Beeson Podcast, Episode #675 Brady & Victoria Graves 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 two good friends who together represent a Beeson power couple. Victoria Graces and her husband, the Reverend Brady Graves. Victoria is our Programs Administrator here at Beeson, where she does a fantastic job. And her husband, Brady, is a recent grad of Beeson. He got his MDiv in 2022. He now serves as the Associate Pastor of Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in Hueytown. So, we’re grateful to both of them and their willingness to come and talk about the work of the Lord in their lives and Beeson’s role in it and what God is doing in and through your ministries now. Welcome. >>Brady: Thanks for having us. We’re happy to be here. >>Victoria: Yeah, thank you. >>Doug Sweeney: Why don’t we begin by introducing you to our listeners by asking you just a little bit about your childhoods, how you came to faith in Christ, and how you got here to Beeson. Victoria, why don’t we start with the lady in the room and ask you – how did you come to know the Lord and how did you wind up at Beeson Divinity School? >>Victoria: Yeah. So, I came from a very faith centered family. I’m biased, but I think I have the best parents in the world. My parents raised my siblings and I just in the goodness of God, showing us Christ’s love daily, and I’m really thankful for that. So, I grew up in the church. I came to faith when I was around eight or nine. My dad baptized me at Forest Lake Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And so that was really special. So, been at Beeson for about two months now. I’m really thankful to be here. I was working at Samford for about a year before moving over here to Beeson. I’m the Programs Administrator here, so I assist in a lot of areas. I help support the PhD program, Student Services, the Placement Office, the Thriving Pastors Initiative, and the Robert Smith Jr Preaching Institute. >>Doug Sweeney: So ... what don’t you support? (laughter) >>Victoria: Yeah. It’s a lot, but I’m loving it. And God is really growing me and sanctifying me through my work. Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: Before you, yourself arrived and became a member of the Beeson family on a regular basis, you had a lot of Beeson in your family. >>Victoria: Yes. >>Doug Sweeney: Would you give us just the 30 second version of that? >>Victoria: Yes, absolutely. So, first kind of was introduced to Beeson when my brother, Mark David, who is two years older than me, he went to Beeson. I was around some because I was still an undergraduate here at Samford. I really loved Beeson and I knew that it was special because I knew that if Mark David was going to Beeson that it was special because Mark David is special. Soon after Mark David graduated, Brady and I got married and Brady started here. And the more I came I just loved the community that Beeson brings and how faithfully they teach their students the love of God. >>Doug Sweeney: All right, Brady. How about you? First of all, most importantly, how did you come to know the Lord? How did you start feeling like he was moving you into ministry? And how did you get to be with us? >>Brady: Yeah. Reluctantly, in some cases. (laughs) But as you know, he will have his way, thankfully. I grew up in a somewhat chaotic childhood upbringing, but by the Lord’s grace and faithfulness my mother’s parents and my mother, her family are very faithful believers. And my grandfather was a pastor. He was a pastor for a lot of my childhood and adolescence. I grew up in a small Southern Baptist Church with my grandfather as my pastor. And when I was nine, even though I could never point to a time ever in my life where I haven’t believed in Jesus, when I was nine I finally confessed him as Lord of my life. He graciously saved me. I was baptized by my grandfather. And for a lot of my childhood and my upbringing there was this real kind of tension between what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ but also that temptation and that pull to cultural Christianity. Growing up in Alabama, there’s a lot of pull to be a cultural Christian, a social Christian, but maybe not necessarily commit your life to the Lord. So, the Lord graciously gave me a really good mentor when I was in high school who taught me the value of not only walking well with the Lord but also knowing what we believe. He gave me a systematic theology as a 16 year old and said, “This matters a lot that you know what you believe.” So, he set me on the path to thinking deeply about the Christian life and the Christian walk and matching really strong theology with also a faithful practice of Christian discipleship. And then I came to Samford for undergrad. And felt the Lord pretty early on. I struggled a little bit to find my place. But after about a year at Samford the Lord really started to pull me in the direction of ministry. But growing up, seeing ministry much like Victoria did, but seeing it from my perspective I said that’s something I’ll never do as a