Holly Herring

With more than 18 years of ordained ministry, the Rev. Holly A. Herring brings extensive experience in congregational leadership, diocesan service, organizational development, and community engagement to her work with the Center for Healthy Churches.

Holly currently serves as Rector of Saint Anthony on the Desert Episcopal Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, where her ministry emphasizes congregational vitality, pastoral care, meaningful worship, and authentic relationships within the church and surrounding community.

Her previous ministry includes serving as Canon Precentor of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix, Associate Priest and religion faculty member at All Saints’ Episcopal Church and Day School, and Rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Throughout her ministry, Holly has helped congregations navigate leadership transitions, engage conflict constructively, strengthen relationships, and discover new opportunities for mission and community connection.

Holly specializes in strategic visioning, congregational vitality, conflict transformation, transitional ministry, and leadership development. She brings particular expertise in Episcopal Church governance and canons, family systems, grief processing, and organizational change. Known for her warmth, honesty, and compassionate leadership, she helps churches face difficult realities while remaining grounded in faith, relationships, and hope.

Her work is informed by experience serving on diocesan executive councils, commissions on ministry, bishop-search and transition teams, and churchwide leadership initiatives. She also brings executive leadership experience in nonprofit, public, and private organizations, along with a commitment to building ethnically inclusive, multicultural, and intergenerational faith communities.

Holly earned her Master of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary and her Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Transylvania University. She has also completed studies in nonprofit management at Arizona State University and clinical pastoral education, along with specialized formation in interim and transitional ministry, mediation, conflict engagement, appreciative inquiry, congregational redevelopment, and other areas of church leadership.

At the heart of Holly’s work is a conviction that congregations often possess more life, courage, and possibility than they realize. She is passionate about helping churches recognize the gifts already present among them and discern faithful pathways into the future.

Outside of ministry, Holly enjoys hiking, pottery, gardening, cooking, fishing, bicycling, and traveling. She shares life with her spouse, Darren, and their dog, Mr. Peanut Buttercup. She believes that good humor, honest conversation, and the ability to laugh at oneself are essential gifts for the work of ministry.

Question & Answer with Holly

What do you most enjoy about working with churches?

I enjoy helping churches remember who they are and whose they are. There is something deeply meaningful about journeying with a congregation as its people recognize the gifts God has already placed among them and begin imagining what comes next.

Faith communities are wonderfully complicated, filled with history, hope, grief, and joy. I love helping people work through difficult moments and discover that their congregation has more life, courage, and possibility than they realized.

What kinds of consulting work energize you most?

I'm especially energized by congregational vitality, strategic visioning, conflict engagement, and seasons of transition.

I enjoy helping churches ask better questions: Who are we now? Who are our neighbors? What is God inviting us to become in this season?

I'm comfortable helping communities face difficult realities while keeping the conversation grounded in mission, relationships, and hope in Jesus Christ.

What gives you hope about the church today?

The Christian Church has survived enormous change because the Holy Spirit has never stopped moving.

I see hope whenever people choose curiosity over certainty and relationships over self-protection. I see it in congregations opening their doors to their neighborhoods, welcoming people who have been told they don't belong, and discovering ministry beyond Sunday morning.

The Church is at her best when we trust that God is already present in the world and then go out to meet God there. I believe we're being invited to become more honest, collaborative, and generous, and that invitation is full of hope and possibility.

What's something personal or fun we should know about you?

Before becoming a priest, I worked in law enforcement, retail management, and AmeriCorps. I've had several lives and accumulated an unusual assortment of practical skills along the way!

I enjoy hiking, pottery, gardening, cooking, fishing, traveling, and entertaining family and friends. My spouse, Darren, is a gifted musician and composer, and our dog, Mr. Peanut Buttercup, seems to have a vocation centered primarily around snacks and walks.

I laugh easily, especially at myself, and believe good humor is essential when doing serious work with people.

Email Holly A.