Oswald J. Smith

Who was Oswald J. Smith?

Dr. Oswald Jeffrey Smith D.D., D. LITT., was a Canadian pastor, author, and missions advocate. He founded The People's Church in Toronto in 1928. He was a leading force in Fundamentalism in Canada.

Smith attended the Toronto Bible Training School, the Manitoba Presbyterian College in Winnipeg, and the McCormick Seminary in Chicago. Smith was ordained as a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in 1918. However, he resigned from the Presbyterian Church, set up his own church in Toronto, which merged with a small Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation in 1921. In 1928, he started another independent church in Toronto, the People's Church. Using his base in Toronto for fundraising, he traveled the world to recruit missionaries

Over the course of eighty years he preached more than 12,000 sermons in 80 countries, wrote thirty-five books, as well as 1,200 poems, of which 100 have been set to music, including "Deeper and Deeper".

Paul B. Smith was the son of Oswald J. Smith, and Senior Pastor of The People's Church from 1959–1994.