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The Ron Smith Episode · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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Our goal is to not only share our sermons, but to go beyond
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the sermon in conversations about what we're learning and
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what God is doing in our lives and our community.
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You can find out more information about our church at
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fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for joining us for this
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conversation. Well, thanks for joining us on
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the Beyond the Sermon podcast today for this conversation.
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And today we have a special guest here with us in do we call
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this a studio in the office around the desk.
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We've got a special guest for you.
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It's Ron Smith, our very own Ron Smith from right here in
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Collingswood. For those of you who don't know
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Ron here at the church, sometimes you'll see him working
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in the sound booth or in the slide computer working with the
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projection presentation. If you don't know, he's also our
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finance chair and all around great guy.
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Anything you want to start us off with by way of background
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about, you know, how long you've been in Collingswood, how long
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you've been part of this church? Anything about your family you
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want to share with us? Yeah, I think for background,
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been retarded was five years and I made a career at a computer
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programming software development for businesses for family
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background is probably key because there was a really one
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of the biggest moments of my life happened when I was six
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years old because my father was an officer in the Air Force.
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He made a career out of it after World War 2.
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And you know, by the time I was six years old, I lived in four
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different states because we moved around the country.
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And so we were living in Southern California at the time
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and the we went to pick him up at the Air Force Base.
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He just got back from about a month in Europe to run some
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bases there, and he collapsed and had a heart attack on a
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drive home, you know, So within an hour after his return, you
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know, my dad was dead. So Needless to say it, it really
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changed the course of my life. My mom moved us back to the
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hometown of my dad, which was in Winona, New Jersey, Gloucester
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County. And I often say that even though
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it was a tragedy not to know my dad that well, I had the
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blessing of getting getting know all for my grandparents so and I
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knew him all the way through high school and almost every
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week I get to see him and interact with him.
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So that was a blessing. But.
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That's certainly a life defining kind of event.
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Yeah, it changes everything. Yeah, it sure did.
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But having moved back to South Jersey, you know, we lived in
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Winona, which was where my dad grew up and my grandparents
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were, and they were very involved in the church there and
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back right across the street. It was across the street, which
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in Winona, everything is across the street.
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The metropolis that is. And so you live near your
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grandparents? I did also for almost that exact
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time frame, six years old on, I was across from my mom's
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grandparents right across the street.
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And so we grew up going to church with them as well.
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How did you view church? I would say at that time, was it
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just like something you got dragged to?
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Was it something you enjoyed going to?
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What was that like? I think I enjoyed it and, you
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know, it was something we we did.
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And of course, it was always tied in with a visit with my
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grandma and grandpa across the street and my uncle also who my
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dad's younger brother who, who lived there also.
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We, you know, I, my grandpa would sneak me a candy bar, you
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know, every week. Yeah.
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Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like first good man.
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So they were big bag in those days too.
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So. But no, I, I, I, you know, I was
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young, you know, I was like second grade, 3rd grade.
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And it was part of the, you know, that rhythm of life
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because and we, we did it and I enjoyed it.
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I really probably as much as any of my siblings.
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And I was familiar with it. I was comfortable with it.
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And in 4th grade, it was during spring break at school.
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And back in those days, I don't know if they called it vacation
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Bible school, but the churches would have classes for the kids
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during the spring break. And and so I was, you know, with
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there, there with a bunch of other kids.
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And they had, and near the end of the week, there was a gospel
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magician there who doing magic tricks and talking about the
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gospel story at the same time. And I had actually was kind of
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into magic tricks at that time. And I had a little set and I'd,
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you know, practice some. So but the at the end of his
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lesson, he, he, you know, pretty much like an altar call, even
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though I didn't know it was that, but he had to went to give
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the heart to Jesus, you know, raise a hand and walk forward.
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So I, it seemed very natural to me.
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And you know, it was like, of course, so I, you know, it's
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like 10 years old. And, and so that's, and then I
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got a piece of paper after it saying, you know, on this day
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you were born again. I said born again.
