March 30. Charles Simeon. Simeon was an Anglican pastor at the Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge (England) for fifty-four years. His entire ministry was at this church, but his influence went much further.
He mentored young men who wanted to become pastors and taught them that sermons should humble the sinner, exalt the Savior, and promote holiness. At the time of his death in 1836, roughly one-third of all the Anglican pastors in England had been his students.
Simeon trained missionaries, too. He formed the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, founded the London Jews Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the British & Foreign Bible Society. Young men from his church took the gospel all over the world.
Simeon was a thorough-going Anglican who worked “tirelessly to reform Anglicanism” so that it would produce committed disciples who took the gospel seriously. He created the Simeon Trust, an organization that purchased the right to appoint evangelical clergy to parishes. To this day, Holy Trinity Church is a focal point of evangelicalism in England.
Simeon had an amazing ministry, but it almost ended before it began. This is today’s story.
Faith requires enduring the obstacles, not expecting them to disappear.
Growing up, Simeon was rich, shallow, and a fancy dresser. And when he first started college in Cambridge, he didn’t really know the Lord. But when the Bishop told him he was required to take the Lord’s Supper, Simeon knew enough to know it was a serious thing to take Holy Communion without repenting.
When Simeon did turn to the Lord, the Lord met him. The Lord Jesus saved Simeon, changed his life. Now the lack of fellowship at Cambridge was blatant. So, Simeon wanted to preach the gospel there.
He finished his education and was certain God had called him to Cambridge. After a good word from his father to the bishop, Simeon was hired as the new pastor at Cambridge. And he was ecstatic.
But when he arrived at Trinity to start his new role, he found out the people of the congregation didn’t want him. Not him and certainly not his evangelical preaching.
Mr. Hammond, the parish curate, was who they really wanted. He was familiar, popular, and had been in the church awhile. The people signed a petition saying that Hammond had already been hired as pastor and sent it to the bishop.
Simeon felt heartbroken. Wasn’t Trinity the place he was supposed to be? All he wanted to do was God’s will, but God’s will suddenly seemed cloudy.
Distraught, Simeon wrote a letter to the bishop and said he wouldn’t go against what the church wanted. But he arrived at the post office too late to send the letter.
This gave him time to reflect. And he remembered his burning desire to preach the gospel at Cambridge. He knew God had told him to go there.
The parishioners even lied to the bishop and said Simeon had agreed to leave. But the bishop wrote Simeon and offered him the position again and said—no matter what else happened—Mr. Hammond would not be the pastor.
The next day, Simeon preached his first sermon at the church.
But still the parishioners fought him. They went so far as to lock the pews to keep people from sitting. Some stopped coming to church and tried to get others to stop, too. They refused to let Simeon visit or minister to them. They even locked the doors of the church so he couldn’t establish a Sunday-evening service.
Simeon tried to make peace and added chairs to the church at his own expense. He rented other rooms so he could minister to people there. But his congregation continued to fight. Simeon turned desperately to God and prayed for the matter to be resolved.
Simeon preached only on Sunday mornings. During his services disruptions happened, and people had to stand in the aisles to keep the peace. Other people threw stones at the windows! As for the chairs Simeon had added, the churchwardens threw them out of the church.
Months of opposition became years. But eventually peace crept in, and as time wore on, the opposition wore out.
After an entire decade, the congregation finally started to calm down, and within twelve years, Simeon was able to fully preach at the church. He slowly gained a following. His steady, determined kindness prevailed.
In the end, Simeon served the people of Trinity Church for more than fifty years.
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful” (2 Timothy 2:24 NIV).
Do you have a dream? How can belief and action work together to help you achieve it? Faith requires enduring the obstacles, not expecting them to disappear.
“Charles Simeon: Evangelical Mentor and Model.” Christianity Today. Christian History. Accessed September 5, 2020. https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/pastorsandpreachers/charles-simeon.html.
“Charles Simeon.” Five Minutes in Church History. August 7, 2019. https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/charles-simeon/.
Simeon, Charles. Carus, William, ed. Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A.: Late Senior Fellow of King’s College, and Minister of Trinity Church, Cambridge, with a Selection from His Writings and Correspondence. London: Hatchard and Son, 1847. Accessed October 14, 2020. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=XO0oG2caEFMC&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1.
Moule, Handley Carr Glyn. Charles Simeon. London: Methuen & Co. , 1892. Accessed October 14, 2020. https://archive.org/details/charlessimeon00moulgoog.
Story read by Blake Mattocks