Caleb Craft had his plan.
A native of Coal Grove, Ohio, Craft intended to pursue a PhD in education at The Ohio State University.
His wife, Becca, a pediatric audiologist, was trying to find a job, leading both of them to search for backup options in case Columbus wasn’t a good job market.
Knowing he wanted to eventually enter ministry or a “church-adjacent” educational ministry, Craft started looking at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School.
After visiting Beeson during a Preview Day event, Craft called his wife from the hotel.
“We’ve got a problem, because I think this just became plan A,” Craft told her.
Craft knew if he was to go to seminary, he wanted to be somewhere that “took Jesus and the Bible seriously,” and had a rigorous curriculum. Beeson checked all of those boxes, and while he didn’t at first want to pursue another master’s degree, he realized how much he didn’t know about church history, the Bible and more, and the Lord continued to increase his desire to work closer to and in the church.
So, in fall 2020, the Crafts moved to Birmingham.
“Now, honestly, I thank God I didn’t go and do that PhD,” Craft said. “I needed the education I got here.”
Craft’s father was a preacher in the United Methodist Church, while his mom was a teacher, so “both of those callings are in my bones,” he said.
In the summer of 2021, Craft began working as a student employee for the Beeson admission team, which turned into a full-time job as Beeson’s director of enrollment management and academic support that fall.
Craft and his wife welcomed their first child, daughter Lyla, in August 2024, and were helped and encouraged by Beeson’s supportive community as they navigated the early stages of parenthood.
Working at Beeson while earning a Master of Divinity allowed Craft to “be (his) whole self.”
As he graduates this spring, Craft will walk alongside the first cohort that began their studies under his guidance in 2022, which is special.
“It helps me as an adviser to have had the classes and the professors,” Craft said. “To have had the classes they’ve had, to know what it’s like to be in the thick of Greek III…I’m at a place where I can look back and know, ‘Wow, all that work was worth it.’”
Craft said he still hopes to do pastoral work one day, and will benefit from Beeson’s training, which has provided the tools to study and take the Bible seriously for the people of God, he said.
Graduating feels “surreal,” Craft said.
“Coming up the steps every day and seeing the dome (on Hodges Chapel), I would always say, ‘Thank you, God, that I get to go here.’ I still pray that, but I’ve shifted to, ‘I get to work here.’”