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That's OK. So, well anyway, so that was, I
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guess that's how I came to Christ and it was pretty
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natural. And through high school I, I
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always enjoyed going. We didn't have a real youth
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group there after, after 6th grade.
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I don't think there was any. There certainly wasn't anything
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during the Sunday hour, and I think it was in the evening, but
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I tried it out once or twice and it didn't.
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You know, I was into other things.
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But then, you know, I was really hanging out with the small
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church kids. Wasn't my thing.
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What so then? No, this isn't you.
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Lost the love for magic? Teenage years Runs what?
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What were the interest? Sports, sports baseball.
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I was Winona was a baseball town.
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It was it was, you know, that was my love and you know, and
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that's I actually, I'd play other sports with pickup games,
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but I would never I did it wouldn't allow myself to watch
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it on TV because it would detract from my focus on
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learning about baseball so I could play it for the exercise.
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But but anyway, so baseball was really what I really.
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Really loved yeah. Did you end up playing in
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college? One year, yeah, OK.
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One year. Where'd you go to college and
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what did you study? OK, well, my first year I went
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to, I had to get out of New Jersey for one thing.
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So it was maybe part of the military moving around type
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perspective. And I, I really want to get out
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of the small town. So I went to Indiana University
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in Bloomington IN my first year and I was in a dorm.
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I lived in a dorm with more people than the town I went on
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or the town I came from. So that was that was a big
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change, but I transferred, I transferred to Washington
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University in Saint Louis for my sophomore year.
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I finished up there. It's a long story, but yeah,
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probably. But anyway.
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That was it, the same major at both schools.
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That was another thing I was really trying to figure out.
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I started as chemistry, I switched to anthropology, then
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I, I transferred for the School of architecture and then, but
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then I realized it can't be an architect and playing the
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baseball team because architecture studio class on it.
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So I, I went back to anthropology and I played
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baseball one season and I just that was it, you know, so that
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was the end of my baseball. I got involved in other things,
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which was, you know. Part of anthropology to
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computers and technology well. What are you going to do with a
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degree in anthropology? Move somewhere where they're
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still digging. And I, I did actually.
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I had two seasons actually digging and working for a
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contract archaeologists in Wyoming shortly after college.
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But in order to really make a career of it, I'd had to have to
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go back to school really. And I, I was, I was happy to get
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4 year degree and that was, I was so ready to get out.
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So I, so that was an option. So when I first got out of
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college and I was back home because I didn't know what I was
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going to do. And I, I got a job first pumping
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gas at a filling station, but that didn't work out too well.
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I, you know, so I got a job as a Courier for data processing
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company Cherry Hill, because I like drive course, you know, so
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and that was my foot in the door.
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And you know, it's just back in those days it was a big IBM
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mainframe with key punch cards and reels of tape.
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That was how data got into the computer.
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That was my introduction to computers and eventually after I
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got married in 1980, I realized I really need a job which is
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going to be more steady because I was an archaeologist when I
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got married. I need a job to be steady and it
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definitely income. I thought I remember working for
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that data processing place in Cherry Hill, so maybe I should
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go into computers. So took night school and
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programming and I found a company that would hire me a
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very low bottom of the pay grade to the operator programmer.
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And from there was this job opportunities and project
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opportunities and just being able to produce.
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That was the big thing about those days and computers.
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I mean if you could produce a result and it worked with a
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program or fixing a a broken program, you know you were in
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anyway. They don't care what degree you
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had. If you could.
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Do the job. You could do the job.
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Yeah. So.
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So that's man, you know, it wound up.
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I spent 45 years in the business and went through all kinds of
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changes. You know, PCs were new, the
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Internet was new. Went through all that Y2K
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crisis, you know, went through that, you know, outsourcing, you
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know where most of programming went overseas.
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I had to change from my programming a business analyst
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where I started writing specifications for the program.
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Is it so they would what develop and then finally even did help
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with a couple mobile apps before I retired.
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So lot of lot of saw a lot of changes and most of my software
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was it's pretty much it was all for earlier days.
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It was more counting type stuff. Hence my, you know, my comfort.
