BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: LESA RENAE SMITH
“Rev. Lesa” as she was fondly nicknamed by the youth in her appointment as Associate Pastor at Holman UMC, 2000-2010, retired from local church pastoral leadership (for the 2nd time), effective July 1, 2023. Her former local church pastoral appointments include Grace and Inglewood First UMC’s (2021-2023), Dominguez UMC, (2018-2021); Inglewood First UMC (2010-2012), Martin Luther King, Jr. United Methodist Church (1994-1999) where she also established and worked as the Executive Director of the King After School Program.
Since 2015, Pastor Smith has worked as the Executive Director of the Living Into the Future Foundation coordinating the issuance of grants to United Methodist Churches in the West District of Los Angeles to assist with supporting leadership training and community outreach ministries.
Born in Mobile, Alabama, her family migrated to the west coast when she was four years of age. She has been primarily educated in California schools. She was a member of the first graduating class of Crenshaw High School, attended California State University, Northridge, and graduated from Savannah State University in Savannah, Georgia with a Bachelor of Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing and Management.
Pastor Smith was certified as a candidate for ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church in 1993, completed her Local Pastor Licensing Training in 1994, and the Basic and Advanced Course of Study Ministerial program at the Claremont School of Theology in 2007.
She has been a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority since 2005, Alpha Gamma Omega graduate chapter, where she served as Chaplain. She has two adult daughters, Zaneta and Ebony, and enjoys time with family and friends, travel, jigsaw puzzles, old movies, music, reading and walking.