Meet Rob Herron, Planting Pastor of Mercy Pres

It’s been several years since we’ve had the pleasure of announcing a new church plant in the Tennessee Valley Presbytery, but this fall, we’re delighted to announce that Rob Herron and his wife, Mary Lee, are planting Mercy Presbyterian Church in Fountain City (a suburb on the northern edge of Knoxville).

Most recently, Rob was the assistant pastor at Redeemer Church of Knoxville. He graduated from the University of Tennessee and Covenant Theological Seminary. Before Redeemer Knoxville, he served as youth pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Athens, GA, and as Reformed University Fellowship’s (RUF) campus minister at Appalachian State University.

The Herron Family

Rob had positive experiences growing up in PCA churches and youth ministry programs, and while a student at UT, he had a wonderful experience with RUF. The PCA’s teaching and pastoral care helped grow his faith. In college, he began attending Redeemer Knoxville, a three-year-old church plant at the time. Now, Redeemer Knoxville is the mother church of Mercy Pres, sending Rob out as a planter.

Elements of Redeemer that stood out to college-aged Rob were good preaching, simple but beautiful worship, the small congregation size, and the proximity to campus. He couldn’t have put it into words at the time, but years later, he realized that the things he appreciated about Redeemer arose from its DNA as a church plant with a particular vision and intentional care for its surrounding area. For Redeemer, UT is right next door, so the church ministers to many UT students.

Rob hopes that Mercy Pres will share some of these qualities that he appreciated about Redeemer.

While attending seminary, Rob didn’t take any church planting courses, but he recalls conversations about church planting and friends who were considering planting immediately after graduation. Rob, however, wanted to spend some time serving in youth ministry because of the impact youth pastors and leaders had on his faith and life.

This led him to Redeemer in Athens, GA, as a youth pastor. While in Athens, Rob met and married Mary Lee.

Redeemer Athens was planted with a vision to plant other churches, and when Rob joined the staff, the church had already successfully planted churches. Even so, Redeemer retained some of the DNA of a church plant and kept an emphasis on equipping Christ’s people for the work of evangelism.

In 2019, the Herrons moved to Boone, NC, where Rob served as the RUF campus minister at Appalachian State. He describes the typical App State student as highly relational, idealistic, open, adventurous, and not Christian. Most students choose App State to find adventure, party, and with a desire to “find yourself.” Rob says it’s a place where Christianity would seem like bad news because it would interrupt students as they chase after these desires.

Being a residential campus in a relatively small town, the school is conducive to close community, and Rob found rich opportunities to build relationships with students. He has many stories of students who came to faith through RUF, specifically because of the community, teaching, Bible studies, and relationships with staff and other students.

Rob enjoyed being around students who asked lots of questions. They came to RUF not because they gained social capital by being there but because something was stirring within them. Especially after making it through the COVID-19 lockdowns, App State’s RUF saw a lot of fruit.

However, in 2023, it was time to move on. Rob and Mary Lee moved to Knoxville where Rob served as assistant pastor back at Redeemer for two years. He learned from being part of well-organized systems in an established church, and he appreciated Pastor Shawn Slate’s leadership.

Early on at Redeemer Knoxville, Rob found himself in conversations about church planting and began wondering with Shawn and Travis Vaughn (TVP’s executive director of church planting) if he was being called to plant.

In these conversations, Travis mentioned three presbytery-approved planting sites near Knoxville: Hardin Valley, Austin East, and Fountain City. Having spent time in Fountain City at coffee shops and restaurants and meeting with Redeemer families who lived there, it was a natural fit for Rob and Mary Lee.

“I connected with this area,” he said. “I really loved it. It’s an area with growth, so that means opportunity.” Parts of the town remind him of Boone, but the growth stemming outward from Knoxville means there are many young families coming in.

Rob says there are a lot of healthy churches already in the area, but none are PCA. He’s been attending the existing churches and meeting with those pastors and leaders already in the community.

With many unchurched people and with the continued growth in the area, there’s room for more churches. Rob described the Southern, small town dynamics at play and the perception that everyone goes to church, but the data says otherwise. Therefore, he is looking for and meeting with unchurched and dechurched people. “We have to be creative to meet new people,” he said, like going to the local high school’s football games.

The Herrons moved from their home on the western side of Knoxville to Fountain City in early April 2025. Rob left Redeemer’s staff in May, and the presbytery installed him as a church planter in June.

The Herron’s two children, Robert (seven years old) and Fay (four years old) weren’t old enough for the move to feel dramatic to them, and the Herrons hope that Fountain City can be their long-term home. They have been praying that “if God wants us here, we want to be here for a really long time. We’re digging our roots.”

Their current focus is equipping the launch/core team to look for ministry opportunities and find ways to creatively meet people. The first launch team meeting was on Sept. 14. This Sunday evening gathering included some people from Redeemer and Resurrection Knoxville (a plant in the presbytery that particularized more recently).

The team will continue to meet on Sunday evenings to pray, study the Bible, and spend time getting to know each other. First, Rob is focusing on God’s mission of advancing His kingdom through the Church. “The nature and calling of the Church—to make disciples—is what we’re focusing on this fall,” he said. The group is reading Get Real by John Leonard.

In the spring, Rob plans to move on to the identity and DNA of Mercy Pres, using Tim Keller’s Prodigal God. “I think it’s helpful to have shared language as a church plant,” he said. The launch team will talk through the identifying markers of this new church and the foundation that will guide Mercy for years to come.

The core team currently has about 15-20 adults, and Rob would like to have at least 30 before launching Sunday morning worship. He hopes to launch worship in a year, sometime in fall 2026.