Meet Pastor Heidi

Heidi has come to us with amazing credentials. She has a wealth of experience as a successful pastor, and has achieved many excellent educational degrees.

When we, on the Pastor Nominating Committee, checked out her references, people from her former church congregations said she was “an outstanding, engaging preacher,” “good at recruiting volunteers,” “organized and empowering,” and “beloved by the congregation.” She has served as a pastor in New York, Florida, Indiana and Minnesota. She served nearby Bryn Mawr Church in the 1990s. For 10 years she was senior minister at Macalester Plymouth United Church in St. Paul. In 2011, Heidi left Minnesota when her husband, Rev. Frank Vardeman, took a call to become Executive Presbyter of the Presbytery of Wabash Valley in northern Indiana. In 2015, when he was “about to undergo knee surgery, his bad knees being the result of years as a champion high school football player in Georgia, his legs suddenly “turned to wet noodles” that could no longer support him. Tests revealed that the culprit was a tiny growth entangled in his spinal cord, compressing the nerves that control the lower parts of his body. It took two neurosurgeries at a Chicago hospital and 44 days of rehab before Rev. Frank could return home. Though the growth on his spine turned out not to be cancerous, he is now paralyzed from the thighs down.” (quotes from a New York Times on line article, Turning to Social Media in Times of Need” by D.H. Jacobs, May 13, 2015). Later that year he had six more operations and a four-month stay at the Courage Center in Golden Valley.

This “new reality” “came out of the blue with no warning.” Continuing in Heidi’s words: “Overnight he went from being a tall, strong church leader to a paraplegic on disability. This was a huge change for him—and for me. Suddenly I went from being the pastor who was the one to offer help to others to being the caregiver in need of assistance and support. The personal challenges the two of us have faced have been extraordinary, but so has been the emotional and spiritual growth. I feel I have become a more patient and forgiving person and believe I would now be a more thoughtful pastor.

My time away from the pastorate for the past months while I cared for Frank gave me a lot of time to think about the ministry and me. I have come to appreciate the pastor’s distinctive role in building community and helping a congregation move forward according to particular principles set out by our faith and in response to our understanding of scripture. I have missed the personal and relational nature of parish life, getting to know people of different ages and walks of life, making hospital visits and especially sermon preparation and leading worship. I even miss session meetings. I am more grateful now for my vocation and am eager to ‘get back in the saddle’ as a pastor again.”