About Kurt

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Kurt R. Schmidt is an award-winning educator, communications professional, church musician, and emerging for-impact leader who has served multicultural church ministries, Christian schools, and seminaries. 

Kurt is experienced in social media, website design, content writing, and outreach strategies with a record of success in teaching and reaching a wide variety of age groups, online education, counseling, student success, curriculum management and development, public speaking, and fundraising.

Kurt is a very proud "hometown boy," born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and raised in and around Deerfield Beach, FL.  He graduated from Deerfield Beach High School in 2002 as a student in the International Baccalaureate Program.  

In August 2002, he began his studies at Lenoir-Rhyne College (now Lenoir-Rhyne University) in Hickory, NC.  LRU is a university of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Kurt's lifelong church denomination and affiliation.  While at LRU, he majored in Sacred Music, with a concentration in Applied Voice.  He was a member of the Honors College, the A Cappella Choir, the College Singers, and the Student Government Association.  His teachers included Dr. Paul Weber, Florence Jowers, and Dr. Judith Burbank.  Kurt graduated from LRU in May 2006, summa cum laude with departmental honors in music.

In the fall of 2006, Kurt began studying at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, OH, in the Master of Divinity Program.  After completing several years in that program, including a year in Dallas, Texas and a summer study program in Berlin, Germany, Kurt's trajectory took a detour that brought him home to South Florida.  He was very quickly offered a teaching job at his home church & school, Zion Lutheran in Deerfield Beach, and completed the Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies, summa cum laude, from Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, FL in May 2013.

In total, Kurt spent ten years teaching in secondary education, mostly in the areas of religion, music, and ELA (language arts) and two terms as an adjunct instructor at Knox Seminary.  He also served as a department chair, division head, and testing administrator.  In 2010-11, Zion and the Deerfield Beach Rotary Club named Kurt the Teacher of the Year.

In 2019, God called Kurt back to Zion to a full-time position for the church, combining his long-held part-time position as Cantor (Director of Music, since 2013) with additional responsibilities in communications, community outreach, and administration.

In 2021, Kurt completed a certificate in diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Muma College of Business of the University of South Florida and in May 2022, Kurt graduated from the Non-Profit Executive Program at the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship at Florida State University.

Kurt is committed to making a difference in his hometown.  He is the secretary of the Deerfield Beach Kiwanis, a member of the Faith & Community-Based Advisory Committee of United Way of Broward, and Chair of the Board of Directors of Deerfield Beach Community Cares, a community-based organization that advocates a resident-led approach to solving the issues and problems facing the people of Deerfield Beach and the surrounding community.