Beeson Podcast, Episode # Hannah Anderson 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, and I'm joined today by well-known writer and Bible teacher Hannah Anderson, who will be speaking here in chapel, we're pleased to say, on October the 21st. Hannah, many of our students are excited about your visit. I'm excited about this interview, and I want to thank you for joining me on the podcast today. >>Anderson: Well, thank you for inviting me on. I'm really looking forward to being on campus, and I've heard so many good things from your little corner of the world. So I'm really looking forward to the visit. >>Sweeney: Why don't we begin just by introducing you briefly to our podcast listeners? Surely some of them know about you already, have read some of your books. But for those who haven't, can you just say a word about how you came to faith and then how you got involved in the ministries you've been doing? >>Anderson: Yeah, so I like to tell folks I was raised in a Christian home, which means I don't remember not being in church, not knowing the name of Jesus. And that has its own journey. But for me, the experience of just being inundated with the stories of who the scripture says Jesus is very quickly was something I knew I wanted. And so I was a young child when I made a confession of faith and I was baptized as a young child. I will always advocate for honoring young children's confessions for what they are. And for me, that journey of faith then became those small seeds just growing over time. Just whatever season of life I was in, whether I was a teenager or college age or young adult, I found that my relationship with Christ and my discipleship just had to grow to that place where I was in my life. And so there are different questions come at you in different ways. And so for me, it's not been a seamless journey, but it has been a walk of faith that I can look back on and just have a lot of gratitude for the environment I was born into, the kinds of ways that God always met me, whatever season I was in. And so part of the movement or call toward more ministry work was just answering those questions when they came. As a young adult, I was always involved and active in church life. As soon as I was old enough, I was in a small church. So as soon as I was old enough, I got thrown into Sunday school and BBS and whatever the church was up to. And I think that's another thing I really value about my faith story is because I was in small rural settings, the church was the church. We all were in it together. It didn't matter if I was 15 and I was working with a Bible school teacher who is 65. We were all together doing the work of the church. And so I think for me at a young age, I had an experience of ministry, if we want to call it that, very strongly led by the laity. And very much, it didn't matter your age, it didn't matter if you were part of this thing we call the family of God, you were rolling up your sleeves and getting involved. So coming into young adulthood, that was what I had been formed and shaped to understand. And I think I remember kind of narrowing in on a focus of writing and teaching when I was a young mom. I mean, there was this general sense of we show up and we serve. But I think it was when my youngest was maybe one or two when I began asking—and at this time, I would have probably been in my early thirties—and I began wondering, what is my unique contribution, though? I'm very happy to show up and do whatever needs to be done, but is there something that I am individually being called to do? And I remember in that season, just wrestling with God and kind of stepping out in faith and saying, Okay, I think it might be a call toward language, toward words, toward communication, toward teaching, but I don't know. So I'm gonna test that. I set aside in my life, I kind of said to God, I'll give you two years. I'll give two years to kind of pursue this informally, and we'll see what happens. And this is not the way it normally happens, so I don't want people to take this for a prototype, but within 18 months I had a publisher kind of approach me after seeing some of my work. And from there it was just a matter of stepping out in faith whenever God called for the next opportunity or the next thing that seemed to be within his plan. >>Sweeney: So how did that publisher notice your work? It's a little bit of a loaded question. We have a lot of students who are wondering, does the Lord have some kind of writing ministry for me in the future? And if so, how would I even begin to explore that and maybe work with a publisher? Certainly the publisher didn't just drop out of the blue, right? What was the connection? >>Anderson: No. I want to be entirely upfront about my timeline because I came into publishing probably about, I'd say, 13, 14, 15 years ago, which was the moment in time, like this was a providential moment in time when blogging was just hitting its peak. And that was a season before a lot of social media. It was the first iteration of social media in a way, but we were, I don't know if you remember, we were doing RSS feeds. We had blogs that we would go to, they weren't being necessarily aggregated on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. So it was an image-based, it was a word-based experience of the internet, and it was very accessible. If you decided that you've got a domain name and you wanted to sit down at your laptop and type out some ideas, you could. And