VitalChurch Ministry is excited to announce Tom Wilkens as its next executive director! Tom succeeded Mike Merwin, who retired from the executive director role in July 2021.
Thank you, Mike!
Mike served as the executive director for six years and was instrumental in helping VitalChurch define itself as a new ministry organization. Under Mike’s leadership, VitalChurch received its nonprofit status with the IRS, rebranded as VitalChurch Ministry and launched its website, firmed up our mission and vision, more than doubled our team of interim pastors, and grew our administrative and diagnostic division staff to support the expanding needs of our interim pastor team and churches.
We are thankful for Mike’s service as our executive director and are grateful that Mike will stay on the team in the role of chief financial officer.
A Little About Tom
Tom was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and now calls Colorado home with his wife, Janice. They have two married daughters. Tom has a Th.M. in Pastoral Ministries from Dallas Theological Seminary, an M.A. in Marriage, Family & Child Counseling from Biola University, and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver.
Before joining VitalChurch in 2006 as an interim pastor and managing partner, Tom served in a variety of roles including pastor, university professor, executive director of a multi-disciplinary medical/counseling center, guest on radio call-in programs with Moody Broadcast Network, and director of the staff development & care team for CRM/NOVO missions organization.
In his new role at VitalChurch Ministry, Tom said the “top seven” things he’s most looking forward to are:
- Experiencing joy as a team as we serve God and His church together
- Serving with our Board of Directors, Executive Team, and VitalChurch Ministry partners and team members
- Seeing the team succeed in what God has called each one to be and do
- ‘Passing the baton’ of leadership to the next generation as stewardship and legacy
- Advocating for each of the team to serve well and finish well in their calling
- Making our best contribution to the revitalization of churches in leadership transition
- Honoring Christ and one another in how we go about all of these things
What’s Next for VitalChurch
Yogi Berra once said,
When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”
In 2014, our founding VitalChurch partners found themselves at a crossroads: should they plan to close the doors of VitalChurch Ministry when the partners retired, or should they pass their knowledge, experience, and this ministry on to the next generation?
They unanimously felt that the Lord was leading them to pass this ministry on and to equip others to serve as interim pastors to impact more churches. On this path toward leaving a Christ-honoring legacy of more leaders who carry on, we are now entering a stage of growth with includes the following mission-critical aspects:
- Greater capacity and focus in prayer so that we want what God wants, and trust Him for our direction and provision
- Greater diagnostic assessment capacity, including new team members, upgraded diagnostic platform, upgraded tiered assessments
- Greater interim pastor capacity in terms of recruitment, training, and mentoring
- Launching a capacity-building fundraising campaign which will give us a needed capital infusion to propel these initiatives forward
The keyword for this season is capacity….capacity to serve more churches more effectively!
With Tom’s love for the person and redemptive work of Jesus and His Church, his concern for the vitality of churches and the well-being of pastors and ministry leaders, and his background and research in how marriages, families, teams, and organizations develop well, VitalChurch is well-positioned for this next chapter.
If you are interested in joining our team, or if your church could benefit from our church revitalization process, please don’t hesitate to contact us.