Emily K. Smith, serves Cannon's Camp Ground United Methodist Church as the Director of Christian Education and Family Life. Emily was raised in Pauline, SC, and graduated from Dorman High School in 2002. She is the youngest of three children, and her parents, Danny and Becky Smith still live in Pauline.

She attended Davidson College, near Charlotte, NC, where she majored in English and declared a double major in Spanish after spending four months studying abroad in Spain during her sophomore year.

She was a Young Life Leader throughout her four years at Davidson, which allowed her to develop relationships with high school kids and share her faith with them. She also worked as a hall counselor during her junior year and as an assistant Spanish teacher during her senior year.

A pivotal experience for her in her faith journey involved working as an intern for two faith-based non-profits that fought hunger in the inner-city areas of Charlotte, NC, during the summer after her junior year. Her faith-based desire to fight against injustices grew and developed that summer as she put names and faces to people who live in poverty on a daily basis.

After graduating from Davidson in May of 2006, she started school in July 2006 at Columbia Teological Seminary in Decatur, GA. Not only did she learn through her classes and professors at seminary, but she also grew in her faith through living in the seminary community and serving the population of Atlanta. Her time in Atlanta afforded her with many more opportunities for urban service work and shaped her calling to use Spanish to work with the growing immigrant population in the Southeast.

Her time doing urban service work in Charlotte and Atlanta also fostered her sense of call to work to fight hunger and homelessness. She graduated from seminary in December of 2007 with a Masters of Arts in Theological Studies, and she looks forward to serving Cannon's Campground UMC and connecting her call to service to the community with the interests and gifts of the church's congregation.