I was squeezed in just as that window was closing. I always want to tell people if I had to get the attention of a publisher today, in today's environment that's so saturated with image and personality and entrepreneurship, it would be much, much harder. It would require a different route because one of the things of that moment was that words still mattered a lot. Ideas mattered. And I, as part of kind of faithfulness with God, saying I would give this two-year cycle, I set up a blog. I titled it “Sometimes a Light” after one of my favorite hymns. It's by William Cooper, “Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings." And what I hoped my writing would be, would be that surprise, that light, that sense of, “Oh, that is how God works.” And I wanted readers to have that moment of “oh.” So I started just one essay a week. That was my act of faithfulness, was just to put one essay up a week. And it became a kind of portfolio where people could see what I was attempting to do. But the thing I love about how God worked is that he actually worked for the local church. So I was doing this digitally. I was putting this up online, but it was a pastor in the church I was attending that heard about this. He passed it on to his contacts unbeknownst to me, who passed it on to other contacts, who eventually passed it on to a publisher, who then could see what I was doing all without me knowing any of this was happening, and then reached out to me. Now, that's a very particular moment in time, and I don't know that it's replicable to this season of the digital age. But what I love about the kind of principles that I take away from that is I showed up faithfully. I was putting my writing out in public, and God was using His people. He was using His church. He was using real-life relationships. It wasn't just a matter of this disembodied kind of trying to get attention online. And it feels very holistic to me in that sense to have started that way. And it's really the way a lot of my ministry since then has carried forward. >>Sweeney: Did you have mentors in your life before you became a well-known writer who showed you that you were gifted in this way? Or did you discern this is what the Lord had for you mostly just by doing it on a small scale and then realizing that people were being blessed by what you were doing? >>Anderson: The funny thing, and I tell folks, I'm really slow on the uptake. I loved writing. I loved reading. I sometimes in college would pick a class depending whether there was a significant writing portion to it. Never occurred to me, never once occurred to me that I could pursue writing as a career or a ministry of any kind. So it did take me a while to figure out this path. But what I love about it is when I sat down and I started asking questions about my unique calling and my location, one of the questions was, how had God made me? What did I love? Where did I feel like I came alive? What were the things that I was good at in a way that I didn't know I was good at writing, but I knew I was good with ideas and I knew I was good with, I loved the scripture. I loved exegeting and all the work around teaching the scripture. So in my experience of pursuing vocation, it had a strong component of asking, who has God made you to be? And really kind of not just what other people expect from you or what is being rewarded in your life, but if you were to show up and give your gift back to God, what would that gift be? What do you feel like he has placed in your hands? And for me, I was unsure about writing, but I knew that that was a direction I could at least test. And then once I began testing it, it was confirmed through readers, through friends, through the church itself. But I think it started with me really wrestling with God and asking, how did you put me together? What do I desire? What do I love? What do I want to return back to you? >>Sweeney: So as all this began, and you're writing blogs early on in your ministry? What kinds of things are you writing about? And why are you writing about those things? >>Anderson: So I started writing in the throes of young motherhood. That might be a story that I think women my age can tell, because it was this moment in time where you could be giving attention to a home, but you suddenly also had access to the broader world through the internet. And I cannot overstate how much that changed our reality as a society, but how much it changed some people's individual lives. And it changed my life dramatically just to have that access. But I also found that I was writing from my life. Often it wasn't just to other young moms, but I think what I eventually discovered through the process was I had a unique perspective because of my location, because of my experience, because of, you know, just not being in the centers of necessarily academia or in church leadership. And I remember in particular, this is a good example, there was a conversation going online around pastoring and a verse in the New Testament where I believe it's Paul likens himself to a nursing mother. And there's a lot of conversation around that. And I thought, I'm not a pastor, but I've been a nursing mother. And this is something I can contribute to this conversation, not in an authoritative way necessarily, but in a way that broadens and deepens the conversation we're having together. So for me, a lot of the topics or the approach that I would take was based on what is missing from the conversation