Sid Smith, 65, leaves church planting legacy

JONESBORO – One of Robert Wilson’s most fond memories of Sid Smith was also one of his earliest memories of the legendary African American church planter.

Wilson, who serves as executive pastor of Christian education at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Jonesboro, first met Smith as a newly commissioned Home Mission Board (now NAMB) missionary sent to work with Smith in Los Angeles. Wilson was one of Southern Baptists first two African American church planting apprentice missionaries and Smith was a pastor in Southern California.

Baptist Press

During his tenure, Smith gave leadership to an aggressive program of starting more than 400 predominantly African American congregations.

“My wife and our then-six children needed a place to live and we were told that Dr. Smith had placed his home on the market because he was moving to Nashville [to work with the Baptist Sunday School Board, now LifeWay]. Smith and his wife had been the catalysts for the home Bible study groups that were to be the feeder groups for the new church Wilson was going to launch. The home had played an important role in bringing those groups together.

But there was just one problem – a missionary’s salary in 1984 did not go very far in the Los Angeles housing market. Wilson did not know what to do.

“That was the first time that I experienced the generosity and kindness of this man. We scrimped and saved as much of a down payment as we could and Dr. Smith agreed to take out a second mortgage so we could afford the home. We paid him in installments for nearly five years as we got on our feet.

“Over the past 25 years I have seen this same kind of spirit presented by Dr. Smith in the lives of countless others. The number of African Americans he has encouraged to enter ministry or engage in Southern Baptist work is phenomenal,” Wilson told The Index shortly after speaking at Smith’s funeral April 14 in Jacksonville, Fla.

Smith, a pioneer of Southern Baptist work among African Americans, died in his sleep April 8 at his home in Jacksonville. He suffered from ongoing heart problems and congestive heart failure.

Wilson’s paths crossed on numerous times in the following quarter century of ministry. One of those times was when, after he left the Sunday School Board, he returned to California to help Wilson grow the church where he was serving in Fontanta. Together they helped grow the Sunday School from 300 to more than 3,140 in less than five years. The church was recognized as being among the fastest growing churches in the Inland Empire Baptist Association of San Bernardino.

The 65-year-old Smith was the first director of the Florida Baptist Convention’s African American ministries division from May 1994 until his retirement Oct. 31, 2005. In that role he served at the convention’s highest administrative and decision-making level in directing a unique cultural outreach among state Baptist conventions.

During his tenure, Smith gave leadership to an aggressive program of starting more than 400 predominantly African American congregations as well as instituting a program department of church development to assist pastoral and lay leadership in African American churches.

Smith served more than 40 years in Southern Baptist denominational roles, longer than any other African American leader. He worked in California, Tennessee and Florida but his influence permeates multicultural strategies now in place at the North American Mission Board and LifeWay Christian Resources.

Smith began his work among Southern Baptists in 1968 as the South Central Los Angeles director of Christian social ministries for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board (now known as NAMB). In 1979, he began an 11-year tenure with the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board (now known as LifeWay), first as a consultant and then as manager of the black church development section, as well as serving as part-time pastor of several African American congregations in the Nashville area.

Founded a consulting firm

He was president of his own consulting firm, Black Church Consultants of America from 1990-94 and concurrently served as a professor with the American Baptist College in Nashville.

Smith worked behind the scenes in the establishment of the National African American Fellowship in 1992. He was the founder of the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servants Network in 1997, an organization that provides mentoring and encouragement to African American staff members at Baptist entities.

A prolific author of numerous books and articles on the African American experience within Southern Baptist life, Smith lectured at every Southern Baptist seminary and numerous divinity schools.

It is in that role as historian that Smith’s and Wilson’s paths crossed frequently.

“Dr. Smith was one of my mentors, especially in the area of chronicling the role of African Americans in Southern Baptist church planting life. He always wanted me to contribute some of my experiences to his books but it never happened,” Wilson said.

But now that mantle will pass to the Jonesboro minister, who serves as historian of the National African American Fellowship of Southern Baptists.

“It’s not a role I take lightly, but feel privileged to accept due to the many things I learned from Dr. Smith. I have so many stories about this guy it would take a book to record them all.

“Suffice it to say we have lost a great man, a great mind, and a great mentor to thousands of Southern Baptist of every color.”

A native of Texas, Smith graduated from the University of Corpus Christi with a B.A. and earned the master of religious education degree from Golden Gate Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., in 1968 and the doctor of philosophy degree from California Graduate School of Theology in Glendale in 1973.

He is survived by his wife of 42 years, Arnette E. Smith of Jacksonville and a son Sid Smith III who lives in California.