MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2026
J. Michael Smith 217-898-3148
Greetings friends,
After our first worship service together yesterday I drove home feeling joy and gratitude for the welcome you gave me and for the spirit in the room. I am very glad to be among you!
One of my first administrative tasks as your pastor is to both increase and consolidate the information you get from the church. Expect to hear from me Monday through Friday—sharing all the news I can. And if you have anything that needs to be shared with the congregation, please let me know at either the cell number or email listed above.
I still have openings tomorrow (I’ll be here from 9-9), Wednesday (I’ll be here from from 9-5,) and Thursday (from 9-5) for you to stop by the church so we can get acquainted. There will be other times in the weeks to come as well.
Late breaking announcements for today: prayer requests for Eric Shuman, having surgery tomorrow; food pantry unloading and distribution will be 3-5 this Thursday; the pastor welcome soup lunch has been rescheduled for January 18 (so no need to welcome me this coming Sunday!)
I’ll write again tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I write an off the wall blog every Sunday. Here is what I sent out yesterday: (enjoy)
Pity the poor folks at Sullivan who are googling “Michael Smith” to get the scoop on their new pastor. Just out of curiosity, I spent the better part of a day googling myself. (Ew—that doesn’t sound like the type of pastor a church would want!) When you have a name like Michael Smith, you will develop an identity crisis if you google yourself too long.
There are about 150,000 Michael Smith’s in the world today, nearly all of them more interesting than me, evidently. Some folks in Sullivan are under the illusion that they are getting a famous Christian songwriter. I am a writer, but my book, Teaching the Preacher to Curse, has not been put to music. If it were, someone like Kendrick Lamar would initially be more interested than Michael W. Smith. In fact, when most Christians meet me and hear that my name is Michael Smith, they get a disgusted look on their face, as in, I’ve listened to Michael Smith, you’re no Michael Smith.
I decided to write this post to help all the people in my new congregation who are trying to google me.
I am not Michael Smith the famous wrestler. I did wrestle, a long time ago, with my seminary roommate, Dave Smith. (Not the David Smith who was the first president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) I’m a different Michael Smith.
Neither am I Michael Smith the famous dart player. I have a dart board, somewhere in the garage. But nobody cares.
I am not the Michael Smith who was arrested for music streaming fraud, or the Michael Smith who is a convicted murderer, or even more worse—one of the 14 politicians in the United States who go by that name.
There are two bishops named Michael Smith. Not me. There is a horse jockey by that name, but I prefer the horses I ride to go slow. I don’t like the googling a fast horse gives you.
My grandchildren would like me better if I were the Michael Smith who is the CEO of a candy company. But their mothers are just fine that I’m not. They would rather I be the Michael Smith who is the 1,219th richest person in America.
I’m not the Michael Smith who is a spy—but then you never know, as I would not admit to that in a written post.
There is a philosophy professor at Princeton who shares my name, a Nobel prize winner in chemistry in British Columbia, a Jamaican poet, a thoracic surgeon, and a saxophone player. But I’m not sure the people of Sullivan would be interested in having any of them for a pastor. Except for the saxophone player perhaps—who might be neat to listen to each week.
While I do go to the gym three times a week, play tennis and softball, and shoot basketball (when no one else is around), I am not one of the 6 American football players, 5 soccer players, 6 baseball players, 7 cricket players, 5 rugby players, or 3 hockey players who share my name.
The fact is, Google really knows nothing about me. Nor AI. Nor Facebook. To discover who I am, you’d have to talk to my four grandchildren, my three daughters, my mother, my brothers, my best friends. You’d have to read what I have written over the course of 50+ years, including my diaries (which are locked away.) You’d have to listen to my private prayers. And most of all, you’d have to talk to God—who would only let you in on what you need to know to love me and be loved by me.
Like nearly everyone else I know, I’m not interesting enough for Google. The real truth of who I am—along with the potentials that lie within me–fly under the radar of even the most advanced algorithms. Anyone who wants to get a read on me will just have to take the time to swap some stories in person, share some conversations, eat a meal together, and do something with me so we can make some memories. And what I believe to be true about me—I believe to be true about everyone.
Repertoire 