Beeson Podcast, Episode #682 Christopher Labenske 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 am your host, Doug Sweeney. I am joined today by my friend and Beeson alum, Christopher Labenske. He graduated on December 1st, just two weeks ago, as the winner of this semester’s James Earl Massey Student Preaching Award. Christopher preached in chapel on November 7th. He preached a truly fine sermon, which is now available on Beeson’s YouTube channel. I encourage you to watch it. I welcome Christopher to the podcast! >>Labenske: Thank you. It’s good to be here. >>Doug Sweeney: Great to have you. All right. Let’s introduce you to our listeners. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, your upbringing, and how you came to faith in Christ? >>Labenske: Yeah, absolutely. I was blessed to be raised in a wonderful Christian family to Christian parents. I think I first experienced the love of God through their ministry and through my church from a very early age. I remember hearing clearly the gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I came to believe that and cling to that at a very early age. I grew up in San Diego, California between the ocean and the mountains. >>Doug Sweeney: Hmm, your poor thing! >>Labenske: Yeah, a hard place to grow up, for sure. So, that was a blessing in many ways. My dad is a professor of music at Point Loma Nazarene University, which we grew up near. So, early life was really ... I connected both with university and the campus church that we were a part of, the First Church of the Nazarene in San Diego. >>Doug Sweeney: All right, Christopher. First Church of the Nazarene. Lots of people know what that means. I know what that means. Some people in Alabama don’t know a lot about the Church of the Nazarene. Tell them what that is. What denominational background are you coming from? >>Labenske: It’s a Wesleyan Holiness denomination. Which means it has its roots in the Methodist movement, ultimately back to John and Charles Wesley and the revival in England and beyond – especially in North America. So, it comes from there. The Holiness Movement leading into the 20th century got a lot of people really excited about renewal in the church, serving the poor was a key part of that. As well as education. And so the Church of the Nazarene began early in the 20th century and is very missionally focused. Most of the members live outside of the western world. It’s very focused on education and ministry to the least of these. >>Doug Sweeney: A wonderful church, and you’re a wonderful representative of it. How does a California boy from the Church of the Nazarene get to know about Beeson Divinity School and decide to move most of the way across the country to attend? How did you first hear about us? >>Labenske: I first heard about Beeson from one of my professors in college, Dr. Rick Kennedy. And he is interested and has done scholarship on Jonathan Edwards, which is also true of you. >>Doug Sweeney: Truth in advertising, Rick Kennedy is my friend! >>Labenske: He deserves a promotional [crosstalk 00:04:01] he’s a wonderful man. So, he was the first ... I told him I was considering seminary, that it was something I was discerning. I wasn’t sure if maybe I was going to go into more of an academic realm with history, but yeah, he told me about Beeson. So, as the Lord began to make it more clear that he was calling me to seminary, to service towards the church as well as possibly academics, it was on my radar and along with two other seminaries I applied. And Beeson came out on top. >>Doug Sweeney: Fantastic. I’m glad it did. What was seminary like for you? I mean, a lot of people who listen to these podcast episodes are people thinking about whether God has seminary for them. As you look back on your seminary experience, what’s some of the good, the bad, and the ugly? And what kind of advice would you have to people who are wondering whether seminary is worth the effort? >>Labenske: I think my seminary experience here at Beeson in some ways is unique because we are in person, life together, and so that is definitely the highlight. It is the people of Beeson. I’ve met some of my best friends here. The professors are accessible and care about not just our learning but our lives and our ministries. My wife, Katlyn, has also experienced a lot of support here through the Beeson Wives Fellowship. She’s been able to sit in on a class, join with a lot of the Center for Women in Ministry events as well. So, she’s made some good friends here as well. So, this really is a place where you can lean into both a community of learning but a community of friendship and people who are passionate about serving the church. It’s a very rigorous program. And I think it’s important to be emotionally, spiritually, maybe physically prepared for that. Just to know that coming in. To have some good patterns maybe already established or planned so that you can make time for Christian disciplines, even as you integrate those disciplines into your study. That you get exercise, get outside, go on walks – those have been some of the refreshing activities for me and Katlyn during our time here. So, it is very demanding. You do have to stay on top of the things. But the good thing is