About Wayne:

I was born: Sept. 7, 1953 in Columbia, MO to Orian and Evelyn Smith, the oldest of three children. I was Raised in Columbia and met Christ as a 6th grader when went through a Confirmation style process in our traditional denominational church. I was Baptized on the same day and it was a very profound moment in my life. At baptism, I expected to see angels as I came out the water, and in hindsight, I am certain they were present, just not visible to the human eye.

After this experience, there was very little follow-up, so not much spiritual growth. I was a typical adolescent who was into student leadership, athletics, academics and girls.(Not necessarily in that order!) I was a fairly high profile, high achieving young man in my school. My spiritual hunger began to grow my senior year in high school. Young Life was the vehicle the Lord used to capture my heart for Him. But even as my heart was being captured, my mind was asking questions about the validity and veracity of the claims of Jesus and Christianity. So, for my Humanities project my Senior year, I did a comparative study of Hinduism and Christianity. The first result of that study was that I was utterly and completely convinced that Jesus Christ was alive from the dead and He is in fact, who He says He is! The second result of this was this growing awareness of how fortunate I was (and am) to have had my heart and my mind opened to the truth about the Lord. I have never gotten over that fact, and I hope that I never will.  The third result of all of this was that I became passionate about others coming to know Him, follow Him and become who God made them to be. (I am not a particularly good evangelist, I just have the heart of an evangelist)

I came to Texas to attend TCU, partly because I heard that Young Life was strong in Ft. Worth and partly because of a scholarship. Mostly I came because the Lord brought me down to Texas. I graduated in 1975 with a B.A. in History, four years of volunteer work with YL and a desire to go to Dallas Seminary.

I attended DTS from 1975 to 1979 and graduated with a Th.M. in Old Testament. Those four years were spent commuting from Ft. Worth to Dallas. I lived in Ft. Worth so I could finish my commitment to leading a Young Life club there. Those four years were formative in shaping my worldview and giving me tools for the days ahead. After graduation I went on Young Life staff full time in Corpus Christi, TX. I expected to be on YL staff for 10 years and then become a pastor. The Lord had other plans.

I married my wife Debbie in April, 1981. We have three adult children, our oldest son Dale, married to Valerie,our daughter, Natalie, and youngest son, David.

Our family has grown up together, first in South Texas until 1989 and then in the Dallas area since 1989. We experienced most of our life as part of the Young Life organization. I served as an Area Director, Divisional Training Director, Regional Director and National Training Director until 2002. Young Life has impacted each of us deeply and in a variety of ways, but one of the most important is approach to life and ministry that we have developed over the years. It is an Incarnational approach to life and ministry which is based upon John 1:14. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This has shaped us and motivated us to move towards others and try to understand their world.

Our years on YL staff were mostly wonderful! Of the 23 years on full time staff, 21 of them were fantastic. There were two years which were remarkably difficult. The first was a year of dryness in my ministry where the Lord began to teach me that life was about Him, not my ministry or my reputation. The second was a number of years later when everything was going great and the Lord repositioned me from a high profile position to a hidden position and He reminded me that He determines the scope of impact of one’s life. Both years were difficult, but joy producing and I trust, fruit producing. I am grateful for every one of the years on YL staff.

I retired from YL in 2002 and served as an Executive Pastor for 2.5 years with a church in the Dallas area and then came on the staff of Leadership Network in the Spring of 2005. I serve on the Halftime team as the Director of our Success to Significance Channel, with the responsibility of helping churches around North America identify, equip and unleash marketplace leaders into significant Kingdom work. I have the opportunity to travel and see many churches and learn multiple ways of partnering with the Lord as He extends His Kingdom work.

We are a part of IBC and I am involved with the Men’s Ministry, and I meet semi-regularly with several of the IBC Pastoral Staff for purposes of encouraging them and sharing what I am learning as I travel to other cities and churches. Debbie mentors several younger women and we love what IBC is all about. It is a privilege to be considered for the role of Elder. I am honored to be asked and would consider it a primary responsibility in my life to give this kind of service.

Contact Information:

• wsmith@irvingbible.org