Invite Him to Your Pulpit, Classroom, or Church
Rev. Dr. Reginald “Reggie” Smith
Pastor, educator, and author of Roosevelt Park Rising
For more than two decades, Reggie Smith pastored a historically white Dutch Reformed congregation in a predominantly Latino neighborhood on the southwest side of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He brings that hard-won experience to pulpits, classrooms, conferences, and boardrooms with honesty, warmth, humor, and a refusal to offer easy answers. Congregations leave with language for work they have been avoiding.
- Diversity Ministry Consultant, Thrive, the Christian Reformed Church’s international congregational support agency
- First African American to lead both the CRCNA Office of Race Relations and the Office of Social Justice
- Former denominational Director of Diversity, working with 300 multiracial and multiethnic churches
- Senior Pastor, Roosevelt Park Community CRC, 1994 to 2015
- Board president of the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Association for decades, catalyzing hundreds of millions in investment
- Has taught urban ministry at Calvin Theological Seminary, Western Theological Seminary, and Grand Rapids Theological Seminary
- Co-host, The Antioch Podcast, named “New and Noteworthy” by Sojourners magazine in its May 2026 issue
- M.Div., Calvin Theological Seminary. D.Min., Western Theological Seminary
Presentation and Preaching Topics
Cross-Cultural and Multiethnic Leadership
- Cross-Cultural Ministries and Evangelism
- Benefits and Challenges of Multicultural Leadership
- Cross-Cultural Pastoral Care
- Diversity: Gift or Curse
Racial Justice and Reconciliation
- Racial Reconciliation
- The Gospel and Racism
- The Implications of the Belhar Confession
The Church and Its Neighborhood
- Urban Ministry and Re-neighboring Our Neighborhoods
- Your Church Did Not Move, but Your Community Did
- Church and Community
- Church and the Immigration Connection
Leading Change
- Process of Change and Personal Transformation
- Church Leadership and Culture
- The Lessons of Roosevelt Park Rising: Just Telling Stories from the Ground
Sunday preaching, adult education, staff and elder retreats, conference keynotes, seminary guest lectures, panels. In person or by video. Honorarium and travel negotiable, with flexibility for small congregations and nonprofits. Six weeks’ notice preferred.
“Rev. Reggie Smith is, in the best and deepest sense of the phrase, a teaching pastor.”
John D. Witvliet, Belmont University
“A gifted storyteller, Reggie Smith writes with great force and beauty of a ministry deeply felt and closely observed.”
Neal Plantinga, President Emeritus,
Calvin Theological Seminary
“Reggie Smith’s story makes clear that healing the racial divide doesn’t happen through quick fixes.”
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne
TO SCHEDULE A PREACHING DATE, WORKSHOP, OR KEYNOTE
email: [email protected] | facebook.com/pastorreggie
Media and interview requests: Susan Stitt, Morgan Street Media Services, [email protected], 770-883-3111