On Gardner C. Taylor Boulevard in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, the Concord Baptist Church of Christ has answered to the same motto for more than 175 years: "A Community of Friends Witnessing for Christ." The congregation gathers each Sunday morning for worship at 10 a.m., meets Wednesday evenings for prayer and Bible study at 7 p.m., and pauses for Noonday Prayer each weekday at noon. Around the church have grown a CDFI-certified credit union, a nursing and rehabilitation center, a grantmaking Christfund, and a summer Freedom School for children. Each one is an outworking of the founding conviction that faith is lived in the streets as well as the sanctuary.
From Fair Street to Gardner C. Taylor Boulevard
The Concord Baptist Church of Christ was organized on the evening of May 18, 1847, in the Brooklyn living room of John and Hagar Washington, at 6 Fair Street. Five people were present that night: John J. Washington, Hagar Washington, David Pearson, Sarah Dudley, and Maria Hampton, each carrying letters of dismissal from the white Baptist churches where they had previously held membership. They were "formally organized a 'Baptist Church of Christ,' which was their name."
Their founder was the Rev. Sampson White, who had been moved, in his own words quoted by a later pastor, "by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel in another city." White had been serving the Abyssinian Church of New York City; he resigned that pastorate and "began his labors with the new church on July 1, 1847." The first public place of worship was Uris Hall, opposite City Hall. By September 19, a Building Committee had been formed and signed a contract for a lot on Concord Street, on the condition that the congregation erect a meeting house within six months. The agent, as the Rev. William T. Dixon recalled at the church's fiftieth anniversary, told the committee "that he would not sell to Afro-Americans, for the reason they always commenced to build but did not finish because of disputes among themselves." The contract was signed anyway.
Pastor White "bought for himself a pair of cheap satinet pants, and putting on a well-worn coat and an old high top beaver hat, and with a hickory cane he went among the rich men of this city and New York asking help in the name of his Lord and Master to build a house for His name. His success was far greater than he expected." The foundation was laid, the cornerstone was set, and the house was dedicated in 1848.
The church takes its name from that first Concord Street location. In the decades since, the building has been known by its address on what is now Gardner C. Taylor Boulevard, named for Concord's longest-serving pastor. The street sits in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
A Lineage of Pastors Through Brooklyn's Hardest Chapters
Concord's history has been shaped by a dozen recorded pastors, beginning with Sampson White and continuing with the current senior minister, the Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, who was called in 1990.
White served from 1847 to 1851 and returned for a second term from 1857 to 1858. His successor, the Rev. Leonard Black, served only briefly in 1851 to 1852. Black was a self-emancipated preacher, a fugitive from slavery whose time at Concord was cut short by the Fugitive Slave Act. His story, told in the genre of the slave narrative and published in 1847, was updated after his call to Concord in 1851 and is held in the collections of the Library of Congress.
The Rev. Simon Bundick was installed in 1852 and served until 1856. He was followed by the Rev. John Carey from 1860 to 1862 and the Rev. William T. Barnett from 1862 to 1863. Then came the Rev. William T. Dixon, who entered on his labors on October 18, 1863, with a wife, five small children, and what he described as "faith in his God." Dixon would remain for forty-six years, through Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and the long Brooklyn twilight of the nineteenth century. At his fiftieth-anniversary sermon, he summed up the work: from 1847 to 1863 the church had received 163 members; during his own tenure from 1863 to 1897 he baptized 951 of the 2,068 received since the founding.
The twentieth century brought the Rev. William M. Moss (1910 to 1919), the Rev. James B. Adams (1920 to 1946), and the Rev. Jerome Harris as interim pastor (1946 to 1948). Then came the ministry that defined modern Concord: the Rev. Gardner Calvin Taylor, who served from 1948 until his retirement in 1990. Taylor became one of the most celebrated preachers of his generation, and the boulevard outside the church now carries his name.
In 1990 the congregation called the Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Denison University and a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York and United Theological Seminary. He had preached his first sermon at the age of fifteen at Southfield Missionary Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio, and was ordained at twenty. He has now served longer than any pastor since Dixon.
