Rev. Kevin T. Taylor is a pastor, educator, and executive leader who bridges the sacred and the strategic.

Since 2021, he has served as Pastor of Israel A.M.E. Church in Albany, NY, where his ministry blends worship, justice, and innovation through initiatives like Speaking Truth to Power Tuesdays and the Summer Literacy Challenge. Beyond the pulpit, Kevin brings over 20 years of C-suite and nonprofit leadership experience, including roles as Chief Finance & Talent Officer at the Connecticut RISE Network, Interim CEO & CFO of Greentown Labs, CEO of City on a Hill Charter Public School, and COO of KIPP Massachusetts. A proud Tuskegee University alum, he has been honored by Marquis Who’s Who (2025), 100 Men of Color, and the National Council of Negro Women.

Through preaching, teaching, writing, and community service, Rev. Taylor equips organizations and congregations for spiritual growth and lasting transformation.

https://revkttaylor.com/

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Praise God for you, Reverend Kevin Taylor.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

Thank you so much for having me and hello to all of your listeners.

I'm joining you from North America in the state of Connecticut.

How did you come to meet Jesus?

So I met Jesus when I was a child.

I was born and raised in the oldest or rather the largest black church in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And that's the same church that my parents were married in, where my brother, sister, and I were baptized in.

And I was a regular attender of church so much so that the pastor would say when I would come through the receiving line at the end of service, you know, hey preacher.

And then later in life,

I learned from my parents that when I was first born and they brought me to church that one of

the mothers of the church held me for the first time and said to my mom, he's going to be a

the biblical undercurrent and the need to be able to have a relationship with Christ

was a seed that was planted early and the evidence was visible well into my childhood

and formative years.

What was the journey like?

So I think that the journey to coming to Christ, I think was different from the decision to return to the pastorate.

So I think there's no, I don't have the conversion testimony that some people have of sitting on the morning's bench and the Holy Spirit coming down or, you know, coming up to the altar in tears to be able to profess Christ.

I don't remember it that way.

But instead I remember just knowing that he was the Lord of my life.

And like Jeremiah said, that it was like fire shut up in my bones.

Do you remember when you decided that you would become a pastor?

Yeah, so in our denomination, you go through a ministerial institute, you profess your call, you preach your initial sermon, the stewards recommend you to the quarterly conference, the quarterly, the elder, the presiding elder gives you your exhorters license.

And from there, you are passed into the ministerial institute where you spend four years, you know, learning, teaching, learning, growing and exercising your gifts.

Now the church requires that you would also complete your master's in divinity or have a master's in theology in order for you to be ordained.

But at the time I came through, that was not the requirement.

The way our church is designed is that there are a dearth of pastors and we just need more people to be able to fill the body.

And so other forms of ministry that are not pastoring, unfortunately are subordinate in many ways to the pastor.

So the idea of me pastoring was not a problem.

I preached my trial sermon when I was 18 and it remained in support and ministry for now more than almost 30 years.

But I say that to be able to say that when I was pastoring in Alabama and moved to California, one of the things that was clear to me is that my administrative gifts are significant.

And I was, I really felt that I was not going to be able to find a spouse who would be willing to do the things that I like to do, which is travel and see the world and be able to take vacations for, you know, lengths of time, that I would not be able to do that if I had the tie, the responsibility of being a pastor.

And so I made up in my mind that I was going to be an executive pastor.

So, you know, give the preaching, give the appointment to the individual who God has called to this house for this time.

But like all your back office functions, all your administrative needs, I can be an executive pastor.

And so I thought that that was what it was going to do in order for me to come back.

And it was years later, a conversation with another colleague in ministry and actually seeing the Broadway show, The Lion King, that reminded me that I needed to return to what it is that I knew to do.

Which character from Lion King resonated with that message?

Yeah.

So there is a, if your listeners are familiar...

One second.

For some reason, your audio is just cut out completely.

One second here.

What just happened there?

That is so weird.

Can you hear me?

You're back in now, yeah.

Okay.

