Stewart Simms’ “Words Not Spoken” is a book about “understanding the pastor’s silent hurts.” Anyone interested in human relationships can profit from reading this volume.
“This book will help you understand yourself and others,” says the Rev. Ken Hemphill, a Southern Baptist (SBC) strategist who wrote the foreword for “Words Not Spoken” (Yorkshire Publishing). “Stewart writes honestly about matters such as loneliness, resentment, comparison, prayerlessness, sadness, disappointment and family failures.”
Stewart Simms, Jr. and I sang together in the Greer High School (in Greer, S.C.) Boys Octet. He and his late father, then pastor of the town’s First Baptist Church, sang a hymn duet, “Hold Thou My Hand,” at our GHS baccalaureate service, Sunday, May 30, 1965. The Rev. Edmond Poole, father of Joe Poole of our class and pastor of Victor Baptist Church in Greer, delivered that evening’s sermon. On Thursday, June 3, 1965, at 8:15 p.m., 254 members of our 1965 class, listed as “candidates for diplomas or certificates,” exited high school after a ceremony – which included the GHS band playing “Pomp and Circumstance” – held inside the GHS football stadium.
During his high school years, when friends asked if he would “follow in the footsteps of his pastor father,” Simms said, “Not the way I see it now.” He says he thought of other careers, especially commercial art, but nothing seemed to be a “must” in his life.
“During my freshman year in college [Furman University], I attended a revival service in my home church and had the opportunity to spend time with my father and the evangelist,” Simms says. “I took a deep breath and said, ‘Dad, I think God may be calling me into the ministry.’”
After a long silence, his father said, “Son, I have known that for a long time. I said nothing because I did not want to be the one who most influences you. That is up to the good Lord.”
“The moment I spoke, the direction of the desire of my life changed,” Simms says. “I went from not knowing what I wanted to do, to knowing there was nothing else I wanted to do, or could do. It was a sense of a ‘divine must’… Answering the ‘call’ does not mean that other vocations are unimportant, but for the one called, nothing else is as important.”
Simms says a sense of “must” should not be viewed as compulsion and that some people enter the ministry for unhealthy reasons, such as: the expectations of parents or grandparents; trying to atone for earlier sin and rebellion against God; the result of making a “deal” with God in a time of crisis; escape from another unpleasant career; and the feeling that this is the only way to please and appease God.
Simms earned degrees from Furman University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div. and D. Min.) in Fort Worth, Texas. He began preaching in 1966 and has served as a pastor since 1971. He is married to the former Diane Lucas; they have three children and one granddaughter. Simms spent the last 30 years as senior pastor of Beech Haven Baptist Church (BeechHaven.org) in Athens, Ga., and wrote columns for the church’s newsletter. On Oct. 16, 2011, he announced his retirement from that church.
“I am not leaving the ministry,” he says. “After a brief period of rest, I will preach as often as I am able.”
Yorkshire Publishing entices us to read “Words Not Spoken,” Simms’ first book, with these words: “Ministry can be the greatest blessing in life and the greatest source of frustration at the same time. It is a joy to serve God. However, things happen that wound a pastor deeply. Who does he tell? Who is the pastor's pastor? Sometimes because of embarrassment or fear he tells no one, which can lead to serious consequences. This book explores some of those unspoken hurts and offers suggestions of what to do. Pastors will know someone understands, and people can learn how to return ministry to their pastors.”
In a chapter called “The Unspoken Burden of the Ministry: Disappointment,” Simms says disappointment can cause a pastor to become resentful, cynical and withdrawn emotionally.
“Surveys of churches that have dismissed a minister reveal that the number one reason is a fundamental lack of relationship skills by the minister,” Simms says. “Some failings by ministers deserve action. But other struggles, like those spoken of here [in “Words Not Spoken”], should not be fatal to one’s ministry, and in fact, deserve understanding and caring. Members of churches can provide that care to their pastors, if they will. That will often require simple understanding. Where people provide for their ministers the healing and encouragement they need, churches can profit greatly. By learning to extend graciousness and caring and listening to their leaders, churches may decide to extend those same responses to people outside the church.”
