Episode 83: Pastor Gary Simpson from historic Brooklyn church
Pastor Gary Simpson of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, joins George on his 30th anniversary at Wilshire Baptist in Dallas to talk about their shared experiences of long-term pastoral ministry, and what makes their churches so wonderful.
Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.
George Mason: Contrary to popular opinion, pastors are made not born. We might come to the work with certain natural gifts or gifts of the spirit, but it's really congregations that help shape us into the pastors we become. We're going to be talking with Gary Simpson, pastor of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, about just that thing. Stay tuned for Good God.
George Mason: Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason, and I'm pleased to welcome to the program today my dear friend, my brother Gary Simpson, the Reverend Dr. Gary Simpson. Welcome Gary.
Gary Simpson: It's great to see you George. Great to be with you. I've been longing to get here to talk with you.
George Mason: Well, I'm so glad to hear you say that because we have much to talk about. But I think probably we should begin by letting people know that when we call one another brother, we're not just talking like we might on the street.
Gary Simpson: Yes, I think that is so. I think across the years we have carved and cut out a relationship that is more kindred than many of the collegial relationships I have and it's authentic. And I receive that title from you with open arms and open heart.
George Mason: Well, I'm so glad and I should say that we, people might be interested to know that we're having this conversation on the weekend of the 30th anniversary of my pastorate here at Wilshire Baptist Church. And you were good enough to come and preach for us this morning and it was a stirring sermon. Those who heard it understand exactly what I mean, because you preached about stirring the pot somewhat and how there's a text from the book of Kings where it talks some about that and how the prophet dealt with a dangerous situation and how it turned into good.
George Mason: So, but thank you for that beautiful contribution and gift. Gary, you're the senior pastor of a very important church historically in Brooklyn, New York. Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn. I went to high school in Brooklyn. I'm a New Yorker. You're actually from Columbus, Ohio. But now Brooklyn is your home and Dallas is my home. But there is this thing about New York, isn't there, that there's, it's for Americans in many ways it's the center of the universe.
Gary Simpson: This is absolutely right and I, there is something about it that is so, and it sounds cliche, but cosmopolitan. You are engaged with so many worlds, cultures, identities at one time and it really, I won't say it makes you better, but I think being there day to day, you are aware of the world in a way you must be in order to actually even to survive in that space actually.
George Mason: Right. So a lot of people I know assume that probably you came to New York from the South, which is not true. You're from Ohio. I remember talking with Peter Gomes about this and he was of course at Harvard, but Peter's from Plymouth, he was from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Certainly not a Puritan, but Peter used to take umbrage all the time when people would assume that he came from the South.
Gary Simpson: Yes. And of course, and, and to be Baptist.
George Mason: That's right!
Gary Simpson: That's the second part. That when I say I'm Baptist, they assume I am from the South.
George Mason: Right.
Gary Simpson: And Southern Baptist.
George Mason: Right, right.
Gary Simpson: Neither of those things are true.
George Mason: Well, we'll get into some more of that about what kind of Baptists and how some of the legacy of your church in that regard too. But I think it's really interesting that you're here this weekend with me and both of us have very longterm pastorates by standards of most churches. So I've just hit 30, you're at 28 or nine?
Gary Simpson: I'll be 29 next month.
George Mason: Next month, 29. And each of us followed longterm pastorates. My predecessor, 30 years. Yours?
Gary Simpson: 42.
George Mason: 42 years.
Gary Simpson: 42 years.
George Mason: Yes. So what do you make of the continuity that we've experienced in our churches, which is so rare of congregations today?
Gary Simpson: I think it says something about the congregations themselves.
George Mason: Yes.
Gary Simpson: About understanding that pastors do not arrive. They become pastors.
George Mason: Ah, good, good. We were both babies, weren't we?
Gary Simpson: Yes, oh my gosh, and I think George about some of the things that I did and said earlier, I am so grateful that this church practiced forgiveness and grace.
George Mason: I've said some of the same things this weekend. Absolutely, yes.
Gary Simpson: But I think the communal will for their leader to do well. There's this sense in, and I felt that today and we'll share today, a common will. The people who want George to do well and that is not an affront to them and it's not in competition with their own doing well. It is an opportunity for them to both receive the benefits of that and to be able to turn that over and out into the community. I know that's what Concord has done.