that, again, it is such a wonderful community. So, you’re not alone in these things. You have mutual encouragement and edification of the body of Christ here in this place. >>Doug Sweeney: Of course the excuse for having you on the program, Christopher, is that you’re the winner of this year’s Massey prize for the best student preacher of the semester. Usually, the Massey prize goes to somebody who is sure he/she wants to go on to a lifetime of preaching ministry. You’ve talked about you’re thinking maybe PhD. Tell us a little bit about that. Have you been torn? Have you been trying to figure out, “Am I supposed to be a pastor or a professor?” How have you tried to discern God’s leading towards the future for you during your time at seminary? >>Labenske: Yeah, it really began as I was discerning to come to seminary because during college I think I had in mind more of an academic route. But near the end of college my involvement in the church and kind of a growing passion for people, to be fed by the word of God, led me to take a gap year into discern and to just kind of work ... gave me some space to get involved in my church. It was there that it became really clear that my academic interests and my ministry interest really couldn’t be neatly separated. I felt in some ways a calling as a translator, in the sense of learning and rigorously studying some of the best that scholarship has to offer. But finding ways in which those things along with other things can be communicated to the average congregant in ways that are going to be meaningful to them. So, I think my time at Beeson has just continued that trajectory. It’s very much a part of Beeson’s ethos – that academics, the rigorous study, and that passionate practical ministry are not separate. I was able to be a part of the Center for Pastor Theologians for a couple of semesters here. So, just to see that that’s a common experience. There doesn’t need to be a division between academics and ministry. So, practically speaking, looking forward, I am applying for doctoral programs right now and god-willing would start next fall. But throughout this waiting time, hopefully throughout my PhD and beyond, if I have a teaching career I want to have a weekly ministry in the local church – teaching and preaching whenever those opportunities arise. >>Doug Sweeney: So, how did you become such an excellent preacher? Did you preach before you ever came to seminary? Or did you learn to preach while you were here for the first time? >>Labenske: I preached one sermon before seminary. I was part of an internship during one of the summers in college. And it was a really wonderful time of spiritual maturation. The final week, the final Sunday of that experience I was invited to preach. I actually preached from more of the Matthew and Luke passages on Christ’s temptations in the wilderness, which is kind of maybe a providential full circle here. >>Doug Sweeney: Yes, it’s become a preaching theme of yours. >>Labenske: Absolutely. I was absolutely terrified ... from a very early age I’ve been a shy person and afraid of public speaking. I remember in that experience I was up most of the night beforehand, unable to sleep. >>Doug Sweeney: I love when I hear these stories. You’re not the only one of course I know who was kind of a sweet introverted sensitive shy kid who has blossomed into an amazing preacher. But it’s fun to watch God work in somebody’s life, getting them through that transformation. >>Labenske: So, it’s been my experience here at Beeson that I think God has used to help grow me in that area to be, not just more comfortable standing in front of people but comfortable and secure in the Word of God and that God by his mercy is speaking through me what he wants to communicate to the people through the Spirit. >>Doug Sweeney: Who are your preaching teachers here at Beeson? Did you have Dr. Smith for all your preaching? >>Labenske: Dr. Smith for two semesters. I had Dr. Webster for Pastoral Theology. And Dr. Pasquarello for some of my Wesleyan classes. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay, but all of the preaching was Dr. Smith? >>Labenske: Correct. >>Doug Sweeney: All right. What did he see in you that he wanted to kind of cultivate in your own development as a preacher? >>Labenske: He really encouraged me to find my voice as a preacher. As well as my own personal style, which has been a good journey. I came in basically preaching as I would read a paper from the manuscript. And I often still use manuscripts but he’s taught me the importance of internalizing, giving room for the Spirit in the moment to maybe bring up new things to respond to how it seems people are reacting in the congregation. So, he’s helped me to move away from the manuscript even as I still write a manuscript each time, but to internalize that, and sometimes to memorize parts of that. But most of all he’s just reminded me to be confident in the Lord who has given me these gifts, that he affirmed some of those gifts in me when I couldn’t see them, and so yeah, he is just truly a father in the faith and a brother in Christ, and an encouragement to me. >>Doug Sweeney: I know you come from a very musical family. And that you’re a pretty musical guy yourself, but