Roots & Formation

Rev. Tabatha Holley (she/they) is a fourth-generation Black, Bronx-based faith leader. She is the Founder and Lead Consultant of A Space to Land, LLC. A Southern transplant from Dawson, Georgia carrying forward ancestral wisdom and land-based spiritual practices into contemporary care work, their roots in the Deep South and foundational work in the Northwest Bronx are not incidental to her ministry—they are foundational. The land, the lineage, and the particular ways Black Southerners and Northern Black migrants have survived, resisted, and created sacred community shape everything she does.

Her theological and intellectual formation began at Spelman College, where she studied Comparative Women's Studies, was introduced to Black feminist theory,—frameworks that would become the bedrock of her approach to theology, care, and justice work. As a Chapel Assistant (Sisters Chapel), Bonner Community Service Scholar, and UNCF Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, they learned early that scholarship and service are inseparable.

At Union Theological Seminary, Rev. Tabatha deepened this foundation through rigorous study of womanist theology, feminist preaching, and the arts. They were awarded the 2020 Karen Ziegler Feminist Preaching Prize for her commitment to centering the theological wisdom of Black women in proclamation and worship. Her Master of Divinity, with a concentration in Preaching, Worship, and the Arts, equipped her not only to speak truth but to create beauty, ritual, and transformative space. They are well-rounded in practical theology—having completed her internship at the Church Center for the United Nations with United Women in Faith, where she conducted policy research, designed educational programming, and facilitated workshops on racial inequity, violence against women, and social justice methodology.

Pastoral Leadership & Community Building

From 2019 to 2022, Rev. Tabatha served as Lead Pastor of New Day Church in the Bronx. Under her leadership, a Mutual Aid Ministry and a Transformative Justice Ministry were established and youth programming reimagined to support diverse family structures. There were systems created for generative conflict, collective rest, nonhierarchical leadership, and sustainable congregational health.

When Rev. Tabatha left pastoral ministry in 2022, she began Clinical Pastoral Education training in palliative care at Calvary Hospital—deepening her expertise in grief accompaniment, end-of-life care, and healthcare chaplaincy. This transition wasn't a departure from her calling but an expansion of it, grounding her threshold work in the clinical realities of death, dying, and bereavement. She continued her CPE training as a Chaplain Resident at New York Presbyterian-Brooklyn Methodist and is currently completing her extended unit at New York Presbyterian, providing spiritual care across pediatric and adult settings. Rev. Tabatha takes special pride in being a chaplain to queer and trans patients, patients living with HIV, folx living with substance abuse disorders, unhoused patients, and those living with mental illnesses.

In 2024, she founded A Space to Land, LLC.

Threshold Work: Birth, Death & Transformation

Rev. Tabatha is a trained birth doula and death doula, accompanying people at life's most vulnerable and sacred moments. This threshold work—standing with people as they enter the world and as they leave it—is deeply connected to her understanding of interfaith spiritual care and accompaniment.

Rev. Tabatha has officiated weddings, funerals, baptisms, and other rites of passage—creating ceremonies that honor people's full identities, spiritual paths, and chosen families. Their work is LGBTQ+-affirming, rooted in the belief that everyone deserves sacred accompaniment at life's most important moments.

Transformative Justice & Conflict Work

Rev. Tabatha is trained in Transformative Justice (TJ) frameworks through the Interrupting Criminalization TJ Skill Up Institute. They work with congregations, nonprofits, and community organizations navigating conflict, harm, and accountability processes. Her approach integrates theological grounding, training in trauma informed spiritual care, harm reduction and years of experience building care infrastructure in communities. She helps organizations build the systems, practices, and cultural shifts necessary for long-term transformation.

Curriculum Development & Educational Consulting

Rev. Tabatha has designed curriculum and educational programming for national organizations. Her work integrates anti-oppression frameworks, trauma-informed pedagogy, and liberatory education—making complex theological and justice concepts accessible for diverse learning communities.

She has created Bible study curricula through a trauma-informed lens, developed restorative justice healing circles training materials, and designed political education programs that connect faith, justice, and movement work. Her curricula are used by congregations, seminaries, nonprofit organizations, and community groups seeking to deepen their theological grounding and justice practice.

As an adjunct instructor in the Honors Department at the School of Visual Arts, she has taught undergraduate students about the intersections of humanity, spirituality, art, and justice. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that education should be transformative—that learning spaces should cultivate critical thinking, creativity, and the courage to imagine new worlds.

Research, Writing & Public Witness

Rev. Tabatha was a 2023-2024 Louisville Institute Pastoral Study Project grantee, researching "Toward Queer Black & Feminist Practical Theology Subverting Oppressive Economic Systems in Urban Ministry Contexts." She has written for Sojourners Magazine on reproductive justice and death work, contributed to United Women in Faith's national curricula, and presented research at academic conferences on interracial ministry and Black women's activism.

Their public witness is grounded in the conviction that theology matters—not as abstract doctrine, but as a lived practice that shapes how we care for one another, organize our communities, and resist oppression.