George Mason: There's a 99 year old woman in our church right now. She is very much the matriarch of the congregation. 30 years ago, at 69 years old, shortly after I came as a young pastor, I said, or did something that she didn't like and I just said, "Well this is the way we're going to do it." And she looked at me and she said, "You know, young man, you've got a lot to learn and I'm just the one to teach you."
Gary Simpson: See?
George Mason: And we, I mentioned that to her the other day in the presence of a bunch of folks at a luncheon and she laughed and we both laughed about it. But we, she and I have not always agreed on a lot, but I know she loves me and she defends me and she wants me to be the best pastor I can be. Isn't that what you're talking?
Gary Simpson: That's exactly what I'm talking about. I think you, because the work is about relationships. There is no relationship that is always wonderful 100%. There are times it's just because we are different. I heard a, I was in a seminar the other day and I never thought about it until it was said. The leader said every marriage is cross-cultural.
George Mason: Oh yeah.
Gary Simpson: And she said, it doesn't matter if you are the same in so many other ways, but the fact that you both have been raised in different places, you are in different table times or no table time. There are things that happen that are rituals in one space and you're negotiating the cross cultural reality. I think the same is true and I want to, I'm always leery of talking about, I don't like this conversation about the pastors and the churches.
Gary Simpson: We're here at installation for the marriage between this pastor and this church.
George Mason: Oh yeah. Right, a marriage. Yeah.
Gary Simpson: And I'm saying, "No, no, no, no, no. The church is already married and the pastor may already be married too, we don't want to do that."
George Mason: That's right, that's right.
Gary Simpson: But I do think at that sense of understanding the relationally.
George Mason: Yes.
Gary Simpson: There are some people in Concord who were cool on me when I got there and they have warmed up and there are some people who are very warm on me who have cooled off over time and you can't in this work, you can't take it personally.
George Mason: Oh my goodness.
Gary Simpson: You can't say, "Okay, George did that to me in 1968, I'm never speaking to him again because life happens." Deaths happen, births happen, crises happen. People go to jail, families get in trouble, good things happen. People graduate, they watch or the or the the hundredth birthday for that member who wants you to be there.
George Mason: That's right. Exactly.
Gary Simpson: All of those things are really a part of having the fluidity to be able to let the relationships grow, develop and they can't be marked by any one thing.
George Mason: Right. I do think that each of us had the challenge, but also the blessing, of having esteemed predecessors. We know that they, I know that Gardner Taylor, Gardner C Taylor, your predecessor, Doc Taylor. Very important figure in Baptist life in American history, and he blessed you. He treated you like his heir apparent and his pastor and my predecessor, Bruce McIver, did the same. Sometimes that's a burden, because when we're young, we want to have our own way and our own voice.
Gary Simpson: Exactly.
George Mason: And we want them to just... I know that was then, but this is now, could you do that?
Gary Simpson: Right, right, right.
George Mason: And now here we are.
Gary Simpson: Here we are.
George Mason: And it's important to remember, one day somebody's going to follow us. Right?
Gary Simpson: Right.
George Mason: And so it was more work I think in some ways in those early years for me. And maybe for you to really be patient about that with people.
Gary Simpson: Yeah. I think that that is the key. When I did something right in the church, people would say whether it was true or not, Dr. Taylor told him to do that. Right?
George Mason: Yes, right.
Gary Simpson: And if I did something wrong, they'd say he should've have talked to Dr. Taylor. So they've created this conversation that Dr. Taylor and I were having that we weren't really having. It is hard when you're in young.
George Mason: It is.
Gary Simpson: And you're trying to establish yourself and God knows, again, I'm grateful that David has this passage. One the Psalmist has this passage when he says that he's thanking God that the sins of his youth did not find him out. Right? And every time I read that passage, I don't care if I'm in Bible story, but I say, excuse me a moment, right?
Gary Simpson: There was just, look, there was so many things I wish I, I'll use your golf term, had a mulligan for.
George Mason: Yes, that's right.
Gary Simpson: But I'm grateful for the journey. Even those wrong decisions and things have helped to establish my own identity as pastor, which is very different. And I remember I had, there was a pastor in my youth, George, who we did not get along. We were just so opposite in every way. Theologically opposite, politically opposite. But he had very wise things to say, right? So I find myself repeating him a lot. In my youth, I would have dismissed him because of those differences.