your dad is a music prof at Point Loma. Do you think your development as a musician helped at all in your development as a preacher? >>Labenske: I think so. Yeah. I think that’s more of a recent realization, connecting the dots. I was raised in a very musical family. My mom is a singer. My sister now is a full time piano teacher. I remember countless nights falling asleep to the sound of voice and keys with my parents making music. So, yeah, I think I’ve really been awakened to the beauty of preaching that it’s okay to put a lot of preparation into craft phrases, to think about how something sounds to the extent that it feels that it would promote and help people to remember the message that’s coming across. >>Doug Sweeney: Wow. All right. Here’s the question everybody wants me to ask. If you’re a seminary student, and you’re the only seminary student given the opportunity to preach in chapel during a semester, and you know all your professors will be there listening to you and all your friends and peers in the student body will be listening to you, is that mostly an enjoyable, exciting, encouraging thing? Or does it scare you to death? What was the experience like for you of actually preaching in chapel? >>Labenske: Yeah, I think the preparation was most of the scariness. There is some vacillation between just feeling so thankful for the opportunity once I wrapped my head around that I had said “yes” to doing it. And there were certainly moments of fear where I really had to be prayerful and to share that with some good friends and my wife. And to hear their words of encouragement that the point of this is simply to encourage the people of God and that my professors and my peers are there to support me and to be part of that. So, I think by the time that I actually got up there, thanks be to God, I felt a lot of peace and calm and just looking around and seeing smiling faces of people I know and love, who I am in classes with. I felt relief and enjoyment in the moment of preaching. >>Doug Sweeney: It sure was a wonderful edifying sermon. Thank you very much for doing it. So, we always like to end our podcast interviews, Christopher, by asking our guests what the Lord is teaching them these days. Now it’s an interesting thing to ask a student who has just finished his MDIV career, his fall semester, all the papers you had to write and the finals ... whatever it was you had to do to finish this fall semester well. In the midst of all that theological and professional spiritual busyness is the Lord still at work teaching you some things? And if so, what has he been teaching you recently? >>Labenske: Yeah, he’s definitely teaching me some things. I’m really looking forward to some more space to process the past three and a half years because I have learned so much, I’ve grown so much. I think recently this semester and moving forward I hope the Lord has really been reminding me of his kindness towards me, towards my family, towards the Beeson community. I think in some ways that in the past I may have overlooked. Because there are simple things, just being able to share a good meal with a friend. Or being able to get outside on these darker winter days and enjoy a nice walk while the sun is out. Being able to see people growing in their faith and baby steps in my congregation. There are so many of these ways where I’ve just seen God’s kindness and been able to recognize that in a more consistent and deeper way. >>Doug Sweeney: Wonderful. We do have a good number of prayer warriors who listen regularly to the podcast and they’re probably wondering how can we be praying for this young man who has just finished his Master of Divinity degree at Beeson and is heading on to serve the Lord somewhere else yet to be determined? How can these folks be praying for you and for your dear wife, Katlyn, in the days ahead? >>Labenske: Yeah, certainly for direction. Like I said, I hope to start the doctoral program in the fall. There’s a few months until then. So, some immediate discernment of how to best make use of this opportunity of having a little more time on our hands, how to rest well, where to work, where to continue to serve. I think, though, as much if not more than direction I would pray for an increase of faith and trust. That the Lord has always been faithful to us. That as we process this season of time here at Beeson and in Birmingham, that we would become more aware of God’s faithfulness and kindness to us. And that would increase our trust moving forward and to some unknowns that we would be secure in our faith, knowing God’s love for us. >>Doug Sweeney: Oh, Lord, may that be true of all of us. Those in this room and those listening on the podcast. You have been listening to Christopher Labenske. He is a graduating senior by the time you listen to this he will have graduated with his Master of Divinity degree at Beeson Divinity School. He’s heading off to service in the church, probably ongoing service in the Church of the Nazarene. Which is the church that he’s come from. And probably doctoral work in theology as well. So, please pray for Christopher. Thank you for tuning in. 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. 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