vocation. There’s a lot of hardship there. I’ll always be a church member, but I’ll never be a pastor. Man makes his plans and the Lord laughs, of course. So, I started feeling that pull about my sophomore/junior year in college. And I ran from it a bit. I was a little scared of that but it seemed like the Lord continued to close doors. And every door he closed pointed me back in the direction of ministry, back in the direction of ministry. And when I finally submitted to the call of ministry I knew that I was called to be the most equipped pastor possible. And I loved Samford. I had a lot of good friends and pastors that were either products of Beeson or in some way associated with Beeson and they were faithful men and women. And I knew that this was a place that I would want to come and be prepared for ministry. So, I was accepted to Beeson and enrolled. Just had the best time, the best three and a half years at Beeson of being prepared for ministry, of being equipped for ministry, both academically but more importantly kind of just the spiritual sanctification aspect of being prepared for a life of ministry, both in the church and in the academy and wherever the Lord sees fit to take me. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, it’s great to have both of you around and it’s been a real blessing for me personally just to know the two of you pretty well in the last few years. Victoria, of course, before you were employed at Beeson Divinity School you were part of my wife, Wilma’s, Beeson Wives Fellowship. Brady, you were in my Spiritual Mentor group for quite awhile. So, it’s been real special getting to know both of you together. Victoria, because I know you fairly well already, I think I know how you’re going to answer this question because we’ve talked about it offline. But I’d love for our listeners to hear you just say a word about ... you’re in a pretty special situation in that your father is a pastor, your brother is a pastor, your husband is a pastor. Here you are now, working at a seminary – Beeson Divinity School. What has that experience been like? Does that make your life, your experience of walking with the Lord, or even just the way you approach your job any different or do you feel like I’m just a regular woman like everybody else? What difference does being in that kind of a family make for someone like you? >>Victoria: Yeah, I think that it feels normal to me. I’ve never really known anything different. So, a lot of times when people ask me, “How does that feel?” “That’s crazy, I never would have expected that from you,” I kind of just shrug and say that’s really all that I’ve ever known. I’m very blessed for that to have been all that I’ve ever known. I think that it really helps me show grace and understanding to students here because I’ve kind of been through what they’re going through currently. But I also have a little bit of understanding of what they’ll go through in the future and if they have families, if they plant churches, whatever they do ... I also have the side of understanding from my childhood and stuff like that. So, it’s been really special but yeah, church was in my earliest memories. I got to see my dad serve in different in different capacities throughout my childhood, which was really special to me. But I also ... I would not say I have a lot of trauma or anything like that. There are hard sides to ministry, but my parents did a really great job of protecting me. And making sure that I was safe and protected from some of the uglier sides of ministry which I am super thankful for, because I think that has helped me stay very strong in my faith. I’m thankful to have never left the faith and remain strong in my faith since I felt a calling on my life. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. That’s wonderful. Brady, I guess it’s a teeny bit more distant for you, but your granddad was a pastor. Has that made a difference in how you have thought about seminary or your call to ministry? >>Brady: Undoubtedly. Growing up in what is admittedly a very different ministry context than the one that I’m in, a very kind of rural, kind of removed from the larger/broader Christian movements and things world – now I’m kind of more involved in a ministry that’s involved in that way. But still, seeing the reality of the pastorate was both, as I’ve already said, quite harrowing but also it gave me a realistic view, an un-glorified view if you will, because I think a lot of people see the pastorate and they only see the glory, they see the preaching and the teaching and the snapshots on social media, the quotes from the pastor, but what they don’t see is the immense burden and pressure, especially of a faithful pastor like my grandfather was – to teach the word and to be a faithful shepherd in season and out, when it’s difficult and when it is not as difficult. And so in a way, while it scared me away a bit, it also prepared me well I think for the reality of ministry in a way that I’m very grateful for. And even today, I can hear a lot of my grandfather’s