Dave, married to Nancy, with four children--Rebekah, Joanna, Michael, and Joshua--worked as a men’s hairstylist to support himself through education (1972-82); taught at undergraduate and post-graduate level while conducting pastoral ministry (1983-2004); and currently minsters to a consortium of ministry training schools, all located in other countries where training is unavailable (2004-2009).
Education and ministry experience include, Grace Theological Seminary (MDiv and ThM), the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University (MA), and The University of Liverpool, UK (PhD); pastored churches, four of which were church plants; has published primarily in Old Testament and ministry-related journals and books; served on boards including Accent Books inc. (Denver, CO) the North Los Angeles Regional Center (Los Angeles), All Children's Hospital (Los Angeles) and a Governor's Advisory committee (Sacramento); presently ministers as Academic Director for the Master's Academy International, Interim Pastor in upstate New York, and Chairman for the Northeastern region of the Evangelical Theological Society; focuses ministry interests on assisting others in starting and developing ministries, primarily on the foreign field; ministers to and with persons with disabilities through Joni and Friends ministry with the disabled writing curriculum for The Christian Institute on Disability and teaching (Agoura Hills, CA).

Dr. David W. Smith comes to the Berachah Bible Church missions’ conference from an active ministry of nearly 45 years in Biblical counseling and foreign mission work. For 29 of those years, he served as a professor at the Word of Life Bible Seminary near São Paulo, Brazil where he taught principally in the areas of Biblical Counseling, Biblical Studies, and Theology. His active counseling ministry there included a chaplaincy ministry in the largest hospital in South America. During the last 13 years of his missionary career, he also taught Biblical Counseling in the Servant of Christ Theological Seminary (a Chinese Seminary in the city of São Paulo) and – until June of this year – was editor of Coletâneas – 8 volumes of strategic Biblical counseling materials translated into Portuguese from the Journal of biblical Counseling. Dr. Smith has a deep commitment to the Scriptures as fully inspired and absolutely authoritative for the ministry of Biblical Counseling, and brings a special interest in training Biblical counselors for cross-cultural ministry. Since his return to the States in the Fall of 2000, he has continued an overseas Biblical counseling training ministry through mission trips to Brazil, Portugal, and Australia. His wife, Jeanette, and younger daughter Andrea have both completed a master’s degree in the Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling program at The Master’s College in Southern California.  His oldest daughter, Teresa, currently serves TEAM mission in a church-planting outreach in Paris, France.  Son-in-law Kristjan has nearly completed his counseling degree at TMC, and lives with his family (Andrea and 3 beautiful children!) on Madeira Island, Portugal. Dr. Smith completed his undergraduate degree (BA in Biology, pre-med) at Princeton University in 1965, earned a Master of Divinity degree at Grace Theological Seminary (Winona Lake, IN) in 1969 and received a Doctor of Ministry degree in Pastoral Counseling at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, PA) in 1987.  He served with Word of Life Fellowship (Schroon Lake, NY) from 1970 – 2000 and from 2001-2007 in a teaching and counseling ministry as Associate Professor of Biblical Counseling at The Master’s College.  He currently works full-time as a Biblical counselor with Trinity Medical Associates, a group of nine Christian medical doctors in the Knoxville, TN, area. Dr. Smith is an active member of the Grace Community Church in Maryville, TN.