George Mason: Yes, right.
Gary Simpson: But now the things he said makes sense. And one of the things he said, "Son, we are companions and not competitors."
George Mason: Ah, very good.
Gary Simpson: And he would say, "This is not a sprint. It's a relay race and it's a marathon." And when I started to understand the passing of the baton and everybody runs their leg, right, it really relieved me from feeling the competition. And I never felt competition with Dr. Taylor. I didn't think I could compete with him, given what his wonderful record was. But I also really believed that there was a space, if God had called me there, which I believe so, that there was a space for me to be there and to be who I was.
Gary Simpson: And if I might, I'll tell you a little story about that. So I went to hear Jeremiah Wright preach one Sunday. They were still in the old church. They hadn't gone to the new Trinity. I went to an early service because I was preaching in Chicago at 11. I walked into the church and there was Dr. Wright, on the piano playing the whole service, George, an associate who had come home preached, and he played the whole service on the piano and masterfully played.
Gary Simpson: And so I first started out, everybody that I wanted to learn from, I'd bring them to Concord to preach. And I'd say, "I just need one lunch with you or dinner or something." And I went out and I told him that story and he said to me, "You know, when God called you to Concord, God knew every gift that you had and God expects you to use that." Dr. Taylor did not sing, did not do music. And I thought that's what it meant, to be pastor of Concord Church. I'm no great singer, I'm a musician.
George Mason: Yes, you are.
Gary Simpson: I'm a singer.
George Mason: You're a pianist.
Gary Simpson: And I and so that has a part of the way in which my personality-
George Mason: There you go.
Gary Simpson: Lives out in the life of the church.
George Mason: My predecessor was a wonderful storyteller as a preacher, had a great sense of humor and I would say came from a more oral culture of preaching from the hills of North Carolina. I am more of a Yankee, so I tend to move more from the written word to the spoken word. And so it took a while for me to find my voice with a congregation that had been used to listening in a certain way, and so some of that was my adapting, some of it was their adapting and I think of it like, one of us is broadcasting and the other's tuning into the right frequency. And when that starts to come together, the static dissipates and you start really hearing each other.
Gary Simpson: Right, right.
George Mason: And that's where the beautiful thing happens.
Gary Simpson: Right, right right.
George Mason: So let's take a break and we'll come back and continue this conversation about pastoring and church life.
Gary Simpson: Okay. All right.
George Mason: Thank you for continuing to tune in to Good God. These conversations are part of a larger program that is called Faith Commons. The umbrella organization, you might say, of Good God. Good God is the first project of Faith Commons, which is a nonprofit organization that is intended to do public theology, you might say. It's multi-faith, not just Christian, Jewish, Muslim, other faiths, but all of them becoming involved in the question of how do we promote the common good together? There are so many areas of need and concern in our community and Faith Commons is trying to help bridge the gaps between religions and peoples in our community so that we can have a more just and peaceful society. Thanks for continuing to support us.
George Mason: We're back with Gary Simpson, the senior pastor of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, New York, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. And I have had the great privilege of preaching from your pulpit, Gary, and you've now preached from mine twice. I thank you.
Gary Simpson: I owe you.
George Mason: You owe me. That's right. All our debts are paid in full in so many different ways in friendship. But we've both been talking about our churches this weekend and about our joy of ministry really. And it's, being a pastor is not an individual sport, so you can't be a pastor without a people. And so we both know that so much of any success in ministry that we've had is because of these churches that have seen to it that their pastors grow and are successful. And that calls for some change from them too, as well as from us. So what have you seen in your life in the church like that?
Gary Simpson: Well, I'm just mindful of the people. There's nobody that comes into a pastorate ready to take it all on. And there's a lot, I mean, there's so much to absorb. You spend your, I think your first moments in a church absorbing the history.
George Mason: Oh, sure.
Gary Simpson: Both the official and the unofficial history, and the way in which the stories clash.
George Mason: Right.