preaching come out in my preaching. I’ve picked it up subconsciously over decades of hearing it. I picked it up. And it’s really special, because when he passed away he was like a father to me, when he passed away I got to preach his funeral, and even now his surviving wife, my grandmother, says all the time, “When you preach, I hear him.” And so I think the Lord really gave us to one another; for him to mentor me and to help me and prepare me without either one of us even realizing what was going on. >>Doug Sweeney: So, the mission of the Beeson Podcast is to shine a light on the ways in which God himself is at work in and through the lives of people who are part of the Beeson family. Whether they’re current students or faculty or staff members or alumni or friends. And one advantage, Brady, to having you on the podcast today is that you’re a pretty recent grad who is now in the trenches of ministry. So, I want to ask you, if you will, to take just a minute and reflect a bit on the ways in which Beeson got you ready for ministry and what your experience was like. What I have in mind is there may even be people who are wondering, listening to us now, “Is seminary for me? Is this something maybe the Lord is doing in my life?” What would you want them to know about your experience at Beeson and how it may apply to their thinking and praying? >>Brady: Sure. I think what most people think of when they think of seminary is a highly academically rigorous place where in students are being challenged in maybe biblical languages and history of doctrine and things like that, and those academic disciplines. That’s certainly true of Beeson – that’s something that attracted me here in that I loved about it was that it was academically rigorous. I was in the text. I was in original texts and primary sources, and the languages. That was amazing. Certainly attracted me here. But I think more importantly for ministry, it was the spiritual formation that happened here. I know that is intentional for Beeson. It’s a marriage of intellect and spiritual formation. So, as it pertains to preparing pastors, a pastor needs to know Greek and Hebrew. A pastor needs to know Christian history. Certainly. And as you know, that’s really important to me – the history of the church is something that I could go on and on about, as you could. But what’s more important, like I said, for the pastor is that we’re prepared to be shepherds. Because while we do need to have all of the academic background, it’s more important that we love God’s people. That’s the most important thing a shepherd can do is love God’s word, love God’s people, love God. So, while I was walking through my time at Beeson, whether it was through more formal training in the classroom, or whether it was through informal conversations with my fellow students, with professors, with staff members, I was formed both academically and spiritually here to be a more well-rounded pastor, one that is academically astute, but also one that is able to empathize and to love, and not to stay in an ivory tower of some sort of theological greatness, but rather go down like you said into the trenches of ministry and love people where they are. And one thing I’ve learned in my admittedly short time in full time vocational ministry, is at least in my context people don’t care much whether you’re the smartest man in the room. What they care about is if you love them, if you care about them, and if you’re there with them when they need you. Beeson prepared me for that. That was not something that was new to me when it happened. I was ready for that. Of course, there are some things in ministry nothing can prepare you for. When you have a big conference in church and your bathroom decides to explode ... those are things they don’t have- >>Doug Sweeney: They didn’t have you take a class on that!? >>Brady: They don’t have Bathroom Explosion 101 unfortunately. But seriously, the formation that happens at Beeson, it happens sometimes when you realize it, but more often it’s retrospective. You look back and say, wow, that was a really formative experience. And I can see how I’m using that now in ministry. >>Doug Sweeney: All right, Victoria. I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to be fully honest in the way you answer it. What is it like being the wife of somebody who is going through seminary here at Beeson? Let me set this up further so you can just tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Seminary is hard sometimes on people’s marriages. And we need to be clear about that and honest about that, and we need to be careful in working on that, and guarding marriages against some of the things that seminary life can do to them. But the question is: What was it like for you to be the wife of a student going through seminary? How did you experience Beeson, even before you got paid for experiencing Beeson? >>Victoria: Yeah. I think encouragement is so important. I actually had a student a few weeks ago that was in my office and his first week in seminary