Beeson Podcast, Episode #680 Hayden Walker Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney. I’m joined today by Beeson alum, Hayden Walker, who serves in Young Adult and Women’s Ministry at her local church in Arkansas, and speaks regularly in other contexts as well. Hayden preached a marvelous sermon in Beeson’s chapel just a little over two months ago from second Corinthians 4. It was titled, “Only Embers.” It’s on our Youtube channel. I recommend it wholeheartedly. It should be easy to find and we’ll remember to post a link to it when we advertise the podcast as well. Hayden spoke at our Center for Women in Ministry. While she’s on campus she’s always finding ways to serve the Lord by serving other people. And it’s always a delight to have her with us. So, welcome, Hayden, to the podcast. >>Hayden: Thank you, Dean Sweeney. Delighted to be here with you today. >>Doug Sweeney: A lot of people here at Beeson know about you, of course, Hayden, but for those who are listening now and haven’t met you before, let’s introduce you to them. Would you mind telling us just a little bit about your family, your upbringing, and how you came to know the Lord? >>Hayden: I grew up in a small town in Southern Arkansas, the same town that my parents and grandparents on side, six generations back, all from the same small town. I grew up in a family that took me to church. From a young age really the Lord was beckoning me to himself. I had a spiritual sensitivity from a young age. But it was in my early junior high years that Jesus really opened my eyes to himself as Lord, King, Savior. I had a friend that invited me to a Disciple Now at her church and I knew so little that I showed up even without a bible. But God really opened my heart to Himself that weekend. Then a college student at a local university in my hometown began a program of weekly discipleship with me for a couple of years after that. And I really learned what it meant to study the Word, what committed prayer looked like, what just a life committed to Jesus looked like. The Lord ... I think he unfolded his calling to vocational ministry in my life over many years, really. Looking back, Dr. Smith always quotes [inaudible 00:03:06] “live forward and understood backwards our stories are” but looking back I can see when I was 14 I was a youth preacher on Sunday morning at my small little United Methodist Church that I grew up in. I started leading bible studies in junior high and through high school. It was really in college at Ouachita Baptist University in my hometown where I went that the Lord clearly and distinctly called me to vocational ministry and as preparation for that specifically to seminary preparation for a lifetime of service. >>Doug Sweeney: Wonderful. How did you wind up at Beeson Divinity School? Did you know about Beeson, growing up? Did you have a professor in college tell you about Beeson? How did you hear about it? >>Hayden: I learned of Beeson first in college. I majored in biblical studies. And was exposed to some of the professors, some of the scholars at Beeson. And loved what I was learning vicariously at a distance from them. And so I had an Old Testament professor who actually learned Hebrew from Alan Roth at DTS. I guess in maybe the late ‘70s. He said if you want a seminary that’s going to give you a really holistic education and be academically rigorous and personally forming I think Beeson is where you need to look. And I trusted him deeply. And Beeson kind of became the only place of interest for me when I considered seminary. >>Doug Sweeney: Tell us just a little bit about your experience at Beeson? What was it like for you? Was it frightening? Was it exciting? Was it edifying? What did you find the community life like? Have any favorite teachers or classes? >>Hayden: So, my husband and I, Cody, we met at Ouachita. We got married and lived in my hometown in Arkadelphia for a year to save up to move to Birmingham. So, moving to Birmingham to come to Beeson was a frightening experience. Growing up somewhere and going to college there and even our first year of marriage there. It was just a whole new experience to be in the bright lights and big city of Birmingham. Then just the adjustment to seminary. Obviously I had done biblical studies in undergrad so I was not unfamiliar with the territory, but the rigors of Beeson were ... you know, it takes an adjustment period to wrap your head around that. I had a spiritual mentor through college. And I can remember lamenting over some of my grades that first semester. She said, “Hayden, did you go to Beeson ...” she knew it was a dream of mine to be at Beeson. She said, “Did you go to Beeson to earn perfect grades or did you go to Beeson to be prepared for a life of ministry?” And that was a turning point for me, to really say, okay wow, this is more than trying to obtain a perfect transcript. And so leaning into what God was going to be doing in me for those years is really that receptivity, I think was a turning point for me. And I began to