Gary Simpson: But I really believe God raises people up for you, guiding spirits. There were a few people in Concord including Dr. Taylor, but Dr. Taylor was not the only guiding spirit I had. I had a woman in our church, she was a retired regional IRS director. And for all of her life, when I was an associate with Dr. Taylor, she was over the youth group and she just guided generations of youth. When I got there and she retired, I brought her into the office as my administrator. And she just raised me as a pastor to be, she would not bring anything to me...
Gary Simpson: Kozeta Greene, I'll call her name.
George Mason: All right.
Gary Simpson: Kozeta was from Arkansas and she would not bring me anything that I didn't need to know and sometimes she would handle things herself. Having her in my cadre or cabinet, so to speak, gave me her integrity. I inherited her integrity.
George Mason: Wow, yes.
Gary Simpson: Some of the people who weren't quite sure on me knew that Kozeta was a person of integrity at that. And so she would help me out in that regard. I had another, Annabel who was a chair the last, well not the last, but chair of the Deaconess board. And Annabel would say, "That's my pastor. He might not always be right, but he's never wrong." And she would, so I was doing a lot of eulogies. I guess I've buried close to 900 people since I've been there now. And before the eulogy, I'd said, "Okay Annabel, tell me about this person." And she'd give me a snapshot of that person's life. And that helps me to go in and talk about people and to come to know people that I otherwise would have just been giving a generic eulogy.
Gary Simpson: But those people did those things in the background. They didn't seek attention, but they wanted their pastor to be successful's not the word, faithful.
George Mason: Right.
Gary Simpson: And to be a pastor who had, in his own day in time, happened because I'm a male, his own day and time to do well. And I always sense, both of those women are gone now, but their deaths were like, "Okay, you can do it now. You don't need me." I remember when I went to, we also transitioned to a diaconate and we removed the gender requirement for deacons and Kozeta took ill and she moved to North Carolina. But I flew down to see her and I said, "Kozeta, I think we're ready to do it. We're going to do it now." And her response, "Well, it's about time."
George Mason: It's about time. I had a, there's a man who's still in the church and years ago, 25 years ago, probably, fellow joined the church, this couple, and he had brought some of his pain of another church with him and he was immediately overly enthralled with me and wanted to be close to me, it seemed. And when that didn't become what he had hoped, he turned the other way and started finding things to share with people about how he thought I was wrong about this or there's a problem with that or whatever.
George Mason: And this had gotten to the point where I was becoming really alarmed by this and needing to do something. And suddenly it turns out, he left the church. And it took me a little while, but I found out that this man in the church took him to lunch and said, "We're happy for you to be at our church, but we've been doing okay before you came and we're going to do okay after you're gone. So understand that we don't share your feelings about this. And if you would like to be part of our community, then there are some ways that we do things that we expect you to exercise a certain comportment."
George Mason: And he was not prepared to do that. And he left and, but nobody asked him to do that.
Gary Simpson: Right.
George Mason: He understood our church culture. He was determined to protect me. And I, of course, I believe if I had been deeply at fault in some way, he would have also come to me. But it, this is the way churches handle things well or poorly.
Gary Simpson: Yes.
George Mason: And those churches that let these people become bullies or to ride roughshod over people and they have no capacity to stand up to this and to create the health that needs to happen, or as you'd say, "Elisha's putting some flour in the stew pot when there was death in that pot, from Second Kings." That's what we need right, in the congregation, is that wisdom.
Gary Simpson: Yeah, I think so. And I'm also convinced that if I were to address every one of those things personally and immediately, it takes on another dimension that is not healthy for anybody. So, and I'm caught, right? Because if I shut that person down myself, now I'm the bullet. Right?
George Mason: Yes, that's right.
Gary Simpson: I have. So I can't, there's some battles that a pastor has that she or he cannot fight by themselves, nor should they.
George Mason: Right.
Gary Simpson: And congregation should in fact step into those places. One of my friends says that, one of my acquaintances says that, he says, He has a "'taint so" committee. Right.
George Mason: A 'taint so. That's good. Oh that taint so.
Gary Simpson: That taint so. Yeah, right. But I think what I'm worried about George honestly, is the unnecessary detachment of pastoral identity from congregations. As if, I really believe if we follow the New Testament that pastoring is one of the gifts, right? And so I really believe I'm living out my gift. No better gift than the other gifts. Right.
George Mason: In the congregation.