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We work with church finances and later on with the Internet
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became more search search engine and for our database and
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storefronts to facilitate the search and of course credit card
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capture for purchases. The inventor of Ask.
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Jeeves, no, we were, we were more businesses.
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Business really. Yeah, yeah.
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And, and you mentioned that one of the things that led to the
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transition career wise was getting married.
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Absolutely. So tell us that story.
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How did you meet the misses and all that?
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OK, well, well. Real story.
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Another, another. Well, you know, again, I was
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doing a lot of stuff in my younger years and one of them
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was I moved into Philly too, because I went to always went to
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live in Center City Philly. So I moved into Philly and I got
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a temporary job working on a reorganization of the Pens
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bankrupt Penn Central Railroad into the new Penn Central
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Corporation. So they the bank hired a whole
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bunch of temporary employees. I was one of them and John was
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my wife was another one and we met.
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We were office romance like, like, and that's how.
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Before they had HR. Yeah, oh, it was just one big
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huge room, open desk, rose upon rose at desk.
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And you, you could see everything going on Anyway, so
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that's how we met. And, you know, within a year I
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proposed and, you know, a year and a half we were married so.
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And then and. Then how many kids?
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03 Stephanie, Benjamin and Caitlin.
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And four grandkids. So just such a blessing.
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We, yeah, we spent sixteen straight years with kids at
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Garfield School in town here in Collingswood.
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Yeah. You know, we moved to
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Collingswood because when Joe was pregnant with Stephanie, our
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first child, she was working in Philly and I was working in
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Cherry Hill. So we wanted some place in the
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middle. So and through the high speed
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line, it just made a lot of sense.
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So there you go. So that's how you wound up in
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town here? Yeah.
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So that's how you got in Collingswood.
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And then how long until you got involved here at First
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Methodist? It was a while because I was,
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you know, part of my walk with the Lord was the big part where
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I walked away from the Lord. I mean, I especially after high
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school or the senior in high school, I decided I was going to
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start having fun, you know, so I started going drinking parties
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and, and doing that stuff. And man, it continued on out of
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college, in college and later on, I still believed and I still
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would pray every night at the end of the day.
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But you know what I was doing, I'd go to church maybe once or
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twice a year. So and that continued on and,
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and, and then you get into the job.
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I started my career and children started coming along and you
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know, things are just, you know, so much going on and church
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wasn't part of it at that time. And it's interesting.
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And in programming and computers, you really get a
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sense of being in control of everything because he got to be,
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you're telling a computer what to do.
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And if you make one little silly little punctuation error, it
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could do some crazy stuff. So well, I'm a detail wearing a
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guy. And so I, I was a good fit for
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the job, but you know, it got to the point where I'm focused more
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on controlling things. And I thought and I, I was
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working for a company. I was kind of in charge of DPI,
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was in charge of deep data processing and some hiring
15:54
people. And, and I thought it could
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control people, you know, and this and I, I ran into a
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situation where I was pretty much betrayed by somebody I
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hired and it caused a lot of anger.
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And it, it got to the point where it is out of my control.
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What was I was up to upper management, you know, the whole
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situation is out of my control. And I was so angry the way I was
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betrayed and and I had two kids at this time, young.
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I harbored this anger for months.
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And I did distress the inside. I, you know, I would try to
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relieve it in the evening. I'd walk around town, this town,
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you know, for like an hour every night just to calm myself down
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so I could rest. And I was losing weight and, you
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know, you even have like a panic attack, you know, thinking about
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some things. And so it's rough, so.
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This is fascinating to me because anger wouldn't even be
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in the top 100 words that I would use to ever describe you.
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You know, knowing you just for these last five years, you know
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that that is like the furthest thought from my mind.
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Well, you know, maybe I kept, I kept it in.
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I didn't, I guess I did express it somewhat, but a lot of it I
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kept inside and maybe because, you know, my, my family, we want
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to express it. Overall, I think the family I
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grew up in and we but anyway, so it was one of those times.
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It was like maybe the late 80s, nineteen 80s.