build relationships with professors that were transformative. It’s interesting, coming to Beeson I knew a lot of the names of many of these professors, I had read their works and things like that. But I never really imagined that they would know my name and would care about me. I loved so many of the courses that I took. But just developed a particularly fond relationship with Dr. Smith, as so many students have. He took me under his wing and has loved me and mentored me and been a spiritual father to me over even these past ten years after graduation. I would say another thing about Beeson that was really formative for me is not just the educational content and the professors but the relationships with the other students that I made. Those are the deepest and closest friends that I have. And so that is another kind of Why Beeson? for me – the deep personal friendships that are forged in those halls. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, they sure are. And what church were you and Cody in while you were at Beeson? >>Hayden: We were at Mountain Brook Baptist Church. I interned there and then worked there after graduation. >>Doug Sweeney: Was that a good experience for you? I mean, some of the people who will listen to this interview and will think of you as a possible role model are young women who want to know is seminary a good place for me? And if I go to a seminary like Beeson will there be churches in the area where I can serve and get plugged in and so on? What was it like for you at Mountain Brook Baptist? >>Hayden: Mountain Brooke Baptist is a gem. It was a place that actually my mentor group leader at Beeson, we were having a hard time finding the right fit for us, and so my mentor group leader suggested that we try Mountain Brook Baptist. And mentioned a dear couple from Beeson, alums, [inaudible 00:08:45] suggested that we try Mountain Brook Baptist. And meet the Splawns. We worshipped there that first Sunday and went to lunch with the Splawns and the rest is history essentially. But it was so beautiful to see a church really committed to faithful, biblical theology. Committed to global ministry and missions. And to see space for women to serve alongside. Space for women’s voices to be heard and esteemed. And so Mountain Brook Baptist was a huge part of my seminary experience because it gave me a framework that I had not yet seen in Baptist life of women co-laboring. Priscilla’s and Aquila’s together for the Kingdom. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. Of course Wayne now is Senior Pastor of that church and that staff is loaded with Beeson alums. That’s an exciting thing to see. >>Hayden: Yes, it is. >>Doug Sweeney: All right. So, you finish up at Beeson and what happens next for you? How do you continue to be involved in ministry? >>Hayden: After I graduated Beeson ... this December marks ten years actually ... I transitioned into a full time staff role at Mountain Brook Baptist as Minister to Students. Which student ministry, full time, is extra full time because you are working all hours to be really invested in the lives of our students. I loved student ministry. I loved the teenagers that God put before me. I love even now ... I stepped away from that role six years ago when my older son was born. And I love now that I still have deep relationships with many of those students whom I invested in many years ago. It’s sweet to see how God has continued some of those threads of ministerial mentoring and relationship throughout a lot of different seasons. I also worked during that time, and for actually nine years, with Beeson’s Lily Endowment Grant to strengthen the quality of preaching. And that role looked different over many years but that was a fun way to see a different side of ministry. Not being the one doing the ministry but to be someone supporting the flourishing and the sustaining and equipping of ministers. Currently, my ministry ... I stepped away from my full time ministerial role at Mountain Brook Baptist six years ago. Last week, actually, my son turned six and so the discipleship of my children in the home has been a primary priority of mine. But God has given me a lot of growing opportunity for itinerant ministry and I just want to be faithful, Dean Sweeney, to every opportunity that God puts before me. