Rev. Dwight Smith Pastor

Reverend Smith is a native of Indianaplois, Indiana. Educated in the Indianaplois Public School System, earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education with emphasis on broadcast journalism from Indiana University, a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Dayton and a Masters of Divinty from Payne Theological Seminary, Wilberforce, Ohio.

Reverend Smith came to the Dayton-Springfield area in 1979 to serve as a sports/news reporter for WDTN-TV. In 1991, Pastor Smith turned in his mircrophone broadcasting news and as a marketing sales excutive to answer God's call to the ministry.

In recent years Pastor Smith has been director of the campus ministry at Central State University and has completed five units of Clinical Pastoral Education, including a one year residency at the Dayton VA Medical Center. Pastor Smith also did the broadcast, "Moments of Meditation" Monday through Friday @ 7:30 am and 9:30 am on WCSU-FM (88.9).

Pastor Smith's first Sunday at Trinity AME Church was Mother's Day, 2001, and he continues to provide his congregation with the nurishment of the writen Word and supreme fellowship as we make this journey together. Pastor Smith is a true shepherd of his flock and is very attentive to their needs.

Pastor Smith is married to Leslie Young-Smith from Baltimore, Maryland. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland. Pastor and Leslie have been married for 34 wonderful years. Leslie is an active part of the ministry at Trinity A.M.E Church and a member of the Missionary Society, the Trinity Choir and serves as a class Leader.

Dwight and Leslie are the proud parents of two sons. The oldest Dwight Franklin, who attended Miami of Ohio University and currently resides in New York City. The youngest son Justin who is a junior at Columbia University in New York City.

Trinity has adopted a church motto which says,”Christ Centered: Moving From Membership to Discipleship.” Let me explain my meaning of becoming Christ-centered and moving from membership to discipleship.

Trinity is an excellent church. And of course church is not a building but people in fellowship. During my five plus years tenure, Trinity has paid every connectional assessment and remains current with our local obligations such as mortgage and utilities. This is a proud record and the mark of good members. And, really, Trinity is doing better than most churches our size.

In Matthew 28:19 Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We as members of the body of Christ have been instructed to go out and retrieve the lost. We do this by providing ministry, whether it’s a clothing pantry, Bible study, or spirit-filled worship on Sunday morning.

To be “Christ-Centered” means Jesus the Christ is the center of all that we do, whether in church or in the secular world. Christ-centered means we exalt Christ and not ourselves. Every endeavor we undertake is to lift up Christ.

With respect to seeking the lost, we want to make the Sunday morning worship experience, seeker friendly for the lost. Let me point out that it is a lot easier to say than to do, because those of us who are “churched” have a certain comfort level with the current way of doing things. But if we are seeking the lost or un-churched, we must realize these folks may not have a clue why we do certain things on Sunday. All they know is that they are spiritually hungry, and are they being fed by what is happening at Trinity. And so with that in mind to take a phrase Rick Warren’s "Purpose Driven Church", we want our Trinity AME Community Hospital Clinic Church to be seeker friendly.

In the coming weeks, we will be doing things in an effort to make Trinity more seeker friendly. Seeker friendly churches make it easy for anyone not familiar with the AME tradition to follow the order of service. Seeker friendly churches, from the preacher to the pew have members who have a genuine smile in welcoming visitors. There are many more areas to become seeker friendly, but you get my point for now.

My prayer is that everyone at Trinity embraces our motto of “Christ-centered: Moving From Membership to Discipleship.”