Rev. Dr. Brent Smith

Senior Pastor and Director of Ministries

Pastor Brent accepted a divine call to Divine Shepherd in January 2023. After growing up on a farm near Imperial and working in public accounting, Brent served in various positions in the church since 1995, when he was sent to work as a business manager in Central Asia (1995-1997). He later spent six years as an evangelistic missionary in Russia before being called as executive staff in the role of regional director for the Eurasia region based in Germany (2006-2013). He served three years based near Washington D.C. in the LCMS Southeastern District as executive director for mission development (2013–2016). He worked in Mission Advancement to inform congregations and their members of the LCMS mission work and the work of Lutheran Bible Translators to end bible poverty through Bible translation (2016-2022). Recently he also taught for Grand Canyon University in their Online Graduate Studies program. The cohort of Masters students were from the United States, Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam. His Doctorate degree focused on strategies for working as Christians in Muslim-majority contexts. Brent is married to Jennie, and they have a son and two daughters. For fun, Brent enjoys playing hockey at Moylan Tranquility Iceplex, riding motorcycles, and flying an experimental airplane, N456RV.