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I was walking around town. I walked by this church and I
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saw with placard out front and I saw that who the the minister
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was. And I said it was David Cousins
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and he was the minister of the church in Winona when I was in
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high school. So I said, OK, you know, well,
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maybe I'll come here. The Lord was pulling you back to
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church for sure. He said you need to you need to
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get back involved. And so I came here and just to
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check it out, you know, and it could have been any church
18:20
really in town, but because I had that connection to my youth.
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It. Brought me here and things
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finally broke at work and all my pressure was relieved.
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And you know, it's just a pretty incredible experience how it
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happened. But I don't know if I could
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really talk about it. It's extremely personal, but it
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was a in summary, it's I, I really felt the power of the
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Holy Spirit and I it was he was the Holy Spirit was so real to
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me. It was just my after having my,
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my thought was, well, the virgin birth.
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That's really I could see how that could happen now.
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That power of the Holy Spirit is incredible.
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So, so, but anyway, so you know, I mentioned I'd gone here once
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or twice. I fill at the pad and, you know,
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visit her and and I got a call from I guess, OK, I mean it was
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Ruth Doherty that Doherty's are and she called me and invited
19:26
her to their house for tea just to talk.
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And so OK, so I went over there and she she hooked, she said,
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and she asked some questions about me and I told I did have a
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church background. It's not, you know, I just
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haven't been involved, you know, And so she got me suggested I go
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attend the Barnabas class, which was Bill and Jan Biddle and Dave
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and Marilyn Duffy at the time. And that was what I needed.
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It was to get back into a weekly fellowship and study of
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Scripture and to learn about it and prayer support.
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And I was. Come in more for that.
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Yeah, for the worship service. But you know, I, I would do
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both. But it was.
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So that's how I got back in this church.
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And that was about 1990. Wow.
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There's so much for me to take in.
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It's it's so great. I I'm, I'm loving every bit of
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it. In regards to the experience you
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had at the end of that tumultuous time at work, would
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you say that that was like an experience unlike anything else
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up and to that point in your life, that it was so wholly and
20:43
different? Yeah.
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Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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Yeah. It was a yeah.
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I thought it basically it started when at work, my higher
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up said, OK, we're we're having a riff, a reduction of force.
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And it just so happens that this person that was causing you
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betrayed you caused all these trouble, that person's going
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too. And so it was like, so was a
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relief. It was like that whole tension,
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workplace tension of the last eight months was disappearing.
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And I walked at it and I felt like I was my, I was having
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trouble breathing on the way home and I felt like, almost
21:29
like I was having a heart attack.
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And so that was led into this whole experience.
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Yeah, because, because as we've been studying in the Holy Spirit
21:38
personally, separately, and then also like as a collective about
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how how the the spirit brings peace beyond understanding.
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And it's, and it can be in, in my, in my time.
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It's when, when I'm in the moment, it's like, oh, there's,
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I feel like this is what so many people are yearning for.
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And in that moment, it's like, oh, this is, it's only through
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God, It's only through his spirit that we can truly
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experience that. And yet people work so hard in
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various ways through their life to try and achieve a peace and
22:16
contentment as true as that. And so I love how one of the
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connections you made was, if this is possible for me, then
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everything I've the stories I know of scripture aren't just
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stories, but I can see how it can actually be true because of
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my experience. Because God gave me a small
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glimpse. Yeah.
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So yeah. Oh my.
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Gosh, yeah, that's. And I love it.
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Yeah, the piece was I went from from total distress to in having
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thinking like I couldn't breathe to the Lord brought my hands
22:57
together in prayer and I prayed for so long.
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Like the tears came down my face and then they evaporated and I
23:07
was still praying. And I don't know how long it
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was. It's probably, I don't know,
23:12
30-60 minutes or something. And it was just, yeah.
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So it was, it was like nothing I've ever felt before or
23:19
experienced before, you know, we're just, but it really, you
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know, and and it's something I really haven't shared with many
23:27
people, a couple people. But the Holy Spirit's real.
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I mean, it, it, it's amazing. It it.
