In lots of ways he is and in lots of ways he is not. Paul was the Lead Pastor of Aspen Grove and now Drew will be. But Paul was also the Lead Pastor and the founder of Woodridge. Zac Bush is going to become the Lead Pastor of Woodridge but neither Drew or Zac or the two of them together will really be replacing Paul. This transition and Paul’s retirement from full-time ministry is the end of an incredibly faithful and fruitful era for Paul and his wife Darla, for Woodridge, and for our network. With it comes new staff, new leaders, and new organizational structures. 

We also believe that God has always been leading and guiding us and so that baton of faith in God, and faithfulness toward God is the one that is being passed. And, it isn’t just Paul and Darla passing it to the next generation of staff leaders — it is a baton that they have been continually passing to all of us for years now and we’re just continuing in that same direction. 

The Overseers believe that hiring one of our current site leaders to succeed Paul in leading the network is the right choice. We have been aiming at that choice for years after studying various different succession pathways that other churches have utilized for replacing a Senior Pastor and a founding Senior Pastor like Paul. 

We also believe that Drew is the right choice. Drew is very excited about this opportunity and Aaron was not interested so this has been more about whether or not Drew was the right fit than a choice between him and Aaron. 

Drew is passionate about our network of churches and each one of our sites on their own. He grew up, met his wife, and had his first jobs in ministry at Woodridge. He helped start and currently serves as the Lead Pastor at Mercy Hill. He attended The Highlands first service in Delano Elementary School and was a part of the building and interiors team in 2020-21.

Drew is good at leading, organizing, and telling the story of our network and where God is leading us. He currently leads the team that creates our Sunday morning teachings each week, he leads our all staff meetings for the network, and he assists Paul in creating the working documents the Overseers utilize in making oversight decisions. 

Throughout the succession planning process connected to Paul’s retirement we have been targeting the fall of 2025 as the time when Paul would retire from full-time ministry. Our initial thought was that we would have Paul and his successor overlap for at least a year at Woodridge and that Drew would take on the Lead Pastor of Aspen Grove job for a full year while Paul was still the Lead Pastor of Woodridge. 

However, we have always tried to be open to God’s timing within this process. In some ways we were more open to slowing down. But, we very clearly sense God’s activity in bringing this opportunity to Zac, to Woodridge, and to Aspen Grove so we are speeding up. 

Part of Zac being a candidate at all felt like we needed to be ready for Zac to be a candidate right now and adjust our timeline accordingly. 

We are arriving at this moment as quickly as we possibly could have not because we are rushing but because we are ready. At several different moments opportunities to slow down were built in if anyone on the Overseers or Leadership Team needed more time or additional steps. 

We believe the speed at which we have arrived at this moment is an indication of God’s leading and the confidence of our Overseers and Leadership Team in the process, in Zac as a candidate for Woodridge, and Drew as the right next person to lead the Aspen Grove Network. 

Drew will continue to serve as Lead Pastor of Mercy Hill. In addition to those responsibilities he will also lead our network of churches. His role at Mercy Hill is focused on preaching, vision, and leading the conversations about the future of Mercy Hill. His role in the network is focused on leading the teams that encourage and challenge our staff, work with our international partners, develop leaders, start new sites, help with church plants, and encourage other churches to start church multiplication networks like ours. 

The Overseers and Site Leaders have been working on the succession plan associated with Paul's retirement for more than 5 years. One of our earliest goals was to maintain the network, stabilize the network, and position the network for growth through leadership development, starting new church sites, and telling our network story more and better in the hopes that other churches borrow our approach. That goal led us to a desire to evaluate and (hopefully) recommend one of our existing site leaders as the next Lead Pastor of Aspen Grove. Drew was really interested in the opportunity and Aaron was not. While we didn't officially interview Drew until this spring he has been working for years now to become prepared for this new opportunity but was also fully on board with our timeline and the pace our succession planning conversations were taking. So, much of his behavior with the Site Leaders, Leadership Team, Overseers, and our broader staff has been a mix of on the job training and a prolonged interview.  

The timeline and pace of the succession planning conversations changed in early March of 2023 when we began to explore the idea of Zac Bush becoming the next Lead Pastor at Woodridge Church and adjusting our overall timing in conjunction with this opportunity. After we had scheduled interviews with Zac we created the committee of Overseers and Site Leaders our constitution requires who "check background, interview, evaluate and select possible candidate(s) for the position.” The committee has checked, interviewed, and evaluated Drew and they unanimously recommend him to this new role and responsibility. The next step is for our members to affirm this recommendation with a 75% majority vote.

This has actually been a really long and diligent process that began getting clarified in 2018. At various points throughout the years we have updated members and staff about the broad strokes of Pau’s retirement. It may feel fast and in many ways the last few months have involved a lot of meetings and prayer and interviews and discernment in a more condensed timeframe than in previous months. But, that was always going to be the case with the months leading up to announcing a candidate we were recommending to be the next Lead Pastor at Woodridge. 

So, it hasn’t been fast but it has been sudden for a lot of people. We think that the overlap time where Zac is on staff but not in his role as Lead Pastor at Woodridge will be a great time to get to know him and for him to get to know Woodridge, and our network. We think that the overlap time where Drew is leading the network while Paul is still leading Woodridge will also be really good for him, for our sites, and for our network as a whole. 

Our constitution requires the Overseers and Site Leaders form a search committee that unanimously nominates the Lead Pastor of our Network to our members. Paul Johnson and Aaron Sorenson were the Site Leader representatives of the search team and Michelle King, Rich Rizzardi, and Becky Hunter were the Overseer members of that team. 

The team of Overseers and Site Leaders interviewed Drew for about an hour in April, deliberated together, and now unanimously recommend Drew to our members. 

One reason it was possible for this interview to be shorter is because Drew is currently a Site Leader in our network and he works closely with the other Site Leaders and the Overseers. Another reason is that the Overseers and Site Leaders have been planning on hiring internally for the position of Lead Pastor of Aspen Grove and Drew has been the planned candidate for awhile. So, he has been learning from Paul and taking on extra leadership responsibilities in preparation. All of that work and behavior has been a part of a sort of prolonged interview period. 

Yes it is. Drew actually put it together at the beginning of 2023 as a way of helping us organize our answer as a staff and overseers about what Aspen Grove actually is and what that answer means for our future. One of the first things Drew did when he talked to Zac Bush about potentially working with us is to send him this website. After you are done with this page wander around a bit and check it out.