"The Passover/Easter Covenant: Serving the Homeless of Atlanta"

Vince Smith was born in Alabama and reared in Michigan. He is a graduate of Dallas Baptist College, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he earned his Doctor of Ministry degree in 1982.

He currently is pastor of the Northside Park Baptist Church in Buckhead, having previously pastored churches in Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. Most recently he served as Executive Director of Atlanta Union Mission and the Gateway Center.

From 1990 to 2016, his work focused on addressing the issue of homelessness both systemically and individually. He was instrumental in opening five centers in Atlanta that addressed the needs of men, women, and children experiencing homelessness. The successful programs he designed are still being used to help men and women, including veterans and adolescents, move from unemployment to employment, from fractured families to healed families, from addiction to wholeness, and ultimately from homelessness to independent living. His daily focus in Atlanta for more than 26 years was “everyone matters; all people have worth and value in the sight of God.”

Vince is married and the father of three sons and four grandsons. He and his wife live in a century-old family home nestled in the Howell Mill Community.