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Yeah, and that's why I appreciate you sharing and and
23:40
on the phone because I'm, I'm learning more and more that in a
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Christian nation like ours, where culturally Christian
23:48
people can be very familiar with the stories from scripture,
23:53
especially if they go Christmas Easter with their families, but
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they feel like, well, that God a isn't real and also isn't doing
24:01
anything today. And so to hear stories like
24:05
yours and testimonies of yours, I think is, is so powerful.
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I, I always push with our, our youth in Acts whenever Paul is
24:15
before a court or judges or whatever and they're like, you
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know, we're accusing you of all these horrible things that we're
24:22
going to either imprison you or torture you or kill you,
24:25
depending on how you answer. Instead of giving the evidence
24:29
of Jesus's resurrection, he shares the testimony of how he
24:32
met Jesus on the road to Emmaus, which I think he does like 3 or
24:37
maybe 4 times in Acts. Damascus.
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I'm definitely going to edit that to Damascus.
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And so like, I, I think testimonies like this are just
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so encouraging and spreading on my faith.
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Yeah, and I think it helps us see in a real person's life who
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we know. It's just it's it's evidence
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that one of one of the things that I say regularly that the
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stories in Scripture, they're not just stories of all these
25:08
exceptions, right? They're examples.
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It's what God does and to hear a testimony like yours of what God
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has done even today, even though it was a few years ago, it's
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just it's a beautiful thing, beautiful thing.
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And he, he let me go for, you know, try to, you know, go back
25:31
to growing up without a dad. You know, I had like a kind of
25:34
chip on my shoulder about I was angering me, I think even about
25:39
missing out on that. And nobody was going to tell me
25:42
how to do anything. And I had to do things on my
25:44
own. And so I think the Lord knew I
25:48
had to go through this phase where like I said, I wasn't
25:53
going to church except maybe once or twice a year.
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And I, I pray at night before bed and that was it.
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And otherwise my life I was living wasn't really glorifying
26:03
God in anyway. It was with the parties and the
26:06
social life and congregating with that rock concerts, you
26:10
know, not really congregating at a church.
26:13
Oh who? Is your favorite band at the
26:14
time? Well, I I liked the band.
26:19
Yes, classical rock. I like them a lot.
26:22
The tubes always put on a good show.
26:25
Tubes. I have to look up the tubes.
26:27
So, yeah. But I like country music, too.
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So it's kind of yeah, like Emmylou Harrison, you know?
26:36
So it's kind of variety, yeah. And, and it's interesting, I
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don't, I don't know if there's maybe maybe it is a direct
26:44
connection for me. I also didn't have my father
26:48
very present around that same age, 5-6 years old.
26:51
And so I also had a lot of anger issues and like one point in
26:56
high school at a yard. So I just bought a punching bag
26:58
so I can just go and punch my punching bag whenever I got all
27:01
flustered. And so I'm wondering if there's
27:03
a sort of thing. And then, and then the Lord has
27:05
just worked on that over the years extensively.
27:08
But there's a question that I'm sure after hearing all of this,
27:12
that many people listening might be asking in the 80s in the tech
27:17
world and business world, how wide were the ties and how big
27:22
were the shoulder pads and the suits?
27:28
Well, it's funny when I, I guess it was actually the 90s when
27:35
Speaking of ties and shoulder, we didn't have to wear, we don't
27:38
wear ties or shoulder pads until I got a job with McGraw Hill and
27:43
that was the big headquarters in Manhattan, you know, and that
27:48
that was, they were all New York suits.
27:50
And so that's when, and that was when was when I get 1992.
27:55
I guess it was when I got hired there.
27:58
And so no, we were all, no, it was in the 80s.
28:07
It was in a way a bunch of Cowboys.
28:10
It was a new field really a new way to earn a living.
28:15
And as I mentioned before, you know, if you could produce, he
28:19
didn't care where you came from. One of the best programs I knew
28:22
back in those days, he used to be a mailman.
28:25
And his story was he was poured out a pack of matches to light a
28:29
cigarette and, and, and then match cover said you can become
28:33
a computer programmer. And so he answered it and became
28:37
a computer programmer. That's how it was.
