Remembering former Victorville Councilman, Calvary Chapel Pastor Paul Smith

Former Victorville councilman and Calvary Chapel Pastor Paul Smith will be remembered during a service this week in Victorville.

Smith, 93, was surrounded by family and loved ones when he died at Crystal Garden Assisted Living in Apple Valley, his wife, Ruth, told the Daily Press.

Smith’s memorial service is scheduled at 1 p.m. on Friday, at the church he pastored for 20 years, Calvary Chapel Victorville, 15081 Center St.

Paul Smith died on Aug. 1 and was laid to rest at Sunset Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary in Apple Valley, his family said.

Paul Smith “stepped into Heaven” and joined his late brother, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa Pastor Chuck Smith, who died of lung cancer in October 2013, Ruth Smith said.

In the late 1960s, Paul Smith helped his brother, Chuck, to establish the Calvary Chapel fellowship of churches during what many called the “Jesus Movement” or “Jesus Revolution,” highlighted by a movie with the same name.

“Paul was a wonderful man who poured his life into the city of Victorville and the lives of so many through is preaching of the word of God,” Ruth Smith said. “We came to Victorville in 1956 and watched it grow from a cow town to a big city. We also saw a lot of people come to Christ.”

The Smith family includes children Timothy Smith of Ohio, Stephen Smith of Victorville, and Debra Lee Smith. Also, eight grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren, the family said.

Dentist or pastor?

Born in Ventura, Paul Smith graduated from Santa Ana High School in 1947. A football scholarship nearly took him to Pepperdine College, where he would have studied dentistry.

After graduating from high school, Paul and his brother, Chuck, went on an evangelist trip to the Midwest, where “God called Paul into the ministry,” his family said.

Paul married his high school sweetheart, Ruth Franklin, during his junior year at LIFE Bible College in 1948. He was ordained in 1951.

As a young minister, Paul and his wife moved to North Carolina, twice, then Northern California, Oregon, and San Diego County.

“We came here to pastor the Foursquare Church on Union Street in Victorville, near the old junior high,” Paul Smith told the Daily Press in 2020.

In 1957, Paul Smith established a Missionary Assistance ministry for the Foursquare Church.

Tragedy

In 1958, Paul Smith’s other brother, Bill, at 24, was a relatively new pilot who had just purchased a small plane.

Deciding to take his father, Charles, on his first flight, Bill Smith took off from Hesperia and headed toward Santa Ana. However, a misread in navigational settings directed him toward San Diego instead.

“On the way back from San Diego, the plane ended up crashing into a mountain near Camp Pendleton,” Ruth Smith said. “It was such a tragedy.”

Education, teaching career

Paul Smith earned undergraduate degrees from Life Pacific College and Azusa Pacific University. Also, a master's degree from Chapman University. He also attended La Verne College, Cascade College, and the University of California, Riverside.

After graduating from Chapman, Paul Smith taught at Penn Military Academy, once located near the Foremost Retirement Community on Sultana Street in Hesperia. The school prepared middle and high school students for college.

Paul Smith was also a representative for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In the ’60s and ’70s, Paul Smith served on the faculty of Victor Valley College, where he taught history and political science for over 15 years. He also established an oral history program

717 votes

Paul Smith also served one term on the Victorville City Council, from 1968 to 1972.

During the 1968 election, three candidates won seats on the council, including Dave Brownell with 777 votes, incumbent Gladys Butts with 748, and Smith with 717.

His time on the council began nearly four years after Victorville was incorporated as a general law city with a population of less than 10,000.

Smith’s campaign was centered on a representative form of government that recognizes “the people as the only legitimate source of power.”

His goal on the council was to plan wisely for the city’s future expansion that would make Victorville the shopping hub of a larger Victor Valley that could have a population of nearly 300,000 by 1983.

Smith pushed for Victorville to pursue more opportunities for railroad expansion and an industrial park that would create job opportunities to help the average family “who earns $1,200 per year, less than the average wage earner in California” in 1968.

Smith did not seek reelection.

The Jesus Movement

During the “Jesus Movement” of the late ’60s and early ’70s, when thousands of young counterculturalists began turning to Christianity, Chuck Smith was heading up the newly formed Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. The church was seeing tremendous growth through Bible study, the birth of “Jesus Music” and the mentoring of new believers who would eventually plant churches.

During that time, Paul Smith helped his brother by establishing the Mojave Christian Association, a nonprofit that oversaw the Calvary Chapel “House Ministries” in the Victorville area.

Smith established two houses on Sixth Street in Victorville, the “Macedonia House,” and “the Ark.” The third house was known as “The Branch.”

“The houses were for new believers, mostly for hippies and kids off the streets who had accepted Jesus,” Smith told the Daily Press.

During that time, several young Christians who visited or stayed at the homes went on to pastor churches or develop ministries, the Smiths said.

Paul Smith said a young Skip Heitzig taught one of his first Bible studies at the ministry homes in Victorville before he moved to New Mexico.

According to 24/7 Wall Street, Heitzig’s home Bible study in the ’80s eventually grew to become Calvary Albuquerque, a church with an average weekly attendance of nearly 17,000.

During the late ’70s, Calvary Chapel of the High Desert was established in Hesperia under the Mojave Christian Association due to what Paul Smith described as “the hunger to have the spirit move through a local Calvary Chapel.”

‘The Word for Today’

The Smiths later moved to Orange County to help Chuck Smith launch an international radio ministry, “The Word For Today,” which developed into the Calvary Chapel-operated KWVE FM radio station.

Paul Smith also directed the Calvary Chapel Twin Peaks Bible College and provided leadership for the Calvary Chapel Outreach Fellowship.

“Paul’s greatest love was serving with his big brother and watching his ministry grow and develop worldwide,” his family said.

Supporting Israel

In February 1978, Smith returned from the Congress for the Peace of Jerusalem, where he confirmed the Israeli position of secured borders and charged the world media for allegedly “stirring a wave of propaganda against Israeli,” the Daily Press reported.

Smith claimed that the congress climaxed an eight-year effort made by Israeli government officials to gain evangelical support.

At that time, Smith said that the establishment of evangelical support for the Israeli position will be important in winning approval from the 40 million “Bible-believing American Christians” that are apt to support Israel's “right to existence” because of fundamental beliefs on the “end-times” spoken of in the Bible.”

Paul Smith visited Russia twice, teaching the Inductive Bible Study there and to people in Bulgaria and Albania, his family said.

Returning to Victorville

Paul and Ruth Smith later returned to the Victor Valley, where they helped launch Calvary Chapel Community Church in October 1984. The church met above a paint store on the corner of Seventh and A streets in downtown Victorville.

Some seven months later, church members helped purchase an abandoned school building next to Center Street Park for the construction of a new church. Its first service was held on Easter Sunday in April 1990. Paul Smith was pastor of the church until his retirement in 2004.

The serenity of Lucerne Valley

Paul Smith said while living in the serenity of Lucene Valley, the couple prayed, studied God’s word, and ministered to others.

“During our time here, I had a chance to finish my book, ‘New Evangelicalism: The New World Order,’” Paul Smith said about the book published in 2014.

In it, Pastor Chuck Smith, explains that his brother’s book, “... traces the tragic impact of the denial of the inerrancy of the Bible, plunging the church of the 21st century down the treacherous, slippery slope of accommodation and compromise.”

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Remembering former Victorville Councilman, Pastor Paul Smith