Dave Schmelzer

Senior Pastor

Email | dave@bostonvineyard.org

Dave Schmelzer is the senior pastor at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship—Greater Boston. He and his wife, Grace, have five children: Benjamin (born in 1996), Nicholas (1998), Patrick (2001), Claire (2003), and Elizabeth (2005). Before participating in the founding of the Greater Boston Vineyard, Dave worked as a playwright and saw two of his plays professionally produced on the west coast. A San Diego native, he graduated from Stanford University in 1984 with a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing, and he received his M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1987. He still loves to write fiction, and he also loves to follow sports, play with his kids, see artsy movies with Grace, and take vacations to warm places.

Dave started to follow Jesus later in life, which, he thinks, gave him a passion for creating a different kind of church - one that would be helpful to the kinds of spiritually-interested skeptics that he himself once was. "Following God is shockingly interesting, powerful and reorienting, which I never would have guessed," he says. "It's been such a kick to work together to build a church that reflects that. One of the great parts of my job is getting to hear again and again from so many people who haven't been church-types things like, 'That was so powerful and totally unexpected,' or-even better!-'Where have you people been all my life?'"

Grace Schmelzer

Co-Senior Pastor

Grace grew up in Houston with her three brothers and later went to college at Stanford in California, where her campus fellowship provided a great context to begin unpacking what it might mean to "follow Jesus." About that time she also was delighted to discover Vineyard churches and the work of the Holy Spirit. After college, she moved to inner-city San Francisco to join a church-planting team working among Southeast Asian refugee families.  Meanwhile, it was at a Vineyard church in San Francisco where she and Dave got to know each other and later married.  The next few years for Grace included working as an ESL teacher, learning from local churches one summer in East Africa, and doing international student ministry once back in the United States.

In 1995 Dave and Grace moved out to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be part of the church plant team here.  Grace has loved getting to be in on the church's formation, from the early days of meeting in a living room up until now, and she especially enjoys partnering with Dave and the other staff in leading the church.  A lover of other cultures, Grace also heads up our International Initiatives and has a particular passion for the Arab Middle East.  With all these "loves," including parenting their five young children, Grace feels life is full, but wonderful!