and he said, “I just hope I never get to the point where I’m tired of doing homework.” (laughter) And I just sat there and I tried not to laugh, because I just ... I wanted to just transparently say to him, “Well, you are going to get tired of it, and that’s okay.” I think that getting a proper education as a pastor is so important, kind of just piggybacking off of what he said. But just taking time to encourage my spouse who is going through this and knowing that, okay, this is a new experience for both of us, but this is so vital to his future and to our marriage. Because how much you can grow in your marriage just from the education that your spouse can be receiving somewhere like this, where you have faculty like Beeson does where they just pour into their students. That is just what ... one of the huge reasons of what makes Beeson so special to me. I knew that Brady was continuously being poured into. And even the loss of his grandfather during seminary and people just rallied around him in the community and stuff like that. So, I would just encourage those that are currently in seminary that are listening to this, enjoy the community around you, take advantage of it, use the faculty to your advantage. Get to know them. Love your mentor group leader. Beeson is very special and can do really great and honoring things to your marriage, if you let it. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s great. That’s a great segue into the next thing I want to ask you about. Which is what does it feel like to you, what is the experience like, and how have your priorities maybe even changed a bit as a result of being in the practice of ministry together now? Of course, Victoria, you’re an administrator at the seminary, Brady is a pastor, your jobs are different – still, you’re kind of a ministry couple. And you’re supporting each other in your work. And I find that Beeson gets more and more couples who want to come and kind of both be in it together. In a way that’s different 30, 40 years ago. When it was usually just one person that came and the other person was kind of at a distance from what was going on at the seminary. So, I’ll start with you, Victoria. What is it like being in ministry? You’re young, you’re relatively new to it, but you’ve been surrounded by ministry your whole life. What is it like being part of a ministry couple? Not just being the wife of the pastor, but sort of being engaged together in ministry? >>Victoria: Well, there are challenges but there are also really, really amazing things as well. As far as challenges – one challenge that’s just hard for me personally is I want to do everything. I want to be at everything. I want people to feel supported and loved and seen. And sometimes it’s really easy for me to stretch myself too thin. And so that’s definitely a challenge that is hard for me. Another challenge that’s hard for me, just being a couple in ministry, is that sometimes I just have to remove myself from situations that involve him. If somebody says something to him at church or something that I don’t feel like is Christlike, even if they weren’t meaning to come across in an ugly way. That’s hard for me. Because I know what it has taken him to get here. I know the life of a pastor, what it can do to your family, and how hard pastoral ministry can be. And so sometimes those are really challenging moments for me to sit back and be like, “You know what, Victoria? It’s okay. You can let him handle this. You can grow in this together.” There are also a lot of really rewarding things. God has just richly blessed our marriage beyond measure at our age. That is the honest truth. Even when I’m going through hard times in ministry I think sometimes, “Well, you know what, aside from my relationship with the Lord, at least I have Brady.” And that’s just the honest truth. >>Doug Sweeney: Anything you’d want to add to that, Brady? How has it been as the pastor in the couple, to feel like you’ve got a wife that is with you and to practice ministry as a couple? >>Brady: Yeah, one thing that’s really important to us is, and it’s something we say quite often, that there’s no such thing as the perfect pastor’s wife. Different people have different callings and different roles. Traditionally, especially in the Baptist Church the pastor’s wife was the piano player and also the children’s minister and played a lot of those really defined roles. But what I say to people is the Lord calls us all to different things. And so what one pastor’s wife is called to does not necessarily mean another pastor’s wife is called to that. And so there are different levels of involvement and I think appropriately so. So, something I’m really quick to remind Victoria, quite often, is that she is under no pressure whatsoever to kind of fit into any role she feels put upon her. Rather, that she flourishes best when she is free to act in the gifts that God has given her. And so I would say to wives coming into maybe being married to a pastor is do what God has called you to do, not what you feel