Leadership Team
Purpose, Vision, and Mission
The following statements were overwhelmingly affirmed by the National UCC Board of Directors at their fall business meeting, October 20-22, 2016. Here at Heidelberg we fully embrace and support these statements.
Purpose Statement (from the Gospel of Matthew):
To love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.
Vision Statement:
United in Christ's love, a just world for all.
Mission statement:
United in Spirit and inspired by God's grace, we welcome all, love all, and seek justice for all.
To the above, we add our own Mission Statement:
Heidelberg UCC: a beacon of love, building a community of faith, inclusion, and justice through shared stories in downtown York.
Pastoral Staff
CARLA S. CHRISTOPHER, SENIOR PASTOR
The Rev. Carla S. Christopher (she/her/hers), Heidelberg’s senior pastor since 2022, is a poet-activist, cultural competency trainer, and ordained redevelopment/congregational vitality pastor co-rostered in the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. One of the first out LGBTQIA+ Black women ordained in the Lutheran denomination, Carla was the 4th Poet Laureate of York, PA and specializes in areas of creative storytelling, community-based activism, trauma-informed care and mindfulness, and LGBTQIA+/cultural/ability/economic equity.
Carla currently serves as half-time pastor of Heidelberg United Church of Christ in York, PA. She also serves as Assistant to the Bishop in Charge of Justice Ministries, Lower Susquehanna Synod, ELCA (south central PA region).
When not preaching and teaching, Carla supports survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, writes for multiple faith-based blogs and magazines, moonlights with the poetry-funk fusion band, Groove Ink, and shamelessly spoils her adored Great Pyranees, Bishop Winnie Mandela Love Christopher.
Support Staff
RICHARD FREY, minister of Music
Richard E. Frey (he/him/his) joined Heidelberg as Minister of Music in 2022. He works with the pastoral and worship team to plan hymns and special music and can often be found at playing showtunes on the organ at our First Friday open house.
Richard is a native of Bethlehem, PA. He has degrees from Westminster Choir college, Boston University, and Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has served as Minister of Music at churches in Binghamton, NY, Wayne, A., Ridgewood, NJ, Hanover, PA, and most recently at Unitarian/Universalist Congregation of York and Zwingli Lutheran Church in Spring Grove, PA. He has given recitals at St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC, the West Point Cadet Chapel, and at Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA. He twice accompanied Peter, Paul, and Mary at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ. He served as organist for the national convention of the National Council of Churches in Cleveland in 1981. He served on the Worship Planning Committee for the National Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland in 1986. He has presented benefit concerts for "Bread for the World" and many other organizations. As a composer, Dick has 23 works published. He has made 8 recordings of organ music. He is married to Susan Dotterer Frey, also a graduate of Westminster Choir College, and a Print Music Specialist at Menchey Music in Hanover, PA. The Freys have 3 children, 5 grandchildren, and lots of pets!
Email Richard
Alison Vedder, OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR
Alison Vedder is Heidelberg’s Office Administrator. She started working with us in June of 2008. Alison graduated from Spring Grove High School, worked for Pfaltzgraff, married her husband Chris in 1987, and has three children and five grandchildren.
She loved being a stay-at-home mom in which she volunteered in many capacities, which led to her employment with the West York School District before coming to Heidelberg. Alison also enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, walking, sudoku, crosswords, word games, puzzles, and television.