Meet Our Pastor

I was born in South Africa in the year of our Lord 1962. Although brought up by loving Christian parents, the Lord opened my eyes for my own sin and misery and His abounding grace in Christ only twenty years later. I completed my high-school career in the Northern Transvaal before eventually finding my way into the training for the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. I received a BA degree (1986) and BD degree (1988) from the University of Pretoria.

The Lord then called me to take up my charge as co-pastor of a large suburban DRC congregation west of Johannesburg in 1989. In the fall of 1994 our family went to Kampen in the Netherlands for half a year, where I had the privilege of doing a few courses at the Theological University of the GKN (Vrijgemaakt). Six years later I gratefully earned a Masters Degree in theology from this institution, majoring in Homiletics. After returning to our fatherland in mid-1995, I served the Free Reformed Church of Johannesburg for five years until 2000. Later that same year I accepted a call to become the minister of the Word and Sacrament of Zion URC of Sheffield here in Ontario.

I am happily married to Margherita (Raimondi ) and the Lord has blessed us with four children: Peter, Friedrich, Marcel and Lillian. The experience of immigrating to this vast and beautiful land with its long and cold winters has certainly not been easy, but nevertheless richly rewarding. The Lord has greatly blessed our family and my ministry since our arrival here in Canada in the spring of 2001. For this we can only thank Him. In 2006 we joined our Canadian-born daughter in becoming citizens of our newly adopted country. Apart from spending time with my family, I love reading, listening to good music, going for a walk with my wife, or playing a game of tennis.

Rev. Christo F. Heiberg