Baptist leader mourned
UXBRIDGE, ON–As family and friends filed into Uxbridge Baptist Church to grieve the death of David Simmonds, the Baptist community mourned the loss of a remarkable leader.
On January 14, after a long battle with cancer, David Simmonds died in the arms of his wife Barbara. At 73, he had served his denomination at the national and international levels while becoming a leader in Canada's business community.
Simmonds was the founder and long-time chairman of the Lenbrook Group, an international firm with its headquarters in Pickering, Ontario. The company is best known for Clearnet Communications, one of its subsidiaries. Its sale to Telus Corporation for $6.6 billion on August 21, 2000 remains the largest telecommunications acquisition in Canadian history.
At the time, The Toronto Star published a story about the Lenbrook Group's evolution from its beginnings as a small audio parts supplier to a corporate giant. Simmonds was undergoing chemotherapy treatment at the time and could not comment so his sons, who were in leadership roles within Lenbrook, did instead.
The Simmonds attributed their success as businesspeople to their father's example, saying he "modelled" the belief that excelling in business "is not more important" than spending time with one's spouse or children. Simmonds was father to six and grandfather to 23.
Simmonds served as president of the Baptist Young Peoples Union and Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec before becoming Canadian Baptist Ministries' president (1974-1976). He also served on the Baptist World Alliance's executive committee.
"David fulfilled the hymn 'Give of your best to the Master, give of the strength of your youth,'" says Blair Clark, Canadian Baptist Ministries director of missions and personnel. "After leading at the denominational level, David and Barbara mentored many young people and supported their leadership."
Simmonds was a chief organizer behind the international congress of the Baptist World Alliance held in Toronto in 1980. The rally–the largest event in Canadian Baptist history–drew 20,000 people from more than 100 countries.
But Clark says Simmonds did his most important work daily, behind-the-scenes.
"At a retreat several years ago I overheard him talking with young business men about the temptations he'd faced at their age," says Clark. "I saw him apply the best of the Christian life to business and the best of the business world to the Christian life while devoting himself to the Lord. That was who he was."
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