Pastor
The Rev. Dr. Rosanna Anderson is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) with diverse experience in urban and suburban church settings.
Rosanna grew up in Berkley, California and Arlington, Virginia where she benefited from the preaching, fellowship, and education at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley as a young child. Rosanna’s father is a ruling elder and her late mother was a Presbyterian chaplain and alumna of San Francisco Theological Seminary. It was during a high school mission trip and youth Sunday service at Little Falls Presbyterian Church in Arlington that Rosanna’s call to ministry was affirmed.
In 1995, Rosanna concluded her undergraduate studies at Marymount University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with dual majors in Philosophy and English. She received a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1998. While attending Princeton Theological Seminary, she met Clifford and they were married in 2003. Then in 2005, Rosanna and Clifford relocated to Cranbury, New Jersey where Rosanna served the First Presbyterian Church, Cranbury in the role of Associate Pastor from April 2005 until November 2012. Shortly thereafter, Rosanna and Clifford moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where Rosanna became a minister member at large of the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee. She has served both the Presbyterian Church and ecumenically in numerous roles and has worked at the United Methodist denominational agency, Discipleship Ministries, as the Associate Director of Stewardsship Ministries and Associate Director of Intergenerational Ministries. In 2019, she received a Doctor of Ministry degree from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Her doctoral thesis was on “Preaching for Generosity: A Textual Analysis of Stewardship Sermons.” Also in 2019, she became a freelance proofreader for Abingdon Press.
Rosanna and Clifford have a son, Theodore, who is a rising fifth grader. The family lives in Nashville, where Clifford is the Associate University Librarian for Research and Digital Strategy at Vanderbilt University.