The Rev. John Heidel was hired as Priest-in-Charge at Church of the Epiphany in Vacaville, CA effective June 19, 2023. We are delighted to be blessed with his pastoral care and diverse experience. We welcome the Heidel family as part of our church family, and are excited to move forward into the next phase of God's call to us to serve.
The Rev. John Heidel was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church in June 2020. Rev. John first heard his calling to the ministry as a teenager. He graduated from Napa Valley College and St. Marys’ College of California before revisiting his calling in his early 30’s. He was confirmed in the Episcopal Church in 2007. Following a year of discernment, John enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at Fuller Theological Seminary in 2008 and became a Postulant to the Holy Orders in 2012. He graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2014 with a Master of Divinity degree and completed a Certificate of Anglican Studies from Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California in 2018. He served as a Seminarian and a Transitional Deacon within the Sacramento area.
Rev. John was ordained to the priesthood at the height of the pandemic, and he saw this as an opportune time to learn how the church could adapt during lockdown. In November 2020, he was called to serve as a remote Rector of a church in rural Kentucky. He is excited and grateful to return to the Diocese of Northern California to serve the congregation at Church of the Epiphany in Vacaville, CA.
John’s interests include fishing, boating, and mountain biking. His wife, Sarah, is an Assistant Principal at Benicia High School. They have been married for thirteen years and are parents to three daughters, two of which live at home. John’s favorite Bible verses are Philippians 2:8-11. For Rev. John, these verses are the heart of the solution to life's challenges, tragedies, and triumphs and define who Jesus is, His sovereignty as Lord, and the ushering in of the Kingdom here on Earth, now, and in the future.
