Story by Christmas Beeler

Kay Smith, beloved wife of Calvary Chapel founder Pastor Chuck Smith, passed away peacefully at her home on August 13, 2021, preceded by Chuck in 2013.

Shortly after her death, Calvary Chapel Magazine chronicled the memories of Kay from numerous pastors’ wives who had worked closely with her. They fondly shared examples of her powerful and loving way of ministering to others. In this installment from that story, published in print Issue 89 (Fall 2021), Karyn Johnson and Sandy MacIntosh recount examples of Kay’s patient encouragement.

Karyn Johnson

Karyn has shared how Kay gently helped her to overcome her fears as a young woman to become a highly respected women’s leader throughout the Calvary Chapel family.

Fear & Baby Steps

Trying to ignore the fear churning in her stomach, Karyn Johnson sat timidly in the meeting that Kay Smith had organized with several young pastor’s wives. The women were planning a retreat to exhort other Calvary Chapel pastors’ wives, and Kay wanted each of the women to be involved in some way. Don’t call on me; don’t call on me, Karyn thought, keeping her eyes down.

Karyn was grateful that God had saved her and her husband Jeff Johnson, pastor of Calvary Chapel Downey, CA, but she didn’t feel that she fit in with this group of women leaders in the Calvary movement. She was nothing like the fearless and bold Sharon Ries, the wife of Raul Ries and the daughter of foreign missionaries. The other women in the room seemed eager to serve the Lord, yet Karyn struggled with fear. She was afraid of speaking, of being spoken to, of teaching, and even of sitting by someone like Kay Smith at lunch because of the spotlight.

Kay shared Scripture with Karyn: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7, KJV). Karyn knew her fear was not from God, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

Invading her thoughts, Kay’s quiet voice broke her reverie: “Karyn?”

Karyn froze, looking up into Kay’s kind, knowing eyes. “Karyn, what can you do at the retreat? Do you have something that you’d like to share with the ladies?” Karyn hesitated. Kay continued, “What about that lovely adoption ministry you started, helping find Christian homes for the babies of unwed mothers? You could talk about that.”

This was a subject both women were passionate about. Not many people knew that Kay Smith herself had been abandoned as an infant; years later, her family would learn that Kay had been born to a Hollywood couple who wanted freedom to pursue their careers in New York.

Karyn didn’t want to let her friend down, but she couldn’t imagine herself on stage. “I don’t know,” she muttered, miserably.

“What could we do that would make you more comfortable?” Kay asked patiently.

Karyn thought about it. “Well, if I shared a slide show,” she ventured, “then maybe I could talk about it from the back instead of on stage? And the room could be really dark. Like, dark-dark. With all the lights out.”

One of the other women interjected, “You can’t do that!”

Kay interjected, “Yes, she can. That sounds very good, Karyn.” So Karyn shared her slide show at a retreat in 1983; many women were inspired to get involved. Nowadays, Karyn often speaks to groups of several hundred ladies at women’s events as part of her ministry.

“She let me take baby steps,” Karyn recalled. “We talked about fear all the time. She told me that fear was rooted in self. ‘Karyn, you’ll always be nervous. You better be careful if you’re not. You don’t want to have so much self-confidence that you’re not relying on the Lord.’”

They talked about the pastors’ wives’ retreat. “Kay told me, ‘Their need is greater than your fears. It’s like they’re bleeding, and you’re afraid of blood.’ Well, that was the game changer for me. I was a nurse, and there was never a patient I wouldn’t help,” Karyn said. “She helped me see that the pastors’ wives needed to be ministered to.”

Years later, Kay was a kind support when Karyn’s daughter became pregnant out of wedlock. “I called her, crying, feeling like I had failed as a mother because my own daughter was pregnant.” Kay gave Karyn a prophetic word that the baby would be a girl, and that she and Karyn would be close, “And she was right.” She added, “I think being adopted gave Kay a tremendous amount of empathy for those who had unplanned pregnancies and for those who were adopted.” Kay “loved pastors’ wives corporately … but she also loved us individually.”

Sandy MacIntosh

Sandy MacIntosh speaks at the 2022 Pastors’ Wives Retreat. After Kay’s death, Sandy shared about her mentor: “Kay had such a caring heart for pastors’ wives. Back then, she realized that many of these young women were new to the ministry, and some of them were even new Christians. They needed to be brought together, encouraged, and prayed for.”

Growing Together

Sandy MacIntosh, whose husband Mike MacIntosh founded Horizon Christian Fellowship in San Diego 45-plus years ago, observed: “Kay had such a caring heart for pastors’ wives. Back then, she realized that many of these young women were new to the ministry, and some of them were even new Christians. They needed to be brought together, encouraged, and prayed for. She impacted hundreds and hundreds of pastors’ wives over the years.”

In retrospect, Sandy added, “I think it was a huge step of faith for her to choose us because we were so new and inexperienced, and she trusted us. I think she saw the work that the Lord was doing in our husbands. I’m still amazed that she chose me.”

Hearing Kay’s heart for women at the planning meetings was an “amazing time” for the new pastors’ wives, said Sandy. “Kay was very intuitive about what was going on with each of us,” Sandy remembered. “I remember once when we came in and sat down, she said to [two of us], ‘OK, you guys aren’t getting along. I want you to leave the room, figure it out, and don’t come back in until you have.’ That really put fear into our hearts. I think each of us was corrected by her at least once in a meeting. But, because of her sweet demeanor and her lovely shyness, it was always done in a loving way. It was all very good for us because we all knew nothing about ministry. We have all really missed being around her for the last 20 years.” Kay’s illness had prevented her from continuing to meet with women.

“My youngest was 2, and I asked Kay once how to stay in the Word with such a large family,” Sandy said. At Kay’s suggestion, she placed a Bible in three different rooms in the house so that, no matter where she was, she could quickly read Scripture and meditate on it as she took care of her home and her children.

“Kay taught us to use our chores as a prompt for prayer: ‘When you’re picking up your husband’s dirty laundry, rather than be irritated, pray that God would reveal to him any way that he needed to change and that he would be washed in the Word. When you’re in the kitchen throwing things in the frying pan, pray for the heat of the Holy Spirit to come into your life and direct you.’ I still use that. When I was watering my outdoor plants this morning, I was praying for the water of the Holy Spirit to come upon me and freshen me up.”

Chuck and Kay modeled a strong, healthy marriage for the young CC pastors and their wives. She encouraged them to keep up their personal Bible study even as busy mothers and to pray for their husbands as they took care of their homes.

When Mike was on staff at CC Costa Mesa, Pastor Chuck gave Sandy a job as wedding coordinator. “We had three weddings every Saturday. That’s how quickly the young people were getting married. Hippie kids were getting saved, and those who were living together were getting married.” With a smile, she reflected, “Those were the days when everyone you invited to church came, and everyone who came got saved. It was a miraculous, supernatural move of the Holy Spirit—nothing less. If it had happened in any other way, with any pastor other than Chuck, it may not have lasted. But he made sure that they were grounded in the Word.”

In a statement read at Kay’s memorial service, Sandy MacIntosh said: “Let’s [live] what we’ve learned from Kay Smith. Let’s pray with passion like never before. Let’s lavish that love and encouragement on the churches, our families, our neighbors, and each other. Let’s dig deep into God’s Word and speak it boldly. Let’s be willing to cry together and [laugh] so that … the world will see [our] Jesus, whom Kay Smith loved so much.”

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Listen to Kay Smith’s teachings on pastorchuck.org: Joyful Life and Pleasing God or read her books, Pleasing God and The Privilege.

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