Bryant moving to church in Georgia
Charismatic pastor built Empowerment Temple into religious, political force
The Rev. Jamal H. Bryant, the charismatic, politically connected and at times controversial founding pastor of the Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, will become the new senior pastor at a well-known megachurch near Atlanta, an official of the Georgia church confirmed Monday.
Bryant will take over New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., a church with 25,000 members that played host to the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., 12 years ago.
Thomas W. Dortch Jr., chairman of the board at the church, said in a text message to The Baltimore Sun Monday afternoon that board members had voted for Bryant.
Earlier in the day, Dortch had confirmed that Bryant was one of two finalists for the position and said he would be “thrilled” if Bryant were elected.
“I’ve known Jamal for years, dating all the waybacktohisNAACPdays, andI’vewatched him grow his church from about 45 congregants to thousandsofpeople, andIbelievehe’ll make a wonderful fit,” Dortch said.
Neither Bryant nor his publicist, Nicole Kirby, could be reached late Monday for comment.
Bryant, 47, told congregants during his three sermons Sunday at the Empowerment Temple that he would leave the position he has held since he founded the Northwest Baltimore church in 2000.
He will preach his final sermon at the church Dec. 2, he said.
A riveting speaker and the son and grandson of ministers, Bryant led the growth of Empowerment Temple from a few dozen to a reported 10,000 members, many of them young people, and helped turn it into a place with a reputation for hipness and one of the more influential of Baltimore’s predominantly African-American congregations.
A former NAACP youth director, he also emerged as a high-profile social-justice activist in the city and beyond. In 2012, he led peaceful protests on behalf of the family of Trayvon Martin, the Florida youth who was shot to death by a neighborhood watchmanin a case that made national headlines. He later served as spiritual adviser to Martin’s parents and brought them to Baltimore, where they appeared at Empowerment Temple services.
Bryant also became a familiar voice on radio and TV and helped lead local protests against police brutality in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death while in police custody in 2015.
Bryant’s personal life was exposed during a divorce from his wife in 2008. In the initial divorce filing, Bryant’s wife, Gizelle Bryant, accused the pastor of adultery, cruel treatment and “excessively vicious conduct,” according to an article in The Sun at the time.
He later admitted that his infidelity caused the split and asked for prayers from parishioners.
Bryant would be taking over New Birth Missionary, which was founded in 1939, from another charismatic preacher, Eddie Long. When Long became pastor of the church in the mid-1980s, it had about 300 members.
Long, whodied in 2017, turned it into one of the fastest-growing congregations in the South, building a following so large that in 2001 the church built and moved into a $50 million hall with a seating capacity of 10,000.