A Resurrection People, A People of The Story
Concord describes itself as a progressive Black Christian witness in the borough of Brooklyn, a congregation that does not adhere to creeds but that wrestles actively with what it believes about God and how it wants to live with one another. The church frames its faith under four headings.
The first is resurrection. "We believe Jesus was crucified, and God raised Jesus from the dead. By doing so, God demonstrated divine love for the world, and showered life-giving power on humankind. Because of this merciful act, we stand on the promise that eternal life begins now through the disciplined practice of loving one another." The second is story: Concord reads itself as part of God's never-ending story of love, and sees its own history as "a powerful demonstration of love and of the profound presence of God's grace in a broken and fractured world." The third is life-giving action, defined as "justice, mercy, grace, and love." The fourth is friendship: "The spirit of authentic, resurrection friendship is essential to our worship, service, and witness."
Concord is affiliated with the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Churches USA. The words that visitors encounter above the doors of the church building proclaim God's active invitation to all to come into the house, be refreshed and equipped, and leave ready to witness to God's love and care for the world.
Sunday Worship, Wednesday Bible Study, and Noonday Prayer
Sunday morning worship begins at 10 a.m. Social distancing and masking are recommended for those attending in person. Every Sunday's service is also livestreamed on Concord's YouTube channel, and recordings are available afterward. Mid-week, the Senior Pastor leads a Wednesday-night Community Bible Study at 7 p.m., which he counts among his favorite assignments. Each weekday at noon, the community pauses for Noonday Prayer. Prayers may be requested online at any time through a Prayer Wall on the church's home page.
Worship at Concord is traditional in form and gospel-rooted in sound. The Adult Choir and the Concord Men's Chorus are mainstays; recorded anthems shared from the pulpit include Mahalia Jackson's "Keep Your Hand on the Plow," the Fisk Jubilee Singers' "I'm Gonna Sing Till The Spirit Moves in My Heart," and the Alfred Street Baptist Church Choir's "Hold to His Hand." Each week, the offering is received during the livestream, with online giving available by credit or debit card or by bank account.
Children and youth are not absent from Sunday mornings. The Concord Freedom School, Vacation Bible School, and weekly Sunday School meet in conjunction with morning worship, and the church invites families to bring their children into the rhythm of the day. The Concord congregation is drawn from three groups: a young adult ministry, a Freedom School generation, and a mature congregation whose long memories shape the church's identity.
The Pastoral Team
Six clergy and ministry leaders shape the day-to-day life of the church.
Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, Senior Pastor, also serves as Associate Professor of Homiletics at Drew Theological Seminary, has been Visiting Professor of Preaching, Worship and the Arts at Union Theological Seminary, and has lectured at New Brunswick Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Candler School of Theology. In 2002 the Lilly Endowment asked him to create a formal Pastoral Residency Program at Concord, and in 2011 he won support to expand that program in collaboration with three other African American Baptist congregations: Emmanuel Baptist Church, St. Paul Community Baptist Church, and Mt. Aery Baptist Church. He is one of eight featured preachers on the Andover Newton Theological School's Future of Great Preaching project.
Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson, Associate Pastor, is President of Auburn Seminary. A Fisk University graduate (Religious and Philosophical Studies and Music) and a graduate of Union Theological Seminary and Drew Theological Seminary, she was ordained at Concord in 1989, becoming only the second woman in the church's history to be set apart for the Gospel Ministry. She is an authorized facilitator of Darkness to Light's Stewards of Children program.
Rev. Morine Bowen-Avery, Associate Pastor, is a graduate of Boston College and Howard Divinity School and is completing an MSW at SUNY Albany. She first came to Concord through the Pastoral Residency Program, led two mission trips to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as Minister for Social Action and Outreach at another church, and returned to Concord in 2007. She has served on Community Board #3 in Bedford-Stuyvesant and worked closely with the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS - New York.
Rev. Samuel Phillips III, Associate Pastor, is the Assistant Director of the Concord Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center. He has led the church's HIV/AIDS awareness and confidential testing partnerships, is Concord's lead pastor for pre-marital counseling and the counseling of parents bringing children for dedication, and facilitates the GriefShare workshop series. He is a graduate of SUNY Albany, Drew Theological Seminary, and the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.
Deacon Zelma Faulk, Children's Pastor, has been an elementary teacher in Brooklyn since 1983 and is best known for founding the Concord Vacation Bible School in 2005 and, with it in 2008, the Concord Freedom School.
Minister Candace Y. Simpson, Associate Minister, designs the Adult Christian Education lessons - the Faith-Full Living curriculum - and serves as a staff developer at the Concord Freedom School. She is a graduate of Trinity College and Union Theological Seminary and serves on the board of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference.
Faith-Full Living: An Adult Education Curriculum
Under the title Faith-Full Living, Minister Candace Simpson publishes a steady stream of adult Christian Education lessons on the church's site. Each lesson begins with a scripture passage, lays out background and commentary, and ends with a journal prompt, a closing song, and a written prayer. Recent titles include "Building Strong Foundations" (John 1), "The Discipline of Focusing on Life" (Mark 5), "The Actions of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 8), "Building a Fortified Legacy" (John 15), "Ecosystems and Interdependence" (Ezekiel 17), "Civic Duty as Christians" (Matthew 22), "Holding On to Sweet Moments" (Luke 9), "Loving Your Tradition Enough To Challenge It" (Luke 4), "Designing a Future We Can All Enjoy" (Psalm 85), "Supporting Our Children and the Children We Used to Be" (Luke 2), "Building Connections in Spite of Challenges" (Acts 8), "Redemption and Worthiness" (Isaiah 6), "Gratitude for Things Taken for Granted" (Joshua 5), "Everyone" (Isaiah 55), "Following Christ's True Example" (Philippians 3), and "Evaluating Our Habits" (Luke 4).
The lessons are grounded in the principles of Black liberation and the practice of Black joy, and they connect each week's text to current events: the Kellogg's strike, the McDonald's fight for fifteen, the televised debut of Oriini Kaipara as the first Māori to host a primetime news program, the rise of hiplet, the success of Sha'Carri Richardson at the Olympic trials, the Black Panther film, the photography of Eunique Jones Gibson, and the witness of Mari Copeland in Flint. Each lesson closes with a curated Apple Music playlist for the season.
The Concord Freedom School
The Concord Freedom Summer School (Pre-K through middle school) immerses young people in the stories, traditions, and power of Black histories and makes room for them to imagine a new world, all while cultivating a love for reading. The program grew out of the Concord Vacation Bible School that Deacon Zelma Faulk founded in 2005. In 2008 the summer Freedom School, originally under the auspices of the Children's Defense Fund, stepped out on its own with a cadre of leaders committed to a dynamic and responsive curriculum.
Across its first ten summers (2009 to 2019), the program served 250 pre-K and kindergarten children through Vacation Bible School, 650 elementary, middle, and high school students through the Freedom School, and 210 high school and college Servant Leader Interns through Concord-funded summer jobs. It added 4,800 books to home libraries. Over the decade, scholars advocated for gun control, demonstrated at the New York Stock Exchange to call attention to gaps in the federal education budget, rallied to ensure New York children had access to health insurance, and distributed care bags and cold water throughout the neighborhood during heat waves.
The Freedom School's curriculum always includes opportunities for scholars to engage in advocacy, justice work, and community compassion projects. As Deacon Zelma has put it, the goal is for every child to have a safe space where they can imagine, explore, play, and then change the world.
The Concord Baptist Christfund: Black Money Making Money for Christ
The Concord Baptist Christfund was established in 1988 as a testament to the power of Jesus Christ and the inspiration of Black people to let money make money for Christ. It was the first such fund created by a Black congregation and was made possible by the vision of the late Senior Pastor Emeritus Dr. Gardner C. Taylor and the sacrificial giving of the Concord people. Funded at $1 million, the Christfund now benefits people and causes far beyond the congregation and the neighborhood.