right now and what am I equipped to add? It wasn't about just staying in my lane, but it was about what is it that I've experienced? What is it that I've seen? What is it the way that God's worked in my life that could add to this conversation? Not necessarily just challenge or debate, but add to it. So that became, I did write for my life in that way, but it was often writing from my life toward the larger conversation that was being had. So early on, it was motherhood. I also did a lot of work in rural ministry, rural churches. So that was a real passion of mine, was saying, hey, let's have conversation around small congregations. What are the actual needs of these communities? So it was a lot of practical lived experience, but that was the entry point for a larger conversation, not the end point for it. >>Sweeney: Yeah, that sounds very wise to me too, even in very practical ways. I come from a family of publishers and they'll be the first to tell you that generally speaking, women buy and read more books than men do. And so women sort of writing out of their own experience can be a very powerful thing to lots of people around the world. >>Anderson: I did kind of set myself to a point where, as I was entering into this new space, and I think it was a moment changing in publishing too, where women were beginning, especially within evangelical spaces, they were beginning to broaden who they were writing to. And I never wanted to hide my voice or my experience or pretend like I was just this gender neutral writer. But I did think to myself at one point, I was a little ornery, is the word I would grew up hearing, where I thought, I want to be the female writer that pastors will read because they want to hear a female voice on a particular thing. So I kind of challenged myself to be accessible beyond, make my experience accessible, even though it was very distinct to my lived experience. >>Sweeney: Yeah, that's great. Okay, so as your writing ministry developed, you started writing about lots of other things too. Let's tell our listeners a little bit about some of the books you've published so that if they're interested, they can go get them and read them. What has been the kind of shape of the trajectory of your writing ministry over the years? >>Anderson: Yeah, so it really did start with these questions of Christian identity. You know, a lot of the conversation we've had already goes back to, who has God made you to be? What is your vocation? And I was wrestling with those things. And so it really began around Christian identity showing up in your life. I wrote my first book on what it means to be an image bearer. All of the very core fundamental, you know, this theological anthropology that has day-to-day practical ramifications. So it was a theology of image bearing in a practical accessible format. That led then to the next iteration of conversation about creatureliness or the limitations of being made around the conversation around humility, what it would mean to live within the boundaries of our humanity. And as book from book to book began to develop, so I think I've written like five or six books to date, but I could see a thread and I would always wonder, what is this? What is the thread that runs through Hannah Anderson books? And I realized that if it happens in the first two chapters of Genesis, that's probably where I'm going to be writing. So I love conversations around vocation, human calling, human flourishing, our integration into the natural world. A lot of my later books or essay collections around natural revelation. So I have a collection that uses the natural elements of the Christmas story to walk people through Advent to say if the God who gave us the scripture also gave us creation, they should be telling us the same things. So a lot of where I've found my writing to be manifesting and emerging from is those first two chapters of Genesis. What does it mean to be a creature made in the image of God, creating after Him and living in shalom with the creation itself? >>Sweeney: That sounds great. How do you decide what you're going to write? Are you the kind of person who today knows the next three books you want to write? Or do you kind of take things one book at a time, see where you are, see what you're excited about in the moment, or wait for your next conversation with an editor or publisher and make decisions that way? >>Anderson: I find that things tend to gestate. So by the time I get to the point of a book proposal or I sit down to the manuscript, I've already thought for a long time about what the next conversation is going to be. That doesn't mean that my brain isn't constantly responding to ideas or interacting with, just watching the things that are happening in culture, watching the things that I'm seeing friends go through, watching trends and trying to piece together, and maybe it's discernment, it's discerning, what is the conversation that the Holy Spirit is bringing forward at this moment that I am being called to participate in. There's a lot of conversations going on. I love ... one of my favorite things is, it's occurred several times where I'll publish a book and then a friend will publish a book on a very similar topic and we haven't talked about it. And as an author, your initial like, you know, carnal response is, oh, no, competition. We're both writing on the same topic. But over the years, I've learned to read that as the Holy Spirit wanting to bring forward