Kentucky pastor, 98, steps down, says it is job for someone with ‘a little more zip’

VINE GROVE, Ky. (KT) – Meet Jack Simmons — a man whose 98 years have been marked by hard work, deep faith, and faithful service.

Over the decades, Simmons has tended a 300-acre farm, preached and served throughout the Salem Baptist Association, led a bus ministry that brought Vacation Bible School to hundreds of children at two trailer parks, spoken at numerous churches, and served at a chapel in the city of West Point, Kentucky.  Only recently did he decide it was time to step away from the pulpit of a small country church.

“I figured I’d better let somebody who had a little more zip than I got take it over,” said Simmons, who, along with his wife Wilma, has spent a lifetime serving Jesus Christ. Wilma, 89, was the longtime recording secretary of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, holding that position for 33 years.

Born in 1927, Jack was saved as a boy. “I was around 10 when the pastor insisted that I get baptized” at Buck Grove, he said. Having grown up in the church, he already understood what it meant to follow Christ. His decades of ministry since then testify to a life of genuine faith.

Simmons reflects warmly on his years of labor — both on the farm and in ministry across the Salem Association. He served as associational Sunday School director and spent nearly 20 years visiting families throughout the Big Springs area. When the church asked him to serve as interim pastor, he agreed — and stayed in that role for 14 years before becoming the church’s full-time pastor in 2019. Even then, at age 92, he knew it wouldn’t be for long.

“I just sort of wore out,” he said. “I tell you what, as you get older, you lose the zip to make quick quotes. You kind of drudge along. I felt like I was interfering with people coming to Big Springs church.”

Though his energy has slowed, his affection for the church and community has not. Simmons spent years visiting the same families he once ministered to as part of the association. When he wasn’t serving in the church, he was on his farm — and he misses that, too.

“I’m telling you what, getting old is for the birds,” he said. “I’ve got my farm leased out, and the guy is doing a wonderful job. But it really gets on my nerves to see him on that tractor doing the work. I want to be on that tractor.”

While his preaching days are behind him, his faith remains strong.

“Brother Jack is a man of God,” said Dale Fleenor, who will succeed him as pastor. “He was more of a loving preacher. He liked to go out and visit people. Everything was salt.”

Simmons first began attending Big Springs Baptist Church in 2005, though he wasn’t officially elected as pastor until 14 years later.

“Big Springs didn’t have a pastor, and the association was responsible to send someone out there because the church couldn’t afford it,” Fleenor said. “They would send a speaker, and Brother Jack kept volunteering to come. We paid $25 for every service he did. It was then when we voted him in as pastor (in 2019). We gave him a little bit of an increase in salary.”

For Simmons, ministry was never about the money — it was about loving people and sharing God’s Word. Fleenor said the church would never have voted him out, and that Simmons stepped down entirely on his own.

The church, which had dropped to six members after COVID, has since grown to 16. “We’re going to build it back up. That’s my goal,” Fleenor said.

Simmons agrees that the community still needs the gospel. “The people are there,” he said, “They just aren’t coming to church.

“I’ve still got some ministry in me and the same relationship with Jesus Christ,” he added. “It was the best thing for me to do. I’m slowing down. I couldn’t think as quick, and I walk with a walker so I couldn’t visit.”

Together, Jack and Wilma have lived a lifetime of service — and their church plans to honor them for it. Big Springs Baptist will host a special celebration on Nov. 15, featuring singing, remarks, and a Thanksgiving-style dinner with gifts from the congregation — it’s their way of saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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This story appeared in Kentucky Today.