An Interview with Our New Executive Director: Jason Smith

I sat drinking coffee with Doris in Puerto Rico during the summer of 2022. We caught up with each other talking about academia, BPFNA, the island, and family. This was the first time I heard about Jason. I remember Doris and I talking about doing an interview with Jason. I think Jason had some sort of the same idea because he emailed me a week later to meet via Zoom and chat. He took the time to ask insightful questions and talk honestly about goals and projects for our organization. It was a conversation I valued and treasured a lot. I told him I would email him some questions so that our constituency could see many of the great aspects of his personality and leadership. What follows is an interview we had together sometime in August 2022. Please, take the time to read thoroughly about Jason Smith, our new Executive Director.

RD: Tell us a bit about yourself, Jason.

JS: One of the ways I describe myself is in relation to those closest around me. Firstly, I am a husband to Myra, who I have been married to for 13 years! I am also a parent to Maryi (15), Santi (12), Tedi (8), and Elton (2). I’m also the child of Baptist missionaries and lived in Costa Rica as a child. Having grown up speaking Spanish and working with churches in different contexts has given me a rich story to draw on, and I sincerely would not have done anything differently. 

JS: As a kid, my earliest memories in the church were singing ‘coritos’ and reading the Bible together out loud in the congregation. I’ve had the privilege of watching tremendous preachers, including my mother (who says she’s not a preacher, but she is!) and my father, whose gift came from watching his grandfather. I’ve sung in choirs, played piano at church, rung bells in the handbell choir, and participated fully with many communities of faith that have enriched and nourished me. It is a joy to walk with people of faith on a shared journey, and I am blessed to have been able to do this in so many contexts. 

JS: Other things about me: I love the show Ted Lasso (season 3 please?), watching (and playing) soccer, the Little Rock Rangers soccer team, and playing piano. I can play just about any Elton John song and prefer playing by ear.

RD: When and where was your first encounter with BPFNA? Tell us a bit about that.

JS: My first “encounter” with BPFNA was most likely Carol Blythe and Rick Goodman inviting me (to no avail) to join Peace Camp during my Calvary/seminary days. They tried hard to get us there, but alas, perhaps I was not ready. 

JS: I must say that the most Spirit-filled week I have had in the last ten years was being with all of you at Peace Camp in Toluca, Mexico. This was my first peace camp, and I truly believe the magic of the Spirit hovered in the air that week. I have told so many people about the power of being in the space, the stone walls with their ancient stories, the faces of new and old friends, and a worship experience that was rich and brought me to tears each evening; when I hear just the words “Cuando te vimos…” “When did we see you…” I am taken back to the richness of this experience.

RD: Before working with BPFNA, what did you do?

JS: After college, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and went to a semester of law school outside D.C. before realizing I yearned to do something different. It was at BPFNA~Bautistas por la Paz partner Calvary Baptist Church in D.C. where I felt the Spirit surging within me to follow a deeper calling. I joined Calvary as youth director and got to learn church leadership with tremendous pastors on staff: Amy Butler, Edgar Palacios, and Leah Grundset were the ones who nurtured my early calling and supported my attending Wesley Theological Seminary, where I earned my M.Div. 

JS: I was able to take two intercultural immersions to El Salvador during this time, and I realized I was being called to use my gifts in more broad ways to support movements for peace and justice in our world. I joined the staff of the Alliance of Baptists and helped to raise funds for projects around the world through writing grants, developing appeals, and major gift asks. Most recently, I served as Director of Strategic Gifts with Sojourners in Washington D.C. and worked to cultivate relationships with major donors, plan events, and offer leadership to their 50th Anniversary capital campaign. 

RD: What is it about BPFNA that moved you to apply and eventually become our new director?

JS: Since coming to BPFNA, I have felt a part of this community, this movement, this family that is so committed to justice, so eager to work, and so daring to dream of a world of holistic peace. I joined the board of directors, and in March 2020, at my second board meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, we absorbed the pandemic reality together. Since then, I have been with the organization as we have navigated very difficult times, yet we have tried to keep peace at the center of our work.  

