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Donald Schmidt is the senior pastor of Lakeland Baptist Church in Lewisville, where he has served since 2014. He holds a Master of Divinity and Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The author of the book Prophetic Patterns in the Passion of Jesus: Typological Uses of Davidic Psalms by John and Luke, Schmidt also serves on the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Board. He has been married to Melody for almost 12 years, and they have three children—Titus, Truett, and Kinsley.
What is something you’re grateful to God for about your church?
I’m grateful our church engages our community monthly in some type of evangelistic outreach. Over the past seven years, God has empowered us to share the gospel with thousands of people through door-to-door evangelism, apartment block parties, local mission trips, and city partnerships, among various outreaches. Encouragingly, we’ve seen our corporate evangelism lead to personal evangelism in the lives of many of our members. At Lakeland, I’m so thankful our people not only believe in praying missionally and giving missionally, but also living missionally.
What do you appreciate most about your current ministry team?
God has privileged me to work with a stellar team of men and women who love Jesus supremely and who are very gifted at what they do. They are such a joy to serve with and advance the gospel alongside. One quality I truly appreciate about our staff is that they do not erect barriers or walls around their ministries. Instead, they willingly and joyfully cross over into each other’s ministries to do whatever is needed to help accomplish the greater mission of the church—to make disciples who make disciples.
What’s one lesson you’ve learned to this point of your ministry you know you’ll never forget?
When I came to Lakeland 10 years ago, I knew God desired our church to be a praying church, but I really didn’t know what it looked like to lead the church to prioritize prayer. As the late Paul Powell [quoting Oswald Chambers] once said, “Prayer does not fit us for greater works; prayer is the greater work.” Through steps we’ve taken to grow in the ministry of prayer, I’ve learned that when we pray, we experience God’s power, presence, and blessings upon our worship, our ministry, and our missional efforts that we would not experience otherwise. It’s imperative, therefore, that lead pastors devote themselves to the ministry of corporate prayer.
What’s one thing you’d like to see God do specifically at Lakeland this year?
One of our church’s most impactful ministries is Lakeland Christian Academy, our church’s private Christian school. We’d love to see God connect many of the unchurched families who are a part of our school with our church this year.
How can other SBTC churches be praying for you?
Pray that God will keep our staff close and clean in our walk that we might finish our races well for Jesus, and pray that God will
keep our church committed to doing whatever it takes to reach
our neighbors and the nations with the gospel.
