Don Poest Appointed Interim General Secretary

The RCA’s executive board, the General Synod Council (GSC), has appointed Don Poest as interim general secretary of the Reformed Church in America.

Poest will begin the role on June 15, when Tom De Vries concludes his service as general secretary.

Poest will come out of retirement to take on the interim role; he retired last August after 38 years as pastor of Brunswick Reformed Church in Brunswick, Ohio. Poest was president of General Synod from 2010 to 2011 and GSC moderator the following year. He has also served as president of Lake Erie Classis, the Regional Synod of the Great Lakes, and Great Lakes City Classis. He has been active on numerous boards and committees, including most recently the Task Force on an Alternate Plan for General Synod. He is a graduate of Hope College and Western Theological Seminary.

The interim general secretary will provide leadership to the denomination and GSC staff until a permanent general secretary is installed. GSC moderator Evan Vermeer expects Poest’s term to be a year.

The GSC will form the search committee for a new general secretary and will be accepting applications early this summer from people who are interested in serving on that committee. When the search committee has a top candidate, he or she will be presented to the GSC and then to the General Synod for approval. Vermeer and the GSC hope a new general secretary will be approved and installed at General Synod 2018.

Vermeer says the GSC approached the interim decision with much prayer. “We’re very happy that Don Poest has agreed to serve as interim general secretary,” he says. “Under his leadership, we’ll continue the good work of Transformed & Transforming without interruption.”

Expressing deep gratitude for Tom De Vries’s service, Poest says, “I’m humbled, I’m honored, and I’m in need of your prayers. I’m a pastor at heart and I will approach this new opportunity that way.”