Reverend Susan Holden is currently appointed to Journey UMC in Las Vegas. She understands the journey of faith to be a dynamic and practical expression of God’s love, revealed most vividly to us in Christ Jesus, our role model.
Susan grew up near Nashville, TN and attended college at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she studied dance choreography and teaching and earned her BS and MS degrees. She later returned to school to become a Licensed Occupational Therapy Assistant.
Susan is a life-long Methodist, but began to experience a profound disruption in her assumptions about the Christian faith several years after moving to Las Vegas in 1998. Just when she was ready to leave the Church altogether, Susan sensed a distinctive nudge from God to invest her time and energy in helping plant a new United Methodist Church in Northwest Las Vegas. Although reluctant at first, she soon found herself captivated by a fresh, exciting vision of the purpose and power of the Christian community.
During this time, Susan sensed a call to full-time ministry and began a journey of discernment and study. She completed her Master of Divinity at Claremont School of Theology in 2015. She was ordained as an elder in full connection with the Desert Southwest Annual Conference. Susan served as campus minister to UNLV and associate pastor at University UMC in Las Vegas before her appointment as Sr. Pastor at Journey UMC in July.
In her free time, Susan enjoys hiking and backpacking, biking, dancing, and reading. She and her husband Joe are parents of Rebecca, Emily, and Stone. They recently welcomed Tracie, their daughter-in-law, into the family. All of their children are grown and out of the house, live in different parts of the country, and are busy connecting and changing the world in their own distinct ways.
