Our Vicar

At Holy Cross we are Easter People: our history is a story of resurrection.

Now Holy Cross is stepping forward into its present and future to share the good news of God’s love and Christ’s reconciling work on the cross with the people of Murfreesboro and beyond. As God seeks to be in relationship with us, Holy Cross People desire to be in relationship with each other. Our diverse backgrounds–Baptist, Roman Catholic, Church of Christ, Presbyterian–our ministry of being a welcoming place of healing, our love of making music together, our sense of “family” and our commitment to growing in the knowledge and love of God–these are all pieces of the amazing gift of Christian community that God has provided.

God is doing something with the people at Holy Cross–something profound, something healing, something pushing us to spread that wholeness around. I hope that you’ll come to Holy Cross and see what God can do with you.

In the peace of Christ,

Carolyn+

If you would like to contact Rev. Carolyn email her at revcarolyn@holycross-tn.org or call her at 615-867-7116.

The Rev. Carolyn A. Coleman is a native Nashvillian who moved back to Tennessee last June after thirty years away. A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Carolyn holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies. She also holds a Master of Arts in Religion from Miami University, Ohio and a Master of Divinity from Boston University School of Theology. She completed her Anglican Studies at the Episcopal Divinity School. In 2007 she was ordained both to the Transitional Diaconate and the Priesthood in the Diocese of Maine.

Before moving back to Nashville to accompany her spouse, Joe Bandy, in his new position at Vanderbilt University, Carolyn spent three years as Canon Pastor at the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke in Portland, Maine. Her primary responsibilities were Christian Education for children, youth and adults, preaching and pastoral care. Because of her past work as Assistant Youth Missioner in the Diocese of Maine, she also worked closely with the Diocese on a burgeoning young adult ministry located in Portland. Presently, Carolyn is also contingent faculty at Sewanee’s School of Theology, teaching a Christian Education course for senior seminary students.

Before entering seminary, Carolyn pursued higher education in Religious Studies, particularly in the areas of contemporary Islam and new religious movements among India’s poorest, the Dalits. She left this pursuit to answer God’s soft, but persistent knocking to be engaged more with the questions of her own heart, which, as it turns out, are often the questions of many other hearts as well. She worked as Director of Christian Education and Youth Coordinator at Saint Alban’s Episcopal Church in Cape Elizabeth, Maine for two years before moving into the position of Parish Administrator until 2003 when she had her first child and began seminary.

Carolyn lives in Nashville with her family. There she enjoys hiking, having water fights with her family, gardening, running and living under a three hundred year old tulip poplar tree.