#ForTheWin: Church Succession

Earlier this year, RiverWalk Leadership had the chance to partner with a local church in west Michigan that was founded almost 170 years ago!

On the coattails of a rich and proud history, they have enjoyed a long season under a beloved leader who recently announced his retirement. Not fully prepared for this changing of the guard, the church found itself a bit out of sorts and needing to scramble towards succession. We were asked to come alongside a leadership committee charged with providing recommendations that would shape the church’s succession plan.

As we listened and learned with our partners, we agreed our best contribution would be collecting and analyzing data from across the church to form a single “State of the Union” style document outlining their current reality. We would then provide some consultation time to support the committee’s succession work.

In reflecting on the experience, committee member Chris shared “RiverWalk did their homework and came with a solid understanding of our task to create a succession plan and they did a great job of ‘meeting us where we were.’ The report was very comprehensive and detailed, but easy to interpret and understand. Even though we knew Keith and Geoff had extensive history and experience, they were careful to hold a posture of listening and facilitating, inserting their expertise only when it was helpful.”

Another committee member, Lucinda, said “Riverwalk’s involvement was helpful for our committee as a springboard for discussion in a non-biased manner. The analytics report was clear, informative and professional in appearance: full color, photos and graphs to visually explain the data. Geoff and Keith’s experience and expertise helped guide our discussions in an informed and knowledgeable manner.”