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, you sure are being faithful. And of course all of us here at Beeson are deeply grateful to God for the way he’s gifted you in ministry and the way he’s gifted you as a preacher and teacher of the bible. I wonder, could we get you to spend a few minutes coaching prospective students? And I don’t want you to only coach female students, but I’m hoping you’ll partly coach female students because your story is such an interesting one. Very gifted at preaching and teaching, involved in full time ministry for a long time, stepping back a little bit while your kids are little ... as you’ve looked back on your ministry trajectory, do you feel like all the time you spent as a bible and ministry major and a seminary student and so on was well spent, was worth it? And how would you coach young women in particular who are just trying to figure out ... “I feel like I’m called, I feel like I’m appropriately gifted, I love learning this stuff, is seminary for me?” What would your advice be to young women worried about that? >>Hayden: This is an easy question to me Dean Sweeney because I feel like God puts lots of opportunity before me to have these types of conversations. I think that when we think of a degree, an undergraduate degree in biblical studies, or a seminary degree, or a terminal degree, we think of it sometimes perhaps in error as a means to an end, as when I received this degree then I can do X, Y, Z. ... instead of as an opportunity for personal spiritual formation and transformation. And so I think when we see higher learning, higher biblical learning as a process of sanctification and transformation by the spirit of God himself, then it’s not about obtaining a certain vocational goal or position or opportunity, but it’s about becoming the kind of person that God would call you to be. And then to lean into the freedom that life really comes in seasons and it doesn’t always ... your ministry doesn’t always have to look the same in every season. And to find real freedom in that. Even as we look through the lives of people recorded in scripture, their ministries don’t look the same for 20 or 30 years in a row. There are seasons and differences and changes and new callings that God puts in our lives. And so if we see seminary as an opportunity for God to shape us into the kind of people that he wants us to be for whatever seasons comes, that’s a more freeing position I think, especially for women who are considering ministry, especially when the vocational job market may look dismal in the local church. To be able to say, okay, this could be a season that God could train me and equip me for a lifetime of personal service to him. It could look like a season in the church. It could look like a season bi-vocationally, or a season just volunteering, or a season raising your family. And to not think of it ... God wastes nothing, first of all. So, he will not waste your seminary years. But it may not pan out in the way that you conceive of it. It looks different in different seasons. >>Doug Sweeney: If I was a young woman, I’d be listening to you right now trying to figure out is seminary necessary? Or really, really worth it for me? I look around and I see a lot of women who get hired even on staff of churches full time and they don’t have any seminary training. Oftentimes people who are put in charge of women’s ministries at congregations don’t have a seminary degree. So, clearly you don’t have to go to seminary to do the kind of work that a lot of women would like to do, eventually. What would you say about the value of seminary and whether it is really worth all the sacrifice, all the time, all the money that is required to get a master of divinity degree? >>Hayden: Ultimately, I think can God use anyone? Yes, absolutely. But I think that when I was grappling with my own calling in my life, I look at physicians, I look at attorneys, I look at people who have PhD’s in all sorts of fields, and they have chosen to make great sacrifices because they felt that their desired field of study was worth it, and that the subject was worthy of the time and calling. Well, my goodness, if the subject that I feel called to commit my life to and to study is God himself, then surely a few years of training are ... and we’re never going to be able to plumb the depths but perhaps we should come with a greater humility and a greater grasp of the weighty calling of what it is to stand before others and lead them in truth. And ultimately are there people that are doing the work out there that have not just been [inaudible 00:17:42] absolutely. Are some of them doing a fabulous job? Absolutely. Are some of them just planning a calendar and being event planners? Perhaps. And so let’s raise up generations of people, of young people, of women who acknowledge that there’s something weightier and greater to this calling than organizing nice fellowships for ladies in the church to get to know one another. Let’s be able to dive into scripture deeply. Let’s understand the connections of historical theology and biblical theology and work in some languages, and let women taste the steak – let’s don’t just leave them on the spiritual milk. And so to be a woman who is able to lead people well, you’ve got to be trained well. And so for me, seminary was a no-brainer because I wanted to be able to do it well and I knew how ill equipped I was without that specific training. >>Doug Sweeney: That is great. Preach it, friend. I love what you said earlier about the intensification of your own discipleship, the personal transformation that took place in your life in seminary. I wish that for so many more people. I realize it’s a big ask these days to pick up and move