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 Pastor
Colbert shows off the household goods
inventory inside the church's Ministry
Center. What started out as a "clothes
closet" for persons in need has grown into a
department store of sorts, stocked with
items a displaced family may be lacking.
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Lee said the "clothes closet," which now includes household appliances and furnishings, gives away about 25,000 items annually to families in need. The "soup kitchen" is a weekly mission that reaches out to an expanded clientele on Thanksgiving Day.
First Baptist, he continued, also takes the lead in the "JoCo Project" that partners with other local churches to help needy persons with things like wheelchair ramps and house repairs. Every three years First Baptist sends teams of its members on mission trips outside the United States, he added.
"Smithfield is a great place to raise a family," said Lee. "I've enjoyed it here."
His own family includes his wife Alice and two grown children: daughter Lauren Alford, who resides with her husband Travis and their son, Owen, at Clayton and son Mark, who resides with his wife Megan in Burlington.
"There have been a lot of changes in Smithfield since we landed here 40 years ago," Lee observed. "301 was a two-lane road to Selma when we got here. Shopping was relatively limited. Smithfield was the county seat of sleepy Johnston County." Over the years, he continued, Smithfield has become "a bustling hub of activity," with expanded facilities for education and health care especially.
"Along with that, how we have ministered as a church has had to change," Lee said. "Back in the late 1990s most of our high-school students involved in our youth program attended SSS (Smithfield-Selma High)," he noted. "But with the growth of the county and people moving, we have had to adopt our programs for a congregation that was living farther away from the church."
Today, the congregation at First Baptist is approaching 1,200 members.
Lee was born in 1956 in Alexandria, Va., finished high school at West Point, Va., and was graduated Summa Cum Laude from James Madison University in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in social work. Despite his years, Lee Colbert hasn't aged much in appearance, and his enthusiam for his work makes him seem younger than he is.
A member of his congregation "disclosed" a new duty recently added to his First Baptist resume: Lee has joined the church choir --- a tenor no less. Sounds like a good warm-up exercise for delivery of his sermons after almost 35 years in the First Baptist pulpit.
No doubt he's the longest-serving pastor still going strong in Smithfield.
Pastor Lee stands outside the church's Ministry Center with Mike Ward, who was chairman of the Board of Deacons when the former Smithfield Herald building across the street from the church was purchased and remodeled for a variety of community-oriented programs.
THE REST OF THE STAFF AT FIRST BAPTIST:
Minister of Music --- Braxton Kubasko
Children and Family Ministries Coordinator --- Amy Galloway
Organist --- Marshall Tyson
Administrative Staff --- Janice Holland, Glenda Strickland, Margie Crumley
Director of School Age Care Programs --- Donna Donovan
Director of Weekday Early Education --- June Ward
BOARD OF DEACONS:
Mike Carroll, chairman; Frank Creech, vice chairman; Brad Felts, secretary
Billy Baker, Gayle Bizzell, Linwood Byrd, Kay Carroll, David Council, Jerry Ferguson, Bill Galloway, Joan Hardy, Anesha Johnson, Clark Johnson, Mack Langdon, David Lasater, Blair Maust, Willie Smith, Harold Tharrington, June Ward, Henry Wright
For more information about First Baptist Church of Smithfield>