Beeson Podcast, Episode # Dr. David Parks 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 Dr. David Parks, director of Beeson's vibrant, edifying Global Center. Dr. Parks teaches classes in global missions here at Beeson, and overseas our students require cross-cultural ministries. We're looking forward to hearing all about the Global Center, its ministries this year, and how you can be involved. So, thank you, Dr. Parks, for being with us. >>Parks: Welcome, great to be here. >>Sweeney: So we've had you on the podcast a whole bunch of times before. Our listeners, not every single listener knows you yet, but most of them have heard you talk about yourself and the ministries of the Global Center before. But just for those who need a little help getting to know you, getting to know the Global Center. Why don't I just start by asking you, so how did the Lord bring you to the Global Center to begin with to lead our efforts in cross-cultural ministry? >>Parks: Well, I'll actually give some credit to two previous directors of the Global Center. The first one, Bill O'Brien ... I finished here at Beeson, and then I went to talk to him when my wife and I felt, okay, it's time to make a move toward missions. I told him what I felt called to do. I said, do you have any ideas? He said, you should get a PhD in missions. And I just laughed and said, no, I'm done with school. And then he said the same thing again. He had no plan B for me. And so that's one reason I'm here. But the previous director, Kurt Sellis, put my name in when we needed an interim. So 2012, he had stepped down, and so I was already in town. We were raising support. But I didn't immediately put a resume in. I didn't feel like God had told us that's what he wanted us to do, even though it was really attractive for me. We had so many opportunities out of work to raise support that whole fall. And I'm thinking this whole fall, if I put a resume in, I'm just going to be interviewing for the Global Center. That's where my heart will be. And I'll also be asking people for money, stop after stop. Anyway, long story short, the semester ended. The support for those opportunities just miraculously didn't work out. And my heart was here. It was different than I thought. And so the problem was I had to wait. I talked with a previous academic dean and associate dean, and I told him I was interested, but he said, “Okay, but it's yes or no on the person we've already selected to come in,” which was ironically someone I recommended. And so he comes in for the interview and he comes and goes, the whole time I'm thinking they're going to hire him. I'd hire him. And I was, I was distraught over it by that point. And so he came and went and people, their responses were like, “Eh, you know, he's okay.” And so that whole Christmas season, that December 2012 was pretty rough as I was waiting for the semester to restart and the committee to reconvene. And so I was pulled in, they said, “Well, it looks like we're not going to go with him.” And I said, I'm really sorry to hear that. I'm in. >>Sweeney: That's great. >>Parks: So that's how I got here. >>Sweeney: Yeah. And almost 13 years ago now. >>Parks: Almost exactly 13 years ago, yeah, just last week. >>Sweeney: And you've built up the Global Center and its ministries in some beautiful ways. But for those who haven't yet benefited from its ministries, let's tell them what is the Global Center in Beeson Divinity School. And we should probably say, even though it's housed at Beeson, it's a ministry of Beeson, it's also a global center for all of Samford University. Lots of Samford students participate as well. So what is the Global Center? >>Parks: Okay, basically we just serve coffee. That's kind of it. >>Sweeney: You do have the best coffee in the building. >>Parks: We do. And some people, that's all they know about us. And that's fine. That’s how we bring them in and we let them know about the other things we do. The mission of the Global Center is to encourage, equip, connect Samford University's campus and the local church to cross-cultural and global mission. So there's several ways we do that. For Beeson, we oversee the cross-cultural ministry practicum. Every MDiv student goes somewhere a minimum of two weeks for a cross-cultural immersion experience. We oversee the mission certificate students, those who are exploring the call to missions or they already have a call, we equip them. We oversee an event called Prayer for the Nations. Every Friday morning, we're putting the nations in front of us to pray for them, to remind us that this world is bigger than just what God's doing here, and to cultivate that heart for the nations among the students. For Samford and the community, several things. Last year, we started something called the International Student Cadre. So we started inviting undergrad Samford students, international students, to come in. The cadres are eight-week Bible studies. They can get their official convo credit, so they have to get it. And so we're stepping into that system, and that was actually great. We didn't have a ton of people there, but from day one you're getting into spiritual conversation with people from very different backgrounds. And so we were really encouraged to see how open they were. I assumed going in that we would be kind of helping them to tease out what does the Bible actually say, what's real Christianity, what's the cultural Christianity you hear. But actually, they had great things to say about their experience here on campus and just a witness. So even those who weren't Christians. And so there was one guy who is he's from Malaysia, which is where I used to live. And he's a tennis player. So that's two things. So I had a great time with that. So we love the student cadre. Global Voices, which I'll talk about in a minute. This is for everyone. This is something where the tagline is Stories from the Nations. We want missionaries to come in, others with expertise in missions, and just tell us what God's doing, what we can learn. Sometimes it's a local student, undergrad students, we have them, they will share, Beeson students will share. As a matter of fact, for those of you who are interested, I've been thinking about this, if I just tell you about it and say you can go online and find it, that's one thing, but if you're watching on YouTube ... I tested this, this works. All right. So here we go. See the QR code? You can scan that right now. I tested that. And you'll get a list. You will get a list of events for this semester from Brian Fickert of When Helping Hurts, which is going to be a great event. That one's definitely going to fill out. And it's interesting, I use the phrