Follower suggested deacon should disregard study vacuous lay team half put together (7)
I believe the answer is:
acolyte
'follower' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'deacon should disregard study vacuous lay team half put together' is the wordplay.
'should disregard' suggests deleting specific letters.
'study' becomes 'den' (term for a study or office).
'vacuous lay team half' becomes 'lyte' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'put together' says to put letters next to each other.
'deacon' with 'den' taken out is 'aco'.
'aco'+'lyte'='ACOLYTE'
'suggested' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for acolyte that I've seen before include "Lace toy (anag.)" , "Devoted follower" , "Priest's attendant" , "Minister's assistant" , "Priest's assistant at a liturgical service" .)