the kind of external pressure is calling you to do. And I think that makes, in our case at least, our marriage much stronger. Because she doesn’t feel like I’m forcing her to do anything. She feels like I’m protecting her, I’m on her side, I’m loving her, I’m fighting for her, I’m leading our family in such a way that we’re trying to make the best use of the gifts and talents that God has given both of us. Like she said, she is very defensive of her husband, which I appreciate. And so learning to set appropriate boundaries on things that I’m making sure that she comes first, she is loved, she is supported, she is protected, she is taken care of, because as you know, so often ministry takes up a lot of time and resources, and it takes a lot of mental space. And so just making sure that Victoria always feels like she’s being pursued, like she always feels like she is my priority, and that she feels loved and uplifted and cared for. That is what I always want her to feel and for her to know. If my marriage is not strong, then my ministry can never possibly be strong. >>Doug Sweeney: Brady, what advice would you have here late in 2023 to somebody who is wondering whether seminary is for them? And is starting to feel like it probably is and they’re heading in that direction. Whether they’re single or married. Answer it however you feel like you want to do it in the wake of the last part of the conversation we were just having. What do people need to know? What do they need to be thinking about? What do they need to be praying about? What kind of advice would a recent grad who is now practicing ministry want to give to somebody thinking about entering seminary? >>Brady: I’m a bit biased but do it and do it at Beeson. But really, seminary ... like most things in life ... is something where you get out of it what you put into it. And so if someone is listening and they’re pretty sure that God is calling them to seminary to prepare for ministry of any kind, I would say do it and do it with your whole being. Seminary is not ever something that you can half do. To get the fullness of the experience of seminary, it requires everything. It requires all of someone. Both academically and spiritually. You just have to pour into he community so the community can pour into you. And maybe this is a little bit more of a personal opinion, but just being open to what God has for us. I think, myself included, so many people come into seminary with this idea of God is calling me to this exact role, this exact thing, this exact ministry. And oftentimes while we’re at seminary those things begin to morph a little bit and we see different things. Holding our plans with an open hand and allowing God’s providence to move and letting the Spirit lead us in a way that maybe takes us away from what we expect. Coming into seminary I expected to want to be a head pastor and serve in that way. And the Lord has moved in a lot of ways now, and that’s just – at this point in my life – not something that I desire or something I’m called to. I’m much more called to educational ministry. I’m much more called to teaching. Lord willing, I’m much more called to the academy in a faithful Christian setting. But that’s not something I would have expected. Of course, that’s not because I’m so holy that I’m just open to God’s plan. That’s from learning and through being at Beeson. The Lord really showed me that his plans are so much better than anything I could possibly imagine. So, I guess to say, coming into seminary, try to have as open of a hand with your future plans as possible, because I think any good seminary will come alongside you and the Spirit will lead and mold you in a way that you will wind up exactly where the Lord wants you to be and will use you most efficiently and effectively for his glory. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s great. I wasn’t going to ask this question of you, too, Victoria – but as you listen to your husband answer it, anything pop into your mind that you want to add? What kind of advice from your perspective would you add to somebody who is thinking about seminary? Maybe someone who is married and thinking about seminary? >>Victoria: Yeah. I actually was going to say what he said about giving it your all. If you’re thinking about doing it, give everything that you have an just keeping your palms open and saying, “Lord, use me. And grant me patience in the process.” I think that’s something that we are growing through together is patience and ... >>Doug Sweeney: And that’s hard for a lot of young couples. I’m not saying it was hard for you ... but I know a lot of young couples and have known many over the years for whom that is difficult. Because I think if you’re in the US one kind of instinct that’s engrained in you somehow is, “All right, we get married, we start having a family, we go buy a house...” We sort of live in a middle class American lifestyle. And that’s tough to pull off while you’re in seminary. >>Victoria: Yes, absolutely. But for those that are considering seminary