So if your audience is familiar with The Lion King there, Simba, you know, spent time in the wilderness, so to speak, and in hiding from the situation that he confronted back at home.

And so he goes to the pool and looks at his reflection, and he sees his father, Mufasa, in the reflection.

And Mufasa appears on the screen and says to Simba, Simba, you are more than what you have become.

And of course, this changes the trajectory of Simba's life.

He goes back, he faces his fears, and he takes his rightful place as the leader.

And so for me, hearing that you are more than what you've become was a reminder that as this type of success that I was enjoying being where I was, that that was not enough, that I needed instead to be able to return to the pastor.

And so I did, and that was 2012.

And so for the past 14 years, I've been back in the pulpit, and I now lead the oldest Black church in upstate New York.

I stop on the Underground Railroad, a church that is about to celebrate 200 years and two more years.

And so I've been working for these five years that I've been here to be able to help prepare the church for the next century of ministry.

But if I had not heard the Lord's voice clearly in the Lion King, there is the possibility that this would not have come to pass.

So this is you in California hearing that, and then moving to Connecticut?

So I was actually in New York hearing that, was in Los Angeles, moved to New York for work, was a part of a ministerial staff, still believing that I was going to be an executive pastor.

But I was in New York on Broadway.

With that, moved from there to Massachusetts, which is where I met my wife.

And because she is from Massachusetts, I'm sorry, she's from Connecticut originally, we made the decision to move closer, to be closer to her family.

What confirmed the compatibility that you talked about earlier on, you were concerned about with the career path that you were going with?

So she's a career woman also, and so that was one thing that she enjoyed traveling.

We were both in the same industry, so our vocations were able to overlap.

And so we would do a summer trip that she would plan.

And so we've been to France, which is where we got engaged.

We've climbed Mount Vesuvius.

Lord knows we did that.

That was not mine.

That was tough.

So after we get engaged, we went to the Eiffel Tower and walked to the top.

And then when we got to the top, my knees are tired.

And she's like, well, I'm scared of heights, so I'm going to have to leave you on these steps.

And so I had to, you got me all the way up these stairs, and now I got to go back down.

At any rate, but we got along well.

So in our tradition, there are people that, unfortunately, there are some women who want nothing more than to be a first lady, and they want the prestige and the perceived power that comes with being the first lady.

And look, it's true for men too, who are looking for trophy wives and for others.

That was never our dynamic at all.

She loves me, and she wants to be supportive of me.

Her ambition is not to achieve the greatest thing that is out there simply because she's the first lady.

If anything, she feels more strongly about the congregation than I do based on the things that she has seen me endure.

So it works for us.

And for that, I'm thankful.

A challenge that we have is that my church is two hours from home.

And so it makes it harder for my children and for my wife to come to church on a regular basis.

And because church was such a significant part of my upbringing, there's a part of me that feels that I am robbing them of something.

And so it is my prayer that there will come a day where we are all able to worship together regularly in church.

My daughter loves to dance, and we would love for her to be a part of the liturgical dance ministry, but driving two hours for a one-hour rehearsal and driving two hours back is just not practical.

My son is active.

He likes to...

He can't sit still.

So that's a perfect usher, right?

That's an acolyte.

That's someone in the church that can have something to do, but if you're not coming often enough to be involved in those things, then there's not the opportunity to be able to do it.

And so that's not to say that we aren't reading and listening to the gospel music and doing all the things, praying together that you would expect.

It just is like I'm missing, for them, the church experience that helped form me.

Five years has passed.

Five years in the future, if you could imagine with me, you're leaving a message in the bottle for yourself here.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

I would say to future me, if your job was to plant, be the best sower that you can be.

If your job was to water, be the best water you will be, but remember that God gives the increase.

And so it may or may not be on your watch, but it doesn't mean that the work that you did was wrong.

And I think that's something that we have to hear as pastors and as Christians, is that we might not be able to enjoy the shade from the tree that we planted, but somewhere along the line, someone will be happy that the tree was planted and the shade is now available.

And so you just do the best with what you have, and God will take care of the rest.

Reverend Kevin, a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired by Torvonne Concourse.