Gary Simpson: Other people have gifts. And then, and I want people to live into their gifts as passionately as I do into pastoring. But I don't understand us as against one another. This is a part of the body.
George Mason: So this is an interesting thing about our Baptist tradition. Whereas in other traditions, there's a caste system of clergy and laity, right? Well, in our case, we are technically, even though we are clergy, we are part of the laity.
Gary Simpson: Right.
George Mason: Now we don't often talk about it, but we are, our first identity is to be one priest among other priests. Right? Now we are priest to the priest, so to speak. But we are only designated as such from within the body.
Gary Simpson: Right.
George Mason: Right. So when we get into this professionalism of ministry thing that I think you're alluding to. Now, where it's like we're on the free market of what congregation wants to call us to take our ministry to them.
Gary Simpson: Right.
George Mason: Well, our ministry is only what it is in relationship to a people.
Gary Simpson: Exactly right.
George Mason: It's not that we carry a ministry with us.
Gary Simpson: And, as I was getting at this, in that Second King's text today, this idea of understanding the gathering as a company of prophets.
George Mason: That's right.
Gary Simpson: This is not just the prophet and these people, but the company of the prophets that everybody, they're not just the Elijah. Everybody there is actually claimed by their prophetic identity, and I don't know in this caste system or chasm, that we give the permission or the voice to the prophetic identity of the people who traditionally sit in the pews.
George Mason: Yes. And who sometimes come to say to us, "Pastor, it's time."
Gary Simpson: Exactly.
George Mason: Okay. It's time. We can't dither any more.
Gary Simpson: Right.
George Mason: This is something that we have to address.
Gary Simpson: Yeah.
George Mason: I'll tell you that a few years ago we had delayed the decision about what place LGBTQ Christians in our church would have. We had never made a formal decision about that. Never had a study or talked about it or whatever. And because, as a pastor, you know where your people are and you try to read and sense when it's ready, you know what's going on inside your own heart and mind. And so for a couple of years we had a man nominated to be a deacon who was a faithful, wonderful Christian, beloved in the church, but a partnered gay man. And I knew that the church was not yet prepared to have that conversation. I believe that to be true.
George Mason: And there were a number of reasons for that. And so I exercise some pastoral judgment to the new deacon committee in saying, "I really would like you to not bring that to the church even though he's so well nominated and endorsed by people because we don't want to make him the issue. This is my job to get the church ready to deal with this question."
George Mason: And after a couple of years, two or three of doing that, I was ready, but the people had said to me, "Okay pastor, no more. So it's time for the church to do this." And so some people of course thought, "Okay, this is just George rushing all of this." They didn't know that what was happening is these five kids that grew up in our church had come out and this committee had told me, "You can't hold this back anymore. We need to talk about this." And the Supreme Court had said, "There's a change in the law of the land now."
Gary Simpson: Right, right.
George Mason: Right. And we all knew on the ground that people were changing their mind about this. "Okay pastor, it's time."
Gary Simpson: It's time.
George Mason: It's time. So the people are prophets too.
Gary Simpson: And you know, I think we missed that. So I hear people say, "Well, my church isn't ready."
George Mason: Yeah,
Gary Simpson: They're far more ready, often ahead of us. Right?
George Mason: Exactly right.
Gary Simpson: Saying, what took you so long?
George Mason: Right, right. Well, and sometimes I think what happens is that because we're the at least titular head, if not official head of what feels like an institution. Typically you think in terms of institutional preservation, right? And that stability and unity and all those things and understanding you've got a staff here that you need to pay and whatnot. The people themselves, we overestimate their commitment to no controversy, no trouble. The truth is, a lot of times the people are ready for an adventure too, is faith. And both of us have had the privilege of being in churches that had a history of courageous work that was being done through them and what an honor that we get to serve them.
Gary Simpson: Oh man. I cannot think of anything else I'd want to be doing nor any other place that I would want to be doing it then with the people of Concord Church.
George Mason: Well, and you do it well and I've watched your relationship to those people and I've experienced an amazing weekend of recognition of that relationship here. Your being present with me in this blessing is more than I can say. Thank you, my friend.
Gary Simpson: Thank you, George.
George Mason: All right. Thanks for being on Good God.
Gary Simpson: Good to be here.
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