About ME

I’m the daughter and great-granddaughter of Presbyterian pastors, the granddaughter of life-long ruling elders, and the niece of a PCUSA Executive Presbyter. Before becoming an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament, I, too, served as a ruling elder and a Young Adult Advisory Delegate to the General Assembly. I also spent many-a-summer in worship planning and leadership for Massanetta Springs Camp and Conference Center. For my whole life, I have lived and breathed the Church—particularly the Presbyterian Church—and consequently, I tried really, really hard NOT to be called to ministry.  But nevertheless, God persisted. 

Despite my grand declarations that I would absolutely, positively not be taking a single religion class in college, nor would I be participating in the campus spiritual life, I found myself at Queens University of Charlotte majoring in Religious Studies, minoring in Peace and Conflict Transformation, and interning year after year in the Belk Chapel on campus. Upon my graduation in 2015, I was hired by the University to direct interfaith programming and manage Queens' volunteer-led Room in the Inn program through which the college hosted six neighbors experiencing homelessness throughout the winter months. In my two years serving in that position, much to my chagrin, I began discerning a call to seminary. In time, my husband Jake and I packed our bags and headed to Atlanta, GA for me to begin my studies. 

During my seminary tenure, I worked in refugee resettlement with Lutheran Services of Georgia, serving as a cultural mentor to a recently resettled family. I was also selected to serve as a Research Assistant in Interfaith Relations and Post-Colonial Theology, an experience which nurtured in me an insatiable curiosity for the Divine.  In my time serving as a Trauma Chaplain at Atlanta Medical Center, a Level I trauma center in downtown Atlanta, I felt God’s holy touch as I sat with those who were dying, grieving, imprisoned, or in shock, and I began to realize God was tugging at me in ways I could not ignore. It was during my time serving Central Presbyterian Church, though, that I fully understood the call to pastoral ministry, which I had been fighting so hard to silence, was ever persistently calling me into myself and in union with the God I call Love. 

So, upon graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary, I accepted a call to be Community Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Rocky Mount, where I currently serve and am daily discovering that this call to ministry, this call to the Church, this call to Love, was never something I should have feared, for it is filled with immense joy, care, curiosity, and imagination. Even when it is hard, I am grateful...most days. 

If you’re local and would like to get coffee, I know a place with good lattes. If you’re from “down yonder,” wherever “yonder” might be, shoot me an email and we will connect—I love Zoom coffee-dates, too. 

Peace,
Hannah