hild Lincoln Centre was created.