and spend a few years in a community, really getting formed in those sorts of ways. But I, too, want to encourage more and more young women especially to consider seminary. All right. Let’s bring it all the way up to the present. What’s the Lord doing in your life and ministry these days? What’s your sort of weekly routine look like? How are you balancing all that’s on your plate – being a good mom, staying active in ministry, both in your own congregation and in traveling sometimes? >>Hayden: It is a balancing act. Sometimes it feels more like juggling perhaps to try to do it all well. I lead our Sunday morning young adult ministry at my local church, and teach that weekly. And then I teach this semester actually ... I’ve written a series of lectures on Galatians and Ephesians that I’ve been teaching on Wednesday nights to the women in our church. And then next week I’m going to be teaching those lectures to a group of women in Peru for some pastor’s wives training for a ministry there in Peru. Then these itinerant ministry events that God puts before me – I’m so grateful for. I kind of have to squeeze it in the cracks. So, I utilize nap time well. I hopefully utilize outside, my kids will be playing in the yard and I’ll be sitting in the lawn chair with my commentary making notes and ... so, I don’t do it perfectly by any stretch of the imagination, but I just try to be faithful with what God puts before me. And then to consider seriously what it is to disciple my children well. And to invest in them. I never want them to see mommy is traveling again, or something like that to be a burden to them. So, we try to make it exciting whenever I’m gone. The boys have a tradition that if I’m out of town on a Friday or Saturday doing a conference or retreat or something that daddy takes them to Chuck-E-Cheese. So, they get really excited when I’m traveling, that they get to do something fun. It really is a village, and when I stand to speak somewhere I often recognize that it is Cody my husband it’s my mom and dad and mother-in-law and father-in-law and friends that step in to take care of my boys when I’m out. And I see their ministry ... I can’t stand without them standing behind me. So, very grateful for all the hands that make it possible. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, we are, too. And Haden, we’re almost out of time. I don’t know how often you listen to the Beeson Podcast, but we have a tradition of ending every interview the same way. We like to ask our guests what the Lord is teaching them these days or has been teaching you in recent months. So, even for Hayden Walker whose active all the time in teaching ministry, is she still growing in the Lord, growing in grace? Is God still teaching you new things these days? And if so, what’s going on in your life? >>Hayden: Goodness. If he’s not, then I have no place to be standing up anymore. But yes, this is my favorite question that you ask each time, Dean Sweeney? I love to hear what God is doing personally in people’s lives. For me, recently, with some different challenges before me, I have just been reminded of how trustworthy he is. And that doesn’t mean that your circumstances change. It just means that God is going to be trustworthy in it. He’s brought to mind this image of Exodus 17 and the people have just gone through the Red Sea and seen his salvific hand at work – and then they get there and they say, “Lord, have you brought us out here to die of thirst in the desert?” And of course God brings forth water from the rock through Moses. Dean Sweeney, I think that so often we want that rock, or that dry place, to be removed from our lives instead of trusting that God is going to provide for us in the midst of it. And so in this season I have been trusting, asking the Lord to help me to trust him, to surrender my dry place, my rock, to him. And to dwell on his character that is sufficient and that is good, and is trustworthy, and he’s consistent. And that he will provide, not in spite of my circumstances, but in the midst of it. So, that’s my current season. >>Doug Sweeney: And that’s a wonderful way to end our podcast interview. Thank you, Hayden, for being with us. Listeners, this has been Hayden Walker. We’re proud to say she’s an alum of Beeson Divinity School. She’s an alum of the ministry of Mountain Brook Baptist Church. And she’s active today in many ways in her own congregation in Arkansas and as an itinerant speaker as well. Please tune in to the Beeson Youtube channel and hear the marvelous sermon she preached on 2 Corinthians 4 on October 10th. Please continue to pray for us, we’re praying for you. Please pray for our students. We have graduation coming up very soon. A whole new batch of students we’re sending out into the world of ministry. Please keep them in your prayers as well. We love you and we say goodbye for now. >>Rob Willis: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our engineer is Rob Willis. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes and Spotify.