In 1865, at age 21, he completed his theological studies at Knox College, Toronto, and accepted a call to Knox Church, Hamilton. In three consecutive days in September, he preached his first sermon as church pastor, was formally ordained to the Presbyterian ministry and took as his bride Margaret Henry of Toronto. In nine years, under his energetic leadership, 750 new members joined Knox church and the church's indebtedness of $8,000 (large for that day) had been paid in full. In Simpson's final year in Hamilton, the church contributed $870 to missions.
In 1873, Simpson accepted a call to Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. There he enlisted the other clergy to cooperate in a citywide evangelistic campaign. In the Sprit-filled lives of Mayor Daniel Whittle and Philip P. Bliss, the evangelist and song leader, Simpson saw a spiritual dimension not evident in his own life. Alone before God, he made what he later termed "my heart's first full consecration...If God has been pleased to make my life in any measure a little temple for His indwelling and for His glory,...it has been because of that hour, and it will be still in the measure in which that hour is made the keynote of a consecrated, crucified and Christ-devoted life." Christ Jesus had become his Sanctifier.
In 1879, Simpson answered the call of the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York City. The number of people without Christ in that great city intensified his desires to preach the gospel beyond the walls of the church. His fashionable parishioners loved their new minister, but they could not understand his desire to bring into their church the unlovely people of the city.
During those stress-filled days, Simpson, never robust, broke physically. He was forced to take an extended leave from the church. At a camp meeting at Old Orchard, Maine, he heard a number of people testify to divine, physical healing. It was new truth for him, and he went to the Scriptures for validation. Thoroughly convinced, he took Jesus by faith as his Healer. The result was not so much physical healing as divine health - what Simpson called "the life of Christ manifested in my mortal flesh."
Returning to his ministry in New York, Simpson soon discovered a widening gulf between his congregation's desire for the status quo and his own new understanding of what Jesus longed to do for and through people. In 1882, he resigned the prestigious Presbyterian pulpit and immediately plunged into a ministry among New York's masses. His Gospel Tabernacle became a center for evangelism and physical healing. He also launched an illustrated magazine promoting Christian life and missions. Today it is known as Alliance Life. To publish his magazine and his sermons, he began in 1883 the Christian Alliance Publishing Company, now Christian Publications. That same year he founded his Missionary Training College, the first North American Bible College, to prepare young men and women for missionary service. It is now Nyack (New York) College.
In 1886, Simpson added to his already full schedule a summer conference at Old Orchard Camp. A missionary sermon that year by W.E. Blackstone - a Methodist and lay preacher - related Christ's return to world missions. The audience was electrified. Campers made immediate plans to organize the following year at Old Orchard a missionary alliance. And so the International Missionary Alliance came into being in 1887. A second organization, the Christian Alliance, was founded as well to promote what Simpson called "deeper life" teaching. By deeper life, Simpson meant the filling of the Holy Spirit as the Christian makes a total surrender to God. Ten years later in 1897, these two organizations merged to become the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Simpson had the ability to draw around him other leaders of stature. He also saw to it that everyone was put to work. There was a special service for German-speaking Americans. Six youth groups operated out of the Gospel Tabernacle, holding evangelistic street meetings several nights each. Other members were involved in rescue missions to help alcoholics and the homeless. Alliance people visited the hospitals and jails. The Gospel Tabernacle opened an orphanage and, in the poorest part of the city, a free medical clinic. There were services for sailors, and there was a home for pregnant, unwed girls. Berachah Home was founded to accommodate those who wished to seek divine healing for their bodies.
It was not Simpson's intention to begin a new denomination. His objective was an interdenominational fellowship to promote foreign missions and deeper life teaching. His local "branches" usually met Sunday afternoons when the churches were not in session. After the turn of the century. Liberal trends in the mainline denominations caused many Bible-believing Christians to leave their churches and group together in independent congregations. Many of these affiliated with The Christian and Missionary Alliance. In 1912, the Alliance constitution was updated to reflect this new development, and these congregations became Alliance churches.
