Dr Sybrand de Swardt has been the pastor of Lynnwood Baptist Church since 2009. He preaches expositionally and does extensive counselling and teaching on counselling related issues. Dr de Swardt has received a Master of Arts in Biblical Counselling from The Master’s University and a Doctorate of Educational Ministry from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. For his doctoral project, he developed a thirty-hour contextualised biblical counselling course which is now offered yearly.

Dr de Swardt has been a certified counsellor with the Association of Certified Biblical Counsellors (ACBC) since 2018, and has been a speaker at the annual ACBC conference. He is the director of Strengthening Ministries Training Institute (SMTI), which offers advanced training in biblical counselling and biblical theology. He has taught in both Ireland and Holland. Sybrand is married to his wife, Beth, and they have two children, Carol-Marie and Thomas-Wayne.