Pastor Marvin T. Smith officially is stepping down after 25 years with Mt. Olive Institutional Missionary Baptist Church; and October has been filled with tributes that will feature a dinner at 5 p.m. Saturday at Horizons Conference Center.
It’s really only a partial retirement.
“We are going to remain right here in Saginaw, which has been so good to us, at least for the immediate future, and I’m going to continue to preach, to teach and to write,” he says.
That’s no surprise to those who encounter him, including members of the 997 families who are congregants at the historic landmark on North Sixth, north of the northeast railroad yard.
Still, there will be more time to join his spouse, Omie, in travels to visit their trio of children, especially when she concludes her teaching career next June at Jessie Rouse Elementary School.
They will need only a short drive to catch up with their eldest, the Rev. Marcelle T. Smith, who is beginning his fourth year as pastor of Bay City’s Second Baptist Church.
Meanwhile, flights will be booked to Atlanta, beginning this Thanksgiving, to see Marche’, a pediatrician, and McKenzie, a public relations specialist and also a cheerleader for Falcons NFL football games at the Georgia Dome.
Pastor Smith and Omie are prideful parents, even while he notes, “we never tried to steer our children” into any specific career, including Marcelle in the ministry.
When asked for a career highlight, he refrains from citing any specific honor or special occasion. He simply says, “To see people involved in making a difference in the lives of others, to look at what others are going through, beyond their own selves.”
Mt. Olive leaders remain in the process of recruiting a pastoral successor.
Meaning of the steeple
Saginaw’s blighted northeast First Ward may appear to be the last place where anyone would choose to invest, but that’s exactly what Mt. Olive congregants have done, combining building updates with gradual acquisition of 10 vacant lots to establish a virtual outdoor campus.
Smith came north from Nashville in 1997 to deliver a guest sermon. His eyes immediately were opened to the burned-out shells of former homes, and to the overgrown lots. Nonetheless, when he was offered the pastor’s role a year later, Marvin and Omie did not hesitate to pack up and head for Saginaw with their young family.
Mt. Olive is a stately red-orange brick structure — a beacon amid the abandonment — with a tall, impressive steeple. To Pastor Smith, the steeple is a metaphor. He says, “My first impression of the neighborhood was the steeple was not really making as huge of an impact as it could, in establishing a sense of pride, a sense of hope.”
Some members wanted to explore fleeing the First Ward. Instead, the new pastor advocated a plan “to assure the community that we would not uproot, and to reintroduce ourselves through positive outreach, anything from feeding and clothing to simply empowering people.”
He explains, “We have made a considerable investment in the community.Trustees see value in the neighborhood, based not on what is there today, but based on what we can see in the future.”
Mt. Olive uses the lots not only for parking, but for outdoor prayer services and for special events. A yearly summer family picnic and rally helps to prepare children for returning to school. At Halloween, one of the community’s first “trunk of treat” events has drawn as many as 2,000 participants, with this fall’s gala slated for 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 30.
Neighborhood outreach has involved far more than obtaining land. More than 20 activity programs are in place. Omie Smith oversees youth activities and drama ministry for members who perform in front of the congregation.
‘Church business’
Mt. Olive’s unconventional, trend-breaking investments have occurred under the leadership of a pastor who originally started working in business. Marvin Smith grew up in Shreveport, La., and joined his brother Roderick (pastor of Zion Baptist Church) in helping their stepfather, Samuel Pamplin Jr., in the operation of a regional trucking enterprise.
Marvin wanted to learn more about enterprise, in part to better assist his stepfather. He enrolled in high school ROTC to earn college scholarship money to attend Southern University, where he achieved a degree in business management. After his mandatory domestic military service, he worked four years in Nashville for an employment recruitment company. At that point, he felt a calling to the ministry, and he sacrificed his lucrative career with a back-to-college move to Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Pastor Smith says he often applies the principles of an entrepreneur in the ministry, although the goal is not financial profit. He strives to sell people “in identifying their strengths and abilities, so that they will gain more out of life.” He adds, “The way the church grows is when individuals have a sense of calling and are inspired to live for God. They are impacting other lives, not just their own.”
He also keeps up with congregants as customers.
“With changes in technology, people come for a total experience,” he says, taking note of his aim for “multi-sensory preaching, illustrating on a screen, often with movie clips. Nobody learns in the same way as everyone else.”
The First Ward became Saginaw’s original mainly minority neighborhood with an influx of Black and Mexican-American autoworkers that began during the 1920s. Dr. Roosevelt Ruffin, the local civic leader and historian who grew up near the sprawling railroad yard, often explained how racial minorities were oppressed by home-loan bias and segregated overcrowding and lack of City Hall services, leading to today’s abandonment.
Neighbors sometimes wrongly feel dispirited, Pastor Smith says, “as if they are to blame for these conditions. Our approach is persistent but not dogmatic. We simply want to be known as a church that has come outside the building.”
Tributes continue
In addition to Saturday’s dinner for the adults at Horizons Center, a “Family Night” at Mt. Olive is set for 5 p.m. Friday.
Special programs this month have featured Roderick Smith, followed by Desmon Daniel, former assistant pastor, and by Pastor Robert Davis Jr. of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church. The wrapup with Pastor Hurley Coleman Jr. of World Outreach Campus Church is at 5 p.m. next Wednesday, Oct. 25.
The theme is “Passionate Past, Powerful Present, Promising Future,” rooted in Hebrews 6:10, “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name.”
Meanwhile, Pastor Smith’s third book addresses hardship during the pandemic that has launched the current decade. To view, click here.
