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Kathy Smith

Director of Continuing Education (2002) and Director of the Making Connections Initiative (2005)
B.A. (Calvin College, 1980)
M.Div. (Calvin Theological Seminary, 2001)
Th.M. (Calvin Theological Seminary, 2006)

As Director of Continuing Education for Calvin Theological Seminary and the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Kathy enjoys planning and leading conferences and seminars for pastors, church leaders, and church members - both on the Calvin campus and around the US and Canada. As Director of the Making Connections Initiative, Kathy works with a team of faculty and staff to help the seminary strengthen its connections with local pastors and congregations, colleges, and denominational partners. This involves increasing efforts to help people discern a calling to ministry, reorienting seminary education as formation for ministry, and offering a variety of lifelong learning opportunities. She also makes those connections in her teaching of church polity and the theology and practice of pastoral ministry.

"It is an awesome privilege to be involved in the lives of people called to ministry by God. Both in my teaching and program work at the seminary, and in preaching and leading in various churches and schools, I am thrilled to be used by God to encourage others in their ministries. It is a marvelous thing to be a pastor, even when your 'parish' is very wide!"

After graduating from Calvin College, Kathy taught high school art and English at Pine Rest Christian Hospital for three years. After seven years of fulltime childrearing, she started a church staff position as ministry coordinator at West Leonard CRC in Grand Rapids. The calling to ministry led to studies at Calvin Theological Seminary, and in 2001 she graduated and was ordained as pastor of congregational life at First Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids. Ministering in two congregations among young and old people, and members and neighbors prepared her for serving now at Calvin-preparing future ministers and helping to sustain ministers in their calling.

Kathy's husband Doug is director of seating product development at Steelcase, and they have three daughters: Melissa at the University of California at Berkeley-School of Architectural Design, and Jackie and Nikki at Calvin College.

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