Glen McMillan, a candidate for music director at Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
FROM his perch in the imposing pulpit of Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, the Rev. Gary Simpson surveyed several hundred congregants at a recent Sunday morning service. Smiling his affable, cuddly-bear smile, he asked his flock — resplendent in dark suits, ties and feathered hats — to welcome that week’s guest music director, Glen McMillan.
Mr. McMillan, the 40-year-old director of music at nearby Medgar Evers College, tucked his dreadlocks behind one ear and adjusted the bright orange tie that complemented his stylish blue-gray suit.
“Praise the Lord!” Mr. McMillan entreated the churchgoers, some of whom responded encouragingly in kind. “I do honor the presence and spirit of the Lord in this place.”
As Mr. McMillan began, a significant decision was looming. He was not merely a guest musical director; he was the first of a handful of candidates for the job of worship pastor, a musical director with spiritual leadership responsibilities. The position is supremely important at Concord Baptist, a 159-year-old church with a music program considered among the best in New York’s black houses of worship.
Mr. McMillan started by accompanying his student, a poised mezzo-soprano named Dominique London, in a stirring rendition of the spiritual “God Is a God.” The song was followed by enthusiastic applause and a few appreciative shouts. Mr. Simpson and Mr. McMillan exchanged glances. Things were off to a promising start.
Halfway through the service, though, after playing a quiet background hymn while ushers in white dresses and gloves passed the collection plates, Mr. McMillan asked Ms. London to perform once more.
Standing, she plunged into the opening bars of the gospel number “All Rise.” This time, though, she was accompanied not by the expert musicians who surrounded her but by Mr. McMillan’s recorded track of a backup choir. In this soaring mid-century pile, accustomed to the rich reverberations of live music, the sound emerged as tinny and almost disembodied.
When Ms. London finished, the congregation sat silent. This, after all, was Concord Baptist, the church that for 44 years had been led by the Rev. Gardner Taylor, a confidant of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The church where notables like Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Rev. Al Sharpton have made major appearances. The church whose full-symphony, full-choir performance of Handel’s “Messiah” heralds the arrival of Christmas in central Brooklyn.
The congregation had just listened to a vocalist over a recorded track worthy of some storefront service. Not a feather bobbed among the Sunday-go-to-meeting hats.
Back at the pulpit, Mr. Simpson frowned ominously but collected himself for his sermon, a discourse on humility. “It’s a dangerous thing to tell people that they are special and chosen,” he said in his gravelly baritone. “They walk around with a certain sense that they’re ‘all that.’ ”
Observations about humility may have been an apt choice this particular Sunday.
The church had been relying on a series of musical guest directors since early summer, when Philip Bingham, Concord Baptist’s beloved minister of music for nearly 20 years, stepped down to pursue activities like training newer church musicians.
Mr. Simpson, who has led Concord Baptist since 1990, remembers Mr. Bingham fondly. “Phil could do anything from classical to improv,” Mr. Simpson had said in a conversation that week. “He could play in any key. And he was the consummate thoughtful, reverent human being. We’d pray together before service every Sunday, and I counted on those prayers.”
To fill the void, Mr. Simpson envisioned an ambitious new position, one incorporating the same spiritual leadership responsibilities demanded of the church’s seven other pastors. “I want someone who understands the importance of being versatile,” said Mr. Simpson, himself a skilled pianist, organist and composer. “But they also have to teach, inspire, lift up — and love Jesus, too.”
And now Mr. McMillan’s gaffe. Back in his office after the service, Mr. Simpson slumped in his chair. “It was an ugly day,” he said. “So many things went wrong.”
It wasn’t just that the recorded track was unacceptable, he said. Mr. McMillan had arrived only 10 minutes before the service. “I can’t stand setting up music on the fly,” the pastor said.
He wistfully recalled Mr. Bingham. “He’d be here at 8:15 a.m., all the way from New Jersey,” Mr. Simpson said.
Mr. McMillan’s outlook after the service stood in striking contrast to Mr. Simpson’s disgruntlement. “This job description,” he said, “fits what I’m all about, being involved with the worship hour and the attitude of worship.”
But despite his enthusiasm, congregants responded coolly. “He was all right,” Sonya McCall, the pastor’s administrative assistant, said of Mr. McMillan’s showing. Joan Rudder, a church member, described the morning’s musical output as only “fair.”
After the service, Mr. Simpson acknowledged that perhaps things had not been as grim as he had initially thought. He conceded that both he and Mr. McMillan had been so busy the previous week, they had planned the morning’s music hastily, by e-mail. He allowed that he was eager to hear Mr. McMillan lead the women’s choir the following Sunday.
COULD it be that Mr. Simpson was simply missing his old music director? “I may be grieving his loss in the middle of looking for someone else,” he acknowledged.
Ten days later, both Mr. Simpson and Mr. McMillan reported that the candidate’s second Sunday had gone far better, and that Mr. McMillan would direct the music for the next few weeks. The next candidate will audition early next month, and a decision is expected by the end of January. “I have a feeling that I’m going to get the job,” Mr. McMillan said, his enthusiasm undaunted.
Mr. Simpson stressed that he had not ruled out hearing other candidates. But he conceded that Mr. McMillan now appeared to be far more in sync with Concord Baptist’s high standards than he had appeared his first Sunday.
“Quite honestly,” Mr. Simpson said, “he did not know that we had a philosophical disdain for track music. And he was very glad I told him.”
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