Welcome Rev. Katie Heishman
We are incredibly excited to share with the Richmond Hill community that we have our new Co-Pastoral Director.
After a nine-month search process, our Council this week extended a call to Rev. Katie Heishman to serve as our next Co-Pastoral Director, working alongside Rev. Dr. Lisa Johnson, our other Co-Pastoral Director. The residential community provided full support for this action. And Katie expressed, “It is a joy and an honor to be joining the Richmond Hill community as a co-pastoral director. I am so excited to learn from this amazing ministry and contribute to the work of modeling the beloved community, providing hospitality to all, and joining the work of racial reconciliation and healing in Richmond.”
Originally from Weyers Cave, Virginia, Katie has lived a life of Christian service. She has experience working with youth, organizing national conferences, and most recently co-pastoring with her husband, Tim, at Prince of Peace Church of the Brethren in Ohio. While there, she worked around issues of racial justice and engaged congregants in understanding the effects of social injustice and systemic racism.
Intentional communal living is not new to Katie, having spent two years with Brethren Volunteer Service. Then, as program director of a Brethren retreat center, she worked to cultivate intentional community through retreat experiences and training and also created a Peace and Justice Director’s position to educate campers about peacebuilding and justice work from a Christian faith perspective. Much of the work she was involved in, such as planning workshops, worship services, hosting retreats, is quite similar to what we do here behind the scenes at Richmond Hill!
“My calling and vocation,” she writes, “have been at the intersections of hospitality, justice work, community building, and pastoral ministry.” A personal passion for environmental stewardship and simple living are additional hallmarks of Katie’s worldview. She explained her “soul soared when seeing [the Richmond Hill] job posting because of our continued discernment about intentional Christian community for our family and because of our commitment and calling to racial reconciliation work.”
Katie’s undergraduate degree at Bridgewater College was in Sociology, with a minor in Peace Studies. She earned her Masters of Divinity at Bethany Theological Seminary. She and Tim are proud parents of Phoebe, an adorably fun 2-year-old who already loves the fountain and goldfish in our garden. And they are expecting a baby boy to arrive in late-March!
The Heishmans are preparing to move into Richmond Hill in January. However to get to know Katie better and help welcome her to our community, you are invited to join a special Zoom gathering during our coming Founder’s Week. You can explore the whole schedule here, but her Zoom time is Thursday, December 2 at 7:00p.
We are grateful for your prayers during this search and the coming onboarding processes, to Rev. Dr. Mark Cooper for his service as Interim Co-Pastoral Director, and to Lisa for leadership during this transition.