who are married and maybe working in a church setting or something like that, he kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, but not being afraid to set boundaries. It’s really important. And people have varying opinions on husband and wives role as a couple. But I believe that Brady is the leader of our family, he’s the leader of our marriage, and I can do everything I can to set the boundaries that I can at church and say, “I can’t do this, or we’re not going to do this.” Blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, Brady sets the boundaries for our family. He makes me feel protected and safe and secure, and loved, and appreciated when he speaks for us, when it’s necessary by saying this doesn’t come before my family. And the church is a really amazing thing, but ... So, I think that’s ... >>Brady: Yeah. And the way that Christ leads the church, being the head of the church, me being the leader of our family doesn’t mean that I’m better or I’m above or anything like that, it means my role is to love and serve Victoria, gently, and always put her first and put our marriage in a place that it is not able to be touched by the evil and the stresses and the burdens of this world. Because the Lord gave me Victoria for as long as my life. So, she is my gift. And I love her so much that it only makes sense that I would serve her and put her first and make those boundaries. Ministry will take me many places. But I have Victoria forever. >>Doug Sweeney: All right. We’re almost out of time. But we like to end these interviews every time by asking our guests what the Lord is doing in your lives these days. What are you learning these days? As we’ve said a couple of times already in this interview, Brady finished seminary not long ago. He’s a 2022 graduate of Beeson Divinity School and since that time he has been involved in congregational ministry, a very different sort of life the two of you have been living recently. How has that experience, how has that difference shaped you? What is the Lord doing in and through it that it’s teaching you these days? >>Brady: Yeah. The word seems to be, as Victoria already mentioned, “patience.” The Lord answers prayers with either a yes, no, or a not yet. I’ve found that the “yes” is great. The “no” can hurt. The “not yet” is hard. And so when the Lord says, “not yet” it’s a test of trust. Do we trust his plan? Do we trust his will? Do we trust that he’s good and faithful and kind to us? And every time so far the answer has been “yes.” And so we’re trying to be patient. We’re trying to wait. We’re trying to trust in God’s plan, trust in God’s timing, and there is something of a difficulty when you transition out of seminary and into full time ministry. When you come to seminary you’re surrounded by pastors, surrounded by people you can go to and talk about the depths of medieval theology. That’s generally not the case in congregational ministry. So, sometimes it can feel a bit lonely. You can feel like you go from being surrounded by peers that understand you and that get you and that are on a mission. To going to a very different situation where you’re not necessarily surrounded by that. And so there is an adjustment period, but we have to remember as pastors, as ministers, as people in the church is that God is so kind to put us in places where we can use what we’ve learned and show God’s people what I’ll call “everyday people” that those, what they see as lofty theological ideas, they matter on a day to day basis. It’s where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Is having all of this theological knowledge, that’s great and fine. But what matters is when you can tell just a normal person how to use that to flourish in God’s great plan. That’s really, really special. >>Doug Sweeney: Wonderful. And Victoria? We started with you, we’ll end with you. How has that learning curve been for you? What’s the Lord teaching you in the midst of all of this? >>Victoria: Well, like I said, just started at Beeson fairly recently. But just showing me how great ministry can be as well. I think that students here need encouragement. And I really have loved doing that, but the Lord has just been teaching me grace through this season of my life that like I said earlier, I can’t be everything. And that’s okay. But thankfully I’m supported by so many people here at Beeson that love me and want to see me flourish as well as my family who understand all these different aspects of ministry. >>Doug Sweeney: You have been listening to the Reverend and Mrs. Brady and Victoria Graves, or just Victoria and Brady Graves. (laughter) As they’re known around here. Victoria is an administrator here at Beeson. Brady is Associate Pastor at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in Hueytown. Right nearby. They are both dear friends and beloved members of the Beeson family. Thanks very much for being with us today. And thank you listeners for tuning in. We love you. Please pray for the Graves. 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.