Reverend Dr. Rebecca Collison
During a three -month sabbatical leave, the Reverend Dr. Rebecca Collison will visit Greece, where the Apostle Paul traveled in 49 after JC, during his second of the two missionary trips and where he helped establish Christianity .
Travel with her husband, Glenn, she will visit Corinth, Philippi, where Saint-Paul pronounced her first European sermon, as well as Thessalonie and Crete.
She said that she was concerned to go to the Holy Land, given the war in the Gaza Strip and Israel, so she chose Greece instead. She and her husband will land in Athens “and go on a boat to the various judgments and also strike Ephesus in Türkiye and the islands,” she said.
“I always wanted to go there and I have never had the opportunity and the resources. I felt that the timing was right. It is a spiritual pilgrimage, and getting out of my element and seeing this area, ”she said.
She will be in Greece for 12 days.
“The ship goes to different ports, and we can go down and come back, and we don’t have to slide our luggage with us,” she said.
She asked for six or seven weeks of sabbatical leave, but the members of the committee who govern the church suggested three months.
“They said they wanted me to take all the time. They said it was a unique opportunity. They said, “We support you, and God will bring you back. I really believe that the Holy Spirit will tear the roof of marinating. I’m talking about transformation, lives in the community and I must be ready for it. I need this solid recharge, ”she said.
The main pastor of the World Methodist Church of Mariner said that the objective of sabbatical leave was “soul care, starting by stopping my bad habit of scrolling social media when I have times of stop”.
“Professional exhaustion is high in pastors. There are statistics – if someone graduated from the seminar, maybe 1 in 10 retired. Over the past five years, I have had a lot of challenges. We had disaffiliation, “she said about the Congregation’s decision to leave the united methodist lap and to become a world methodist church,” and this has meant a lot of shooting with friends and colleagues. I had the death of both parents – my mother suddenly, then my father a year later. There have been many things in the past two years, and what has brought her to the head was that I was starting to feel part of this exhaustion, “she said.
Collison said that she would focus on her mind, her body and her mind by reading the Holy Bible, doing exercise every day and “being intentional about my physical body and keeping it well, and My mind, taking this time, turning off the phone, not approaching social media and just taking this time to hear God. »»
“Too often, there are all these other voices in the air, and although God speaks to us in everyday life, sometimes we do not hear it clearly. We reject him, or we don’t take time to sit down with him long enough, “she said.
The Reverend Leo Park, associated pastor, will preach in the absence of a collison, just like other church leaders.
“The members of the Church will go well. A church does not work on its pastors. It should never be. The work at Mariner will continue. It’s not going to stop, ”she said. “This sabbatical will be good for everyone.”