When most people picture a minister, Vince Anderson is not who comes to mind.
He curses. He wears caftans. He has played a “dirty gospel” residency with his six-member band, The Love Choir, on Monday nights for the past 26 years, a majority of them at the Union Pool bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His signature song is “Get Out of My Way,” a growling, percussive call-and-response anthem he wrote in 2000. (He used to get naked by the end of every show; he stopped in the mid-2000s.)
Mr. Anderson, 53, who left seminary after three months in 1994 to pursue music, is the minister of music and community arts at Bushwick Abbey, an Episcopal church in Brooklyn, and plays the piano for Sunday services at Iglesia de la Santa Cruz, a Spanish-speaking congregation in the same building.
Known as Reverend Vince, Mr. Anderson said he was ordained in 2003. He has played with all of his band members since at least about that time, and he said they’ve never had a rehearsal. “Once in a while I send the band a crude recording, but most of the time I just play a new song once onstage for the first time on piano, and they kind of get it, and then we go into it,” he said.
He was the subject of a 2022 documentary, “The Reverend,” which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video and the Criterion Channel. He lives in a two-bedroom apartment in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens — about a 15-minute walk from his Bushwick congregations — with his wife of five years, Millicent Souris, 50, a cook and a writer, and their 3-month-old rescue kittens, Ace and Sonny.
DAILY DEVOTIONS I wake up around 7 a.m. — lately I’ve been trying to keep my phone out of my bedroom, so I just use my Apple Watch for an alarm — and read a book or some psalms. I’m currently reading “Wandering Stars,” Tommy Orange’s new novel. I let the kittens come in and cuddle with me for a minute. Rather than doomscrolling, I’m trying to just be thankful and count my blessings; it’s important to me to be present in the moment to start my day.
GETTING CENTERED I started drawing mandalas during my recovery from spinal surgery in January (I had five herniated discs in my spine, all from me playing piano) and I’ve kept it up. I’ll paint or draw something in a circle, which gives me focus. It opens up the spiritual side of me and gets the creative side of me flowing in a different way than music does.
CAFTAN COLLECTION I started wearing them in 2014 after my now-wife, Millicent, turned up on our first date in a caftan. It really struck me. I was like, “Wow, she looks really good in that.” I started wearing her caftans once in a while and decided I really liked them. It was a revelation — the versatility, the breathable fabric. I have about 40 now. I get many of them from a woman who lives in Los Angeles, Cynthia Vincent — she’s become a friend. I also get some from Sisterface, a drag queen in Hawaii. Others come from Etsy. I always imagine that somebody’s mama down in Boca Raton passed away and suddenly they’ve got a really awesome caftan collection to sell.
SIGNATURE SANDWICH Around 8 a.m., I walk a block to Benny’s, a local deli, for breakfast. I get a black coffee with no sugar and my favorite sandwich, which I helped create: an egg and cheese on a hero with hash browns. I get it to go so I can take it with me on my walk to church.
SIDEWALK TO HEAVEN I usually get to church by about 9 a.m. I’m the first person there, so I get the building all set to open. I turn on the air-conditioner, check the fridge, see if anything needs work or cleaning.
My job duties are mainly around music and the arts, but over the pandemic, we opened up a community fridge and food pantry, and I’m in charge of distribution. On Wednesdays, we feed about 100 people — they get two pantry bags each. We get food donations from Trader Joe’s that we pick up every Tuesday. I also do light pastoral work; I’m not a pastor there, but I’m a minister, and sometimes choir members are going through things.
SING OUT At 10:30, I lead choir rehearsal for Bushwick Abbey. Knowing how to sing is not a requirement — that’s really why we have choirs, right? If you don’t know how to sing, you just blend in with the rest of us.
PIANO MAN I play piano for the Bushwick Abbey service at 11, which is led by my colleague, the Reverend Nell Archer, the vicar of Bushwick Abbey and Iglesia de la Santa Cruz. She brings great experience — her first career was working for the Maysles brothers.
A JOYFUL NOISE It’s time to lead another choir rehearsal, this time for Iglesia de la Santa Cruz at 12:45. I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m learning. Well, I speak what I would call ecclesiastical Spanish — anything praising God, I’m pretty good at it. Conversations with humans, I’m not so good at yet.
EL PIANISTA I play piano for the Iglesia de la Santa Cruz service at 1:15. We have a Spanish-speaking leader now — Acsmed Balanta — but we didn’t for a long time, so I would just read and hope for the best. They were very nice to me and understanding and patient.
PINBALL WIZARD The service ends around 2:30, and I’ll sometimes stick around for a meal at Iglesia de la Santa Cruz if they’re serving one, or I’ll walk to Milo’s, a bar a few blocks away in Ridgewood. I’ll read a book, have a glass of sake and a pork bun, play some pinball and chat with the bartender.
LIGHTING UP I get home around 3, and I’m usually pretty tired. I’ve been a medicinal marijuana license holder and a user since last fall — when the pain was unbearable before my surgery — so I take some of that. Then I relax and put on some music. I’m really into this band called the Meridian Brothers from Colombia, I love Pharoah Sanders and lately I’ve been listening to Keith Hudson, a great reggae artist from the ’70s.
LITTLE HOUSE OF HORTICULTURE I’m a bit of a houseplant enthusiast. My front room is filled with them; I counted 92 different plants. I’ll mist them and play them some music. Watering them usually takes about an hour.
THE BEST BURGER Then it’s time to decide on dinner. There’s a restaurant my wife and I like on Forest Avenue in Ridgewood called Cafe Plein Air. They normally serve French country-inspired homemade food, but on Sundays only, from 3 to 6 p.m., they cook burgers. They’re secretly the best burger in all of New York City right now. It’s just a classic beef grilled burger — the bun isn’t too big — and the fries are ridiculous. I might also get a side of chicken liver paté — if you really want to go full-on glutton, it’s a good way to go.
SUMMER NIGHTS If the Mets are playing in the late afternoon or early evening, I’ll watch the game. If not, I’ll read or my wife and I will watch a movie. Or, if it’s a nice night, we might just sit in the front room with the windows rolled way up with the cats and have a couple of drinks while people-watching, listening to music and chatting with neighbors.
EARLY TO BED Usually, I’m pretty wiped out and in bed by 10. That’s what turning 50 does to you. I spent my whole life trying to convince my mom to let me stay up until 10, and now I’m just like, “Can we go to bed at 9?”
