The Minister

Reverend Rebecca Marshall

I have lived in Plymouth for most of my life, growing up in Plympton which is where I now live with my husband, Ian, and daughter, Erin. As a probationer presbyter, I have pastoral charge of both Woodford and Elburton Methodist Churches. 

For the past three years, I have been studying part time for a BA degree in Theology, Ministry and Mission at The Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham and will continue this training for the next three years while working on the Plymouth and Devonport Circuit. 

Prior to this, I worked in secondary education at Lipson Cooperative Academy in Plymouth for 24 years taking on a variety of teaching roles including Careers and Sixth Form Leader. I was accredited as a Local Preacher by the Methodist Church in 2020 by which time I had already begun to hear God calling me to presbyteral ministry. 

To relax, I love the theatre, both watching and as a performer. I am a member of the Wranglers Theatre Company and have enjoyed ‘starring’ roles as Gertrude the Goose in Mother Goose and the front end of the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk where I showed off my tap dancing skills! My other passion is books and reading (I am also a professionally qualified librarian) and I avidly collect children’s books from the early to mid twentieth century. 

My theology is one of inclusivity and I hold to the idea that God’s love is for everyone through the saving grace bestowed on us by Jesus’ death on the cross. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus told his disciples that his first and greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The second commandment is to Love your neighbour as yourself” and it is by these that I try to live my life

Minister