Rev. Donna Spencer Collins
Hospice Chaplain, Care Dimensions, Lincoln, MA
Reverend Donna Spencer Collins began ministry in 1985 after a dramatic encounter with God. Through the years, she served in religious education as director in several churches, and as a prison minister. After she became ordained as an evangelist, Donna was part of a team that started two new churches in Massachusetts, one in Malden, and one in Salem. In the early 90’s she moved to Oklahoma for bible school and helped start a new church in Claremore, Oklahoma with her former husband.
“Life is messy. Woven throughout the late 90’s there were situations and circumstances that pulled me away from the Church. My understanding of faith was crippled by divorce, sickness, disenchantment and the profound sense of not fitting in. At one point, I felt desperately lost and beyond God’s reach. It was a difficult and frightening time until I experienced a second profound encounter with God. That allowed me to realize that faith is not something to strive after. Faith is a verb, a language by which God communicates His love to us beyond religious institutions.
For her, faith is now the aptitude to see with the heart what can’t be seen with the eye. She felt endowed with the ability to open her heart to God’s love. She felt empowered to reach out to the one who has been reaching out to her and all people all along!
Donna went back to school earning degrees in Gerontology and Graphic Arts from North Shore Community College and Regis College. She learned she had gifts and talents that should be shared, including her love of music and performance. With her mind and heart focused on sharing her talents, she created two successful businesses relating to outreach, marketing, communication, technology, music and business. Sharing your talents means sharing all of them. Donna is a recognized blues and jazz vocalist who has performed across the country in and outside of church. Mostly she performs under her stage name, Mama D.
Her new freedom and relationship with faith allowed her to acknowledge her authentic, same gender loving self and find God in the LGBT community. For the first time in her life she knew she was completely embraced in God’s love without a, “Ya, but…”. During that time, she began a relationship with her future wife and rejoined a local church. Several years passed when she resumed the call on her life. She attended Seminary and received her Master of Divinity in 2009 from Andover Newton Theology School.
In 2014, Donna responded to a call as the new Church Start Pastor of Phoenix Rising United Church of Christ and was ordained on October 18, 2014. She says, “The church’s mission is simple; we are to be an open and affirming spiritual center where people: explore, connect and transform. We do this by making God’s love and justice real.” being a part of the community loving and serving in wherever the congregation finds opportunity.
Over the years Donna’s heart has been pulled towards the elderly sick, and dying. She was hired as Chaplain for Care Dimensions in August 2019 unaware a pandemic was just over the horizon. She took this job so that she could continue to serve her Faith community. And discover all the gifts and talents she has cultivated over the years serve her well in caring for patients and thier Families at End of Live.
When the pandemic hit she was actively engaged in supporting not only her congregation, but also her patients and staff of Care Dimensions, helping them all navigate the ongoing tempest. She has written many articles for Care Dimensions. One of them was republished with The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization: “The Power of Forgiveness at End of Life.” Thepandemic has not been kind to Churches. Phoenix Rising United Church of Christ was no exception, unable to survive. Nevertheless, Donna’s work with Hospice had empowered her to minister to her congregation as their Chaplain moving forward.
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