Staff
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Dr. Matthew Lee Smith
Executive Director
Eagles In Leadership is lead by Dr. Matthew Lee Smith, Ph.D. Dr. Smith was born in Wisconsin. He was unaware of his need for Jesus Christ as personal savior until senior high school. As a sophomore, his history teacher shared The Four Spiritual Laws with him. There in that teacher’s office, Matthew prayed to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and put Christ on the Throne of his life as Lord.
Changes happened to Dr. Smith quickly. Soon his high school Spanish teacher, asked him to help begin a teen Bible study. Soon 40-50 teens met for study weekly. At his teacher’s church, Pastor Myron Higby challenged him to consider full-time Christian service. After a trip to the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, Illinois and Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, he began to pray over God’s will for his life. God called him to Moody and Trinity. It was at Moody that Matthew surrendered to the call of God for ministry in a chapel service.
Marrying the joy of his eyes, Melodee Joy, the new couple moved to Southern California where he served as a volunteer youth pastor, as a part-time youth pastor and as a missionary pastor where they served for many years.
God brought about a life-changing step in Matthew and Melodee’s life when the couple accepted the call to East Los Angeles County. This was a time of great growth and development from a leadership standpoint for them. Turning around a dying church in an Hispanic community, the next 11 years allowed them to teach and train countless leaders in the Southwest and Mexico through leadership conferences and consulting opportunities. While there, Matthew earned his Masters of Arts in Ministry in Chicago and his Doctor of Philosophy in Christian Theology in Southern California.
Dr. Smith has since pastored churches in Iowa and Florida. These opportunities allowed them to expand God’s Kingdom and reach out with mission teams throughout the United States, Mexico and France. Currently he is the Transformation (Senior) Pastor at the First Baptist Church of Palos Verdes, California. He is also on the faculty at California Baptist University in the School of Christian Ministries, California Pacific School of Theology and Colorado Christian University.
Matthew’s habit of rising early to read the Bible and prayer has been a source of great strength and understanding when it comes to leadership development. He reads the Bible at least once per year cover to cover. He enjoys an intimate, spiritual walk with God, enjoying hundreds of answers to prayer every quarter, and hundreds of new insights monthly from God’s Word (having read it cover-to-cover some 25 times since 1993). It is his habit to label and file each insight topically for future retrieval for messages. Currently he has some 15,000 plus topical observations from the Bible that are a direct result of God’s intimate work during his devotional time.
Mike Powers
Executive Vice President of Media
Mike has 20 years experience in broadcasting. A 3-year stint as a sports broadcaster (professional Baseball on radio and football on TV) brought Mike to the call God had on his life. Even though Mike enjoyed sports greatly, an ongoing, deeper relationship with God caused Mike to use his talents for ministry. In 1987, Mike joined the team at Life 102.5 in Madison Wisconsin. First as a part time announcer, later an afternoon news anchor, then in June of 2003, Mike became host of the Afternoon program. Each weekday afternoon between 3:00 & 6:00 PM (Central Time) you will hear a mix of positive music, a little humor, experiences from Mike’s life and a desire to celebrate life with his listeners. Mike feels like this is the place where God can best use his talents and abilities.
You can listen to Mike live on Life 102.5 and click the “LISTEN ONLINE FM” button between 3:00 and 6:00 PM, Monday - Friday (Central Time). Mike still keeps his hand in the sports world by doing local television during football season. He gets an even bigger kick (as a former football place-kicker) as host of local sports ministry events. He has worked with the local “Athletes in Action” & Fellowship of Christian Athletes” ministry projects over the last twelve years.
Over the years Mike has worked with Eagles In Leadership on a variety of projects, including NFL Super Bowl outreach and Leadership Development training seminars. Mike recently accepted the post of Executive Vice President of Media in an effort to magnify and multiply the effects of Eagles In Leadership ministries. Mike resides in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and is an active part of his church home at Northside Christian Assembly in Madison. He ministers to a variety of local churches and men’s groups.