JS: Living out peace is something I’ve learned from all of you that must be done intentionally and practically. The human-made systems of efficiency and labor have driven us to work incessantly, a process that is taking a toll on our bodies and souls. Our world leaders use conflict, violence, and war as tools for stability, believing that these sharpened pre-historic methods will somehow ease our fears even though they’ve led to more fear. The technology we’ve created has connected us, but it has also distracted us from each other, substituting our conversations, physical embraces, and embodied realities with a substitute of light and electricity. I believe everything BPFNA stands for helps bring peace to our bodies, peace to our engagement with the world, and peace in our interpersonal relationships. I was moved to apply because I see my gifts as being beneficial to the goals of our movement, and I want to see us grow and be even more resourceful to peacemakers around the world.

RD: Where do you see BPFNA moving, and what are some of your goals for our organization?

JS: As an organization, we have sought to become intentionally intercultural, antiracist, and decentralized. I believe that we have made great headway in seeking out these goals but must continue to work to put these into practice. I am proud of the ways our organization has sought to be deliberately bilingual, offering English and Spanish interpretation at meetings and seeking to fold each of our cultural backgrounds with one another to form a colorful tapestry of ideas and values that enriches our movement. We’ve sought to become antiracists and have focused on educating each other on how white supremacy controls many of our systems. And our approach to polity and structure moves us closer to being a decentralized organization, where members have access to agency and voices that otherwise might be silenced are amplified and encouraged to lead. But we still have much work to do to become more intercultural, we still must use an antiracist lens to frame all of our engagements, and we must define more clearly how we can live in a decentralized organization.  

JS: The practical framework with which BPFNA has defined its actions, Gathering, Equipping, and Mobilizing, is still at the heart of how we will grow and work in the world. I believe we need to focus strongly on our gatherings, making sure we are creating accessible spaces for peacemakers from around the world to be together, enveloped and strengthened by each others’ presence, nourished communally by the breath of the Spirit. I also see BPFNA continuing its mobilizing work, uniting partner congregations and individuals across our member nations, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S., to seek out shared issue advocacy and provide energy for localized movements. We’re also here to equip present and future peacemakers by creating and curating resources to deepen our commitment and sharpen our skillset. One of the most exciting projects we have been engaged with is an effort to plant seeds for the next generation of peacemakers through our Children and Youth webpage resources project. I’m excited that BPFNA is helping to gather these resources and promote them to our constituency and beyond, uniting us across countries and cultures in the work of peace well into the future.

RD: Do you want to share some words with our constituency? 

JS: To the peacemakers who have remained with BPFNA for many years, I’d like to say “thank you.” As someone fairly new to our movement, I hope to lean on your wisdom and experience as we enter this new chapter together. Thank you for holding on tightly to the work of peace and being catalysts in your communities and globally. Soon, BPFNA will celebrate its 40th anniversary, and we are here to celebrate this milestone because of you and your testimony of peace. I hope you will continue to share with BPFNA in creative ways. If you have financial resources to share, I would love to talk with you about some ideas and upcoming projects to support! If you have time to share, we would love to connect you with places where your gifts will be valued and used in constructive ways toward the work of peace. If you have the energy to pray, I would ask that you keep the staff, the board, and our partner peacemakers around the world close to your hearts. 

JS: And I want to especially invite you to join us at our 2023 Peace Camp, which we hope will be a homecoming for peacemakers. After three years of being apart physically, we need each other, and we are looking forward to Peace Camp in June 2023 in Puerto Rico, just after the ABC biennial. Stay tuned for more details to follow soon!

JS: I am in gratitude for all of you, for the individuals, groups, congregations, theological institutions, and organizations that have shared with us in partnership, and I hope you’ll join us for what the Spirit will bring. Peace.