By: Jay Kt
Any glance at the news these days tells the same exhausting story: the world is complicated, messy, stressful, and shows no sign of changing. Yet through it all, people still have to go about their lives and find meaning in their day to day activities. For many people across the United States, solace from the stressful world around them is found in the sanctity of their church, the pursuit of a hobby, or their work. Wherever that peace is sought, people turn to leaders for guidance, and the importance of that role in today’s world cannot be understated.
Tom Simmons, a veteran, coach, and preacher from Purcellville VA, understands that importance personally. After becoming a priest in 1998, and serving as Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church since 2002, he’s gathered decades of experience giving guidance, support, and comfort to people in need both in his community and beyond. As a veteran and former Capitol Hill staffer for the House and Senate, Simmons’ life of service bridges both the spiritual and the political.
Above all else, Simmons’ career is defined by his belief that ministry is not about just preaching, but about walking alongside people through life’s challenges and helping them grow. His roles as a priest, a coach for his peers, and leader in his community are all rooted in the truth that family relationships are the foundation of faith, growth, and emotional well-being. Every person has their own emotional turbulence,anger, fear, shame, longing, trauma,that can affect their close relationships. Through faith and family, Tom Simmons seeks to help people find peace.
“Forces outside our families often work to draw us apart, to instill suspicion, alienation and non-comprehension, to distract us with a non-stop pace of busyness,and to hive us off into different on-line communities and identities,” Simmons explains. “These challenges must be named and addressed in preaching, in our congregation’s Bible Studies and in the pastoral care we are able to give with family members of all ages in our congregation.”
Common Struggles, Specialist’s Advice
In the course of helping families and individuals navigate challenges, and strengthen their relationships and faith, Tom Simmons has had to learn much and learn widely to properly account for and learn about people’s needs. In conjunction with his church’s Children’s and Youth Ministers, he looks to apply lessons and leadership to sermons, teaching series, and the counseling work he does with couples preparing for marriage and the baptism of their children. The resources he tracks down and leverages range from well-known books, podcasts, and studies from experts in the field, including recommendations for wise therapists and coaches.
“I have seen a lot over the years of how anger, mental health issues, overcommitment and busyness, substance abuse, pornography and ideological polarization burden people’s emotional lives and strain their relationships,” Simmons says.
Anger in particular is important to Simmons’ work, as his own experiences and struggles with it in his youth color his leadership and ministry today. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing it, and that truth led him to take a course,Healing Anger, by Dr. Steven Stosny,and apply its learnings to both his own life and others’. He additionally worked with Dr. Tim Teague to overcome the triggers and attitudes that stirred his anger, and the combination of those two experts’ advice changed his life for the better.
“The material was so good, I worked to adapt it into a course I taught in Lent at St. Peter’s, and also into a series of Church Chat columns in the Purcellville Gazette,” he recalls. “In subsequent years, I was able to work with five different men and women in one-on-one counselling/coaching, addressing their ‘anger issues’ to good effect.”
Leading By Example
Tom Simmons’ own experiences with healing, personal growth, and grounding himself through faith and family,which, crucially, includes the existence of the preceding struggles,plays a major role in how he guides families today. People, on average, are best able to learn and heal in an environment that is safe and welcoming. Knowing that they’re listening to someone who understands their problems firsthand makes a perceivable positive impact. It all starts by accepting that the problems exist, and that everyone has them.
“People’s problems are often like a lizard’s shadow cast onto the wall of a cave,” Simmons says. “That wee reptile can appear like a fearsome dragon! But when we bring it out of the cave into the light of day, we see it’s much more manageable. Everyone has problems, and they’re often not as big as they seem.”
Simmons models that by being honest about his own struggles. He makes an example of them in sermons, small groups, and one-on-one counseling, leading by example and providing proof that healing is possible. He’s found that doing so generally lowers people’s anxiety, and believes that transparency is the best policy,even if it disrupts the common Christian desire for a shining, impervious leader on a pedestal.
“I have found over the years that this generally lowers the temptation to ‘wear it on their sleeve,’ trying to display what good Christians we all are, and to judge those who fall short,” explains Simmons. “A lot of Christian communities live like that, but this keeps us from getting real with each other.”
Doing The Lord’s Work
Tom Simmons has led the development of multiple Ministries through St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Of these, the one he’s most proud of is their Marriage Mentor program, where existing couples are trained and prepared to help guide others who are preparing for marriage or seeking to enrich their existing one. These Marriage Mentors are not therapists or counselors, but companions in the journey of marriage and guides that help couples express and manage expectations, facilitate good conversations, and find solutions.
“We’ve had many dozens of couples prepare with our Mentor Couples over the years, and many others have worked with Marriage Mentors to enrich their relationship,” Simmons says. “St Peter’s is sought after as a beautiful place to get married from people outside the church and I am grateful for the excellent marriage preparation that we’re able to give them when they come to St Peter’s to be married.”
Simmons’ ministry and leadership work goes beyond the immediate local area to aid people elsewhere in the state and country. St. Peter’s contributed to the founding of two organizations that have grown significantly in the past 15 years: Mosaic, a crisis pregnancy center with six locations in northern Virginia; and Tree of Life, which started as a food pantry in Purcellville and has expanded to include job and family counseling, a thrift store and cafe, local housing for at-risk families, and more.
“We have people who are passionate about these efforts and their enthusiasm is contagious,” Simmons says. “It inspires others to participate. It’s a matter of good leadership, which we enjoy in abundance.”
