At the July 2025 Minister’s Business Meeting at Berea Mennonite Church, Rosedale International (RI) announced an upcoming transition in the president’s position. Joe Showalter’s five-year term of service ends in August of 2026, and he will round out his fifth term of service. This means RI has benefited from the steady, consistent leadership of the same president for almost 25 years! What was announced and approved of by the ministerial body at that meeting was for Matt Showalter, current academic dean of Rosedale Bible College (RBC), to succeed Joe as president. This transition represents a major change for RI, and Matt’s move represents a major move within the Rosedale Network of Churches world. You may be asking yourself, “How did we get here”? As a former RI board chair and one who was involved in the process from start to finish, hopefully I can shed some light on the answer to that question.
We began talking about this transition as a board almost as soon as Joe’s final term began in 2021. Our initial aim was not focused on any candidates, but rather to lay the necessary groundwork as an organization for this transition—things like sharpening our vision, mission, and values. Understanding who we are was important to eventually be able to understand who we were looking for. We engaged John Stahl-Wert from the Center for Serving Leaders (now World Serving Leaders) to help guide us through some of this process. In the end, we realized that we were not looking for someone who would come with a new and fresh vision for RI, but rather someone who would be able to serve the existing vision, mission, and values that we still felt strongly that the Lord had called us to. To be clear, there is room for operational changes within that vision, but the overall goal is for the vision to remain the same.
As the time for the transition came closer, we began to talk more intentionally about the “who” as well. We initially wanted to start with Joe himself to find potential candidates, then move in an ever-widening circle (as needed) from RI’s executive team, the board itself, key people within RI, Rosedale Network, and RBC circles, and finally a broader context if necessary. Over the course of several months, a small group of potential candidates began to emerge—candidates whose names had been mentioned by several people, and who I had already had enough initial contact with to know that they would potentially consider accepting such a position.
...it was unanimous that Matt is the man whom God has selected to be the next president of Rosedale International.
When Matt’s name came up, there were two challenges that immediately presented themselves: first, that he is Joe’s nephew, which negatively affects how this transition appears, and second, that he is already a key figure within another Rosedale Network institution that we love and care for. As to the latter, we reached out to Jeremy Miller, president of RBC, before even contacting Matt to get his blessing on making contact. If he had told us no, we would not have taken another step down that road. We are so grateful for the leadership of RBC for their graciousness and commitment to the Lord’s will over their own preferences.
As to the former, it should be clearly stated that Matt’s name was not brought up by Joe, but suggested by others. In every conversation and interview that involved Matt, Joe recused himself from the discussion, and in the end, we had to decide whether we would be led by what we sensed God wanted or what we thought would give the best optics. Speaking personally, when we went into the initial interviews with our small pool of candidates, Matt was at the bottom of my list, almost completely because of the family ties and how that could be perceived. However, at the end of those initial interviews, every board member who had participated felt the same: it was unanimous that Matt is the man whom God has selected to be the next president of Rosedale International.
We are so grateful for the Lord’s leadership, for good working relationships within the Rosedale Network institutions, and for a network of churches that trust their leaders. Please pray for RI, RBC, and Rosedale Network as these transitions take place!
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One Response
As Matt’s mother, I should perhaps recuse myself from commenting on this helpful summary of how things came about. But I was reminded of a similar transition in my own life. My late husband, Richard, was serving as president of of RBC when he was approached by LMC/EMM leaders to consider becoming president of EMM. Although he/we loved RBC and its work of equipping young adults for Kingdom service, we also keenly felt the call to facilitate work in regions where the church is weak or non-existent. We moved from a primary focus on “equipping” to “deployment.” Both are critical as we, the body of Christ, are commissioned to make disciples–teaching “all things” to “all peoples.”