Dr John Dennison

 

 

 

John Dennison lives in Wellington with his wife, Jannah, and their three sons, Theo, Emmaus, and Blythe. For more than a decade he pursued a strong sense of calling to serve God in the University. Initially he pursued an academic career, studying English Literature and Theology in New Zealand before completing a PhD at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. That research resulted in a book, Seamus Heaney and the Adequacy of Poetry (Oxford, 2015). On returning to New Zealand, he gradually (and with some lamentation!) accepted God’s call to serve with the Anglican Church as a Chaplain at Victoria University, where he had a particular responsibility for the mission to university staff. In 2020, John finished his time in the chaplaincy and took on the full-time Director of Resources role at Venn Foundation.

John is passionate about helping others to make room for God, to learn to pray as well as think and work. He’s also a poet, and always curious about the role of language and imagination in our relationship with God. His first collection of poems, Otherwise, was published by Auckland University Press and Carcanet Press in 2015.