Rev. Sean Smith was Installed as pastor at Bethlehem on May 1, 2022. He is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Ron and Eileen Smith. He attended Concordia University—Texas for his undergraduate studies earning a BA in Communications – Public Relations before beginning his pastoral training and earning his MDiv at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He did his Vicarage at Immanuel Lutheran in Bossier City, Louisiana, under Reverend Sig Kunz. Upon seminary graduation in 2010, he served for a year as a hospital chaplain while doing his Clinical Pastoral Education Residency at Seton Family of Hospitals in Austin, Texas. In 2011 he received his first Call to serve as associate pastor of the Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in Evansville, Indiana. In 2015 he served as interim headmaster and associate pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church & School in Nashville, Illinois, until June 2016 when he accepted a Call to be pastor of the dual parish of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Wine Hill, Illinois, and Immanuel Lutheran Church of West Point, Illinois where he served for 6 years until accepting the Call to Bethlehem. Throughout the years he also participated in several LCMS cross-cultural and mercy missions, including trips to India, China, and Mexico, and several trips to serve with BOSKO Orphanage in Haiti.
Aside from his theological interests, Pastor Smith also enjoys wine-making, woodworking, Amateur (HAM) Radio, and rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals, Blues, and the University of Texas Longhorns.
In 2016, Rev. Smith was introduced to his wife, Heather, through a determined Lutheran matchmaker. They were married June 17, 2017. Heather was formerly a Classical Lutheran educator for 12 years at Mt. Hope Lutheran in Casper, Wyoming. Pastor Smith and Heather have been blessed with four children: two sons and two daughters.
