REV. DR. PARIS LEE SMITH, SR.
Dr. Paris Lee Smith, Sr. is a Preacher, Pastor, Prophet, visionary, social theologian, community supporter, humanitarian, author, lecturer, professor, and Black Church advocate and serves as the Senior Pastor of the Mt. Carmel Baptist Church. Dr. Smith is a servant by God’s grace and a transformational leader by God’s mercy.
Educationally, he has earned a Bachelor of Theology Degree from Tennessee School of Religion, Memphis, Tennessee, a Master of Divinity Degree from The Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia, and a Doctor of Ministry Degree as a Curtis-Stewart Fellow from the United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio. He has served as an adjunct professor in the Religious Studies Department at the historical 107th HBCU Simmons College of Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky and his teaching assignments have covered the following subjects: Black Preaching, Liberation Theology, New Testament and Old Testament Studies, and Black Church Studies.
As pastor, Dr. Smith served the First Congregational Methodist Church of Louisville, Kentucky, while finishing and conducting his Doctorate of Ministry project, and The Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky while finishing his Masters of Divinity with a Black Preaching focus.
As a preacher, Dr. Smith relies deeply on the Word of God to live, to preach, to teach, and to lecture as his main objective for ministry. He was divinely called to preach in 1983 and accepted his calling, preaching his first sermon on August 31, 1986. As lay minister, he has served with Missionary Baptist Pastors in various capacities from administration, teaching, preaching, training, and assisting with a wide spectrum of congregational sizes, ministry dynamics, and growth cycles.
Being a man of God, Dr. Smith’s heart is set towards preaching and teaching to empower people’s lives in how they think about the gospel from a liberation perspective.
As a Black theologian, his focus is to present the Lord Jesus Christ as the liberator of life in God through strategic faith in the church, the community, and the world.
His theology seeks to set a person totally free socially, mentally, emotionally, economically, and theologically as stated in Luke 4:18.
As a social conscious advocate, some of Dr. Smith’s deepest personal commitments are the care of our Seasoned Saints, our Baby Boomers, our Meaningful Millennials, our Generation Xers and our Children’s futures.
rev. dr. paris l. smith, sr., Pastor
901 3rd Street NW
Washington, DC 20001