28:39
I mean, it was, yeah, almost anybody could get into it, but
28:45
not almost anybody could stay in it.
28:47
Yeah, because, yeah. And that's one of the things I'm
28:50
so interested in that world that the people I know in the tech
28:53
world are very similar. So like my cousin's husband got
28:58
in a hockey injury and was bedridden for eight months
29:01
afterwards. And he just read a bunch of
29:03
books on coding. And this was like early 2000s.
29:07
And then almost to me, no, no college degree, got into
29:12
programming and and coding. And then he did cool government
29:18
job where essentially they like create a security system and
29:24
your job is to breakthrough the security system to find the
29:27
holes and then they patch them up.
29:29
And so becoming like a professional hacker.
29:32
And it's just like all because of what he thought was going to
29:35
be the worst thing of being bedridden, not being able to
29:38
play hockey. And then it let him into Korean.
29:40
So I love that with how tech is developed so rapidly.
29:44
Or like we just need people that can do it.
29:46
Right. And it was we'd have to worry
29:49
about security as much back before the Internet and
29:52
networking, computers and everything.
29:54
It was more just he got a job, make a program which can do a
29:58
job, you know, run stand alone so you don't have to worry about
30:02
that part of it. Yeah.
30:04
So as we as I'm thinking of technology progressing and
30:07
moving forward and God's church as time continues, as always
30:12
moving forward, what are you most excited about specifically
30:16
at First Methodist Collingswood for the future of this church?
30:20
What I'm most excited about is in a way, what I've always been
30:25
excited about here, which is the, the focus on Scripture,
30:30
small groups learning, studying the Word of God, fellowshipping
30:36
with other seekers and believers who did to try to encourage each
30:41
other. I, I see that continuing.
30:44
I think it's been a long, it's been ongoing here, which is I
30:50
think why I'm still here, you know, 35 years later.
30:55
Is it 35? Yeah, about 35 years later.
30:58
It's, it's still going on and it's church.
31:01
It's, and that's why I'm still excited, I guess, if that makes
31:06
sense. It's a good place to be.
31:10
You know, I feel always, every Sunday or just focus on Sunday
31:17
coming on the official worship day, so to speak.
31:21
You know, I always leave refreshed.
31:26
Yeah. And even sometimes with some
31:28
things that ponder. So, so that's kind of what
31:33
you've seen in the church. What's God teaching you these
31:38
days? I would say maybe to be even
31:42
more faithful when I walk in the life I live just trying to
31:49
refine me even more. And it's kind of a general way
31:54
of saying it, but that's without being too personal.
31:57
That's that's essentially what's way I feel God's leading me to
32:03
help others more, maybe be a little bit little bit less
32:08
self-centered. Yeah, yeah.
32:11
But it's, it's ongoing, you know, it's, it's a so long as I
32:16
can breathe, you know, it's a. Process Yeah, very blessed to be
32:21
here to have you be a part of what God is doing here.
32:27
I mean, like I, I tell you, hopefully not, not enough
32:30
probably is the giftings with numbers and sheets and
32:34
organization all that, that my brain would melt at the attempt
32:38
of doing any of the things you do.
32:40
And so I'm very much appreciative of that.
32:44
And I know that whenever Ron's on slides and tech that it's
32:48
going to get done and I don't have to worry, have to worry
32:52
about anything. And you always ask good
32:54
questions to make sure that you know what's what's going to
32:56
happen and when things are going to happen.
32:58
And so, yeah, I just appreciate all the areas that you're
33:01
serving this church. And I'm so grateful that you're
33:04
not just using your skills and talents for the church.
33:08
But it sounds like you are walking with the Lord and he's
33:11
refining other areas outside of the church in your life, which I
33:16
think is incredible. Well, that's our conversation
33:19
for today, but that doesn't mean the conversation is over.
33:22
We'd love to hear your thoughts on these topics as well.
33:25
To ask a question about anything we've discussed in this episode
33:28
or to join the conversation, you can head over to
33:31
fumccollingswood.org/podcast. Thanks for being part of this
33:37
conversation.