Who We Are

Yasmin and her family have been worshipping at Pillar since 2012.  Originally from Cuba, Yasmin emigrated to the U.S. and was raised in South Florida.  She has been serving at Pillar alongside Jr, her husband of 25 years, since joining the Pillar family. They have four sons that also serve on  ministry teams.

In her teen years, Yasmin felt the Lord's call on her life while serving at the church she attended. "God made it very clear to me that He had designed and equipped me to teach!" She received a degree in Special Education (Learning Disabilities and Varying Exceptionalities) from Florida International University and has maintained a state teaching certification since 2000 for grades K-12. She taught in the public sector of Miami Dade County Schools before relocating to Vero in 2007 with her husband and sons. In Vero, she joined the ranks of Christian educators becoming ACSI certified as faculty at the private school her sons attended.

"Pillar drew Jr. and I in via our children. After our first visit, the boys were 'home.' I had to find out what they had discovered during their visit. Pillar teaches how to cultivate a 'with God life' through spiritual disciplines and demonstrates sincere love for community in Christ. We just had to be a part of what was happening here!"

Yasmin’s deepest desire is for all children to become aware of God's perfect love for them, to understand their identity in Him, and to discover their unique purpose in His Kingdom.

Tim Smick and his wife Bobbi helped launch Pillar Community Church as a new church plant. He is a pastor’s kid who trusted Christ as a twelve-year old while watching the close of a Billy Graham Crusade on TV. He is a graduate of Wheaton College (IL) where he studied literature as a major. Wheaton also influenced his career direction to which he has devoted the entirety of his working life – making a difference in the lives of seniors. Tim is the owner of HRA, a company that develops and operates senior living communities throughout the United States. Pillar is the third church plant he and his wife Bobbi have successfully launched. Tim and Bobbi are the parents of two adult daughters (Kim and Amy) and the grandparents of Emma and Ethan who also attend Pillar.

“This is the first church where I have worshipped that really focuses on assisting its parishioners in being formed in the image of God for the sake of others. Spiritual formation such as this is not a quick fix. As author Robert Mulholland says, it is more akin to the slow cooking of a crock pot than the speed of a microwave’s nuking. When we put the crock pot on in the morning and leave for work, it doesn’t look like much is happening. But, slowly, throughout the day, a wonderful transformation is happening. The same thing is true of our spiritual life. The reality is that everyone is, at all times and in all places, undergoing some kind of spiritual formation—consciously or unconsciously—and through this formation will come something wonderful or something destructive. When we are shaped into the wholeness of the image of Christ our spiritual growth produces a life of wholeness that ministers to others whereas when we are shaped by the liturgies of the world our ego-centric spiritual growth results in pain and death.”

Tom and Sophie Rhodes have called Pillar home since the second week of Pillar’s inception. Tom is a Vero Beach native that received his degree in Business Management from the University of Richmond and then moved back to Florida after college. He trusted Christ as Savior in 1996 at the age of 25, and after attending largely Baptist and evangelical churches before Pillar, found Pillar’s attention to soul care and spiritual formation to have made the difference in his walk with the Lord. “Less attention to doing, which comes naturally for me, and more attention to being. Knowing that God walks with us has totally changed my perspective on life.”

Tom and Sophie have been married 26 years and have 2 children attending college. At Pillar, Tom serves on the Missions Team, Finance & Accounting Team, and Children’s Ministry Team teaching elementary age children, as Mr. Mango. Before attending Pillar, Tom and Sophie were instrumental in serving at previous churches. They led a young adult couple’s ministry, a Father-Son group called “Raising a Modern-Day Knight”, and participated in a Father-Daughter group.

When not working or serving at Pillar, Tom can be found windsurfing in the ocean or river, any time the wind blows. When the wind isn’t blowing, he can be found playing disc golf or maneuvering his paddleboard.