Senior Pastor

Mark Smith became Senior Pastor of Riverside Alliance Church after serving bi-vocationally as Director of Discipleship Ministries for a year and a half. He grew up at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch near Amarillo, Texas, a home for boys who don't have one, moving there after losing his mother in a car accident. He is a first-generation believer, coming to Christ at age 13 during a week of Bible camp, which he interestingly earned for memorizing Scripture, before he was even a Christian.

One of the greatest challenges in his Christian walk came when he became a single parent, through which he learned to love and trust God even more. He left the ministry at that time to focus on caring for his three children. Ten years ago, he married Denise, a friend he met at camp when he was a teen, who also was a single parent. Denise came to Christ at age 8 through the Christ-filled life of her second-grade schoolteacher. It was clear that God brought them together, not only for each other and their five children, but also for ministry.

The most formative years of Mark’s ministry came while serving as Pastor of Youth and Young Adults in Campbell River, British Columbia. It was there that he worked under Pastor Richard Sipley, currently a retired C&MA pastor of 60 years. Mark’s passion in ministry has been to equip people to serve God and those he has placed in their lives. His specific calling and gifting as a pastor is to teach and encourage believers toward a deeper relationship with God, to grow the church within the hearts of individuals, and then together seek revival in the church and in the community beyond the church by witnessing of Christ to those who don't know him.