a particular conversation for the church and doing it by as many means as possible. So a lot of my process about actually getting to a project is discernment. It's taking what I'm seeing, framing over it, trying to discern where I enter that, what is authentic and true, and my distinct contribution, not trying to make someone else's contribution. However, day to day, my thought process tend to be more random. And if I'm not careful you might find me on Twitter doing long threads in response to things that are happening in the moment. And I found that there's layers to that as well, that I can, if something is itching at me and I want to test it, I can write an article and that will give me a sense to see does this conversation have staying power? How is it landing? How is it responding? How am I engaging with it? But by the time I get to a book manuscript, that has gestated quite a while. >>Sweeney: Well, I can't wait for you to spend time with our students, and I'll bet you a dollar some of them ask you for advice about writing ministry. Do you get asked that by young people often? Do you have a way of sort of answering the question, if I'm feeling like maybe God's doing this in my life, what's some practical advice about how to get going? >>Anderson: I love these questions and they become more and more prominent in my ministry and I'm beginning to see that there is part of my ministry is writing myself and part of it is helping develop other writers. So I've been recently in the last year or two, I've been in situations where I can do coaching and I've been leading cohorts and helping individuals discern many of the things that we've talked about in the last few minutes. What is my distinct contribution that God is calling me to walk in faithfulness toward. The main piece of advice I would give right off the bat is that there is a difference between writing and publishing. And a lot of us are called to write. It might be to write for our children, to write for our church, to write for a newsletter, to write for the 30 people that will read our blog. And I think there is a faithfulness that if you feel that call to write, do it. Get out there, write. If you are being called to publish, that will happen. And there are steps of faithfulness that you can take toward that. But distinguish between those two things first at the front end. And then as you discern that process, just go with God, take the steps of faith, do the things that are scary. Put pen and paper, get yourself down in the chair. That's the hardest part of writing is actually doing it. And don't get distracted. Do not think that writing, publishing, and marketing are the same thing even. You know, to be a writer is to sit down and wrestle with God and to put down in words and name the world as God names it to the best of your ability. And if you're being called to that, you won't be able to escape it. >>Sweeney: All right. My next question is a little unfair because you're speaking in chapel, I think, three months from now. But have you thought at all yet about your chapel sermon? Can we give our listeners a little teaser about what you might talk about when you're here for chapel? >>Anderson: I have, and I'm so excited. So we're going to be in the Book of Ruth, but we're going to be thinking, there's a lot of beautiful themes in the Book of Ruth. But one of the things that's captured my attention is the generational nature of the Book of Ruth and how God is working in Ruth's life. He's working in Naomi's life, but he's also doing this amazing thing to reverse blessings and bring blessing to reverse curses. And there's just some really beautiful literary things that are happening with Ruth the Moabite being brought into the family of Israel and eventually seeing from that relationship King David and eventually the Messiah. So I'm very interested for us to think through this on generational levels and see how God is a God of generation. >>Sweeney: Wonderful. We always like to conclude these interviews, Hannah, by asking our guests how we can be praying for them. Our podcast listeners enjoy praying for the people they're getting to know on the podcast. How can we be praying for Hannah and a certain days ahead? >>Anderson: Well I am in the midst of a proposal for a new book. I haven't had a book come out for a while, so I feel a little rusty. I would appreciate all the prayers over that for timing, for the time to do it. Writing is very time consuming and it's very isolating at times as well. So if listeners could just uphold me in that process of getting to the next manuscript, I would really appreciate it. >>Sweeney: All right, listeners, please pray for Hannah Anderson as she works on her next book manuscript and proposal with a publisher. Let me remind you, she'll be here at Beeson Divinity School speaking in chapel on Tuesday, October the 21st. Everybody's invited. Please come and get to know Hannah while she's here on that day. Thank you, Hannah, very much for being on our podcast. Can't wait to meet you in person. Students feel the same way. We're really grateful for your time. >>Anderson: I'm really looking forward to being with you all. >>Sweeney: Listeners, we love you. Thanks for tuning in. We say goodbye for now. >>Mark Gignilliat: 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 Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our Producer is Neal Embry. 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, YouTube, and Spotify.