The Rev. David Erickson

Rev. David was born in Decorah, Iowa, where his family had lived for several generations, some as farmers and others in various professions. In his younger years his family was active in the Methodist Church and David has many fond memories of Sunday school and summer camps. When he was ten years old his family relocated to San Antonio, Texas. Unbeknownst to him, David’s father signed him up for a week of Episcopal summer camp at Camp Capers when he was 15 years old and it changed his life. Through his wonderful experience of both the camp and the Episcopal ethos and liturgy, over the years David went from camper, to junior counselor, and then a senior counselor. During the last week of his first summer as a senior counselor, he was confirmed an episcopalian at an 11- and 12-year-old session. Immediately afterward there was the camp dance.

David graduated from the University of Boulder in Colorado with a BFA in theatre performance, and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Seeking to meet friends in LA, he began attending All Saints Church in Beverly Hills and quickly began to volunteer with the church youth program. During a youth worker’s conference, he felt the Sprit’s call to explore full time youth ministry and was hired as the youth director at All Saints Church in Pasadena. At that time All Saints was the fifth largest Episcopal church in the country with an average Sunday attendance of 1400 people.

Around that same time David met his wife Heather and the two of them were married in 2006. Both Heather and David felt a call to ordained ministry and in 2008 both became postulants for Episcopal ordination and began their formal education at Virginia Theological Seminary. They graduated and were ordained in 2011, shortly after the birth of their first child.

After seminary David became the associate rector at St. Cross Church in Hermosa Beach, California. For the first two years he was the associate for Children, Youth, and Families, and his last two years he was the associate for pastoral care, parish life, and liturgy.

In 2015, Rev. David was hired as the Canon for Congregational Development at St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida.

In 2017, David was called as the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the Cow Hollow Neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. St. Mary’s has been a vibrant and robust congregation for decades focusing on a wide range of ministry from dynamic children and youth programs, choir programs for all ages, meaningful spiritual formation, and tangible acts and efforts of outreach and justice in San Franscisco. St. Mary’s continues to be a growing and joyous congregation eager to, like Mary, receive the love of God and bear the love of Christ into the world.

David’s greatest professional joy is to journey with people as they discover the great wonder, love, and grace that is the life in Christ. Outside of ministry his thirteen-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son keep him very busy, and he loves it. He enjoys regular exercise and the outdoors, reading and listening to music, spending time with friends, visiting family, and even does a little online gaming with a group of friends.

David’s wife, Rev. Heather Erickson, is currently the associate rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ross, CA. Previously she was the priest director of Senior Ministry and Pastoral Care at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Before ordination Heather was a full-time yoga instructor in New York and Los Angeles.