The Christfund's founding echoed a much older Concord tradition. About twenty years after the 1847 founding, two founding members, Maria Hampton and Hagar Washington, rallied Black Brooklynites to support the Colored Poor of Brooklyn fund, and the church underwrote the Female Union Relief Association's care for the sick and suffering poor. In the 1880s the church organized the Concord Mutual Relief Society to share resources for burials, illness, and housing, and later provided ongoing financial support to the Howard Colored Children's Orphanage, the Brooklyn Home for the Colored Aged, and Brooklyn's YMCA. The congregation also backed the anti-lynching campaigns of Ida B. Wells Barnett and supported the infrastructure of the freedom and civil rights movements.
Since its inception the Christfund has given away more than $1 million, using the annual interest earned on the principal to make grants. Its grants have supported HIV/AIDS education and prevention programs, helped complete Eyes on the Prize II, and, in a Bedford-Stuyvesant initiative covered by local press, cleared $4 million in medical bills for 4,500 people. Each Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Christfund also awards Black self-empowerment grants in the neighborhood.
The Concord Federal Credit Union
When the Concord Federal Credit Union was chartered in 1951 by the Concord Baptist Church of Christ, it represented the fulfillment of a dream that began in the early 1940s for Black Brooklynites to have fair access to quality financial services. A 1941 community meeting at the church, reported in The New York Age, had explored "how to beat the high cost of credit on furniture, clothing, automobiles, borrowed money, insurance, and a million and one other things." Black people struggled against the pervasive practice of redlining, and Northern migrants were often unable to obtain credit at all.
Chartered with eight members, the credit union now serves well over 1,000 members with quality financial products and services. It operates under the Federal Credit Union Act, is supervised by the NCUA, and is certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) by the United States Treasury Department.
The Concord Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center
Concord's work on behalf of elderly Black Brooklynites reaches back to the 1880s. The church was a generous supporter of the Baptist Home of Brooklyn, sponsored by the Long Island Baptist Association, but when the Home refused to admit Black residents, the Concord pastor, the Rev. Dr. Dixon, rose at the association's annual meeting to read his church's resolution. The next day, the Long Island Baptist Association affirmed that "all legally worthy applicants should be admitted into the building and all the benefits thereof of the Brooklyn Baptist Home, without any regard to race or color."
Nearly a century later, Dr. Gardner C. Taylor's vision and the congregation's sacrifice established the Concord Nursing Home in 1975. The first resident was Ms. Hattie Dixon, the granddaughter of Dr. William T. Dixon. Under Dr. Simpson's leadership the home was greatly expanded in 1995 to include a Rehabilitation Center. Today, under the management of Centers Health Care, the Concord Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center at 300 Madison Street is a fully equipped skilled nursing facility offering a full range of medical, social, and rehabilitation services.
Weddings, Baby Dedications, and Funeral Services
Weddings at Concord are performed by the church's ministers and require each couple to meet with a minister for practical pre-marital counseling. Referrals are available for couples who would like a more in-depth program. Weddings are currently scheduled on a case-by-case basis.
Baby Dedications normally take place on the second and fourth Sundays of the month during morning worship, when children are blessed and dedicated within the service and families renew their commitment to walk in faith. The Concord congregation pledges to support each family's efforts. Parents preparing for a dedication contact the church office to make arrangements.
Funeral services at Concord are conducted in the same spirit of love and eternal hope. "In the inevitable time of loss because of death, the spirit of love and eternal hope of the Concord fellowship is the strongest. Each and every one of us needs the circle of love in the face of death and mourning." Services are arranged in consultation with the family.
Caring in the Community
Concord describes its work in the language of "resurrection living." Members are called to be disciples of God's love and care in the world, engaging their individual lives, work, and service as "friends of God." The Senior Pastor writes, "In a lonely, divisive, and destructive world, the most radical thing we can do is to build community, and stand as a defiant community of friends."
That conviction has produced a network of institutions that reach beyond the sanctuary walls. The Concord Freedom School shapes young readers each summer. The Concord Federal Credit Union extends fair financial services. The Concord Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center cares for elders in a building the church itself raised. The Concord Baptist Christfund channels Black generosity into Black community, year after year. And at 833 Gardner C Taylor Boulevard, Sunday worship, Wednesday Bible study, and weekday Noonday Prayer continue to gather the congregation that Sampson White first organized in a Brooklyn living room in 1847.