Pastor Jamal Bryant will preach his first fiery sermon as senior Pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. on Sunday, Dec. 9.
Last weekend, Bryant, 47, broke the news to his congregation that he was leaving the Northwest Baltimore church he founded 18 years ago. He said they didn’t take the news well.
“The news did not go over well, at all,” Bryant said in an extensive interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “There was a great gnashing of teeth. Nobody was expecting it.”
Bryant’s father, John Richard Bryant, a retired bishop at the Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, prayed over his son before he departed for Atlanta.
Bryant received a warm welcome from members of the congregation at New Birth. The walls of his office are adorned with portraits of the church’s handsome new pastor.
Bryant was excited to see his name on a parking spot just outside the doors of the mega church.
“You know it’s real when you got a parking spot lol,” he wrote on Instagram.com on Thursday.
The megachurch, which boasts 10,000 members, was founded by Bishop Eddie Long who died from an aggressive form of cancer in 2017.
Pastor Bryant’s first day on the job will be Sunday, Dec. 9, at 9:30 a.m. Get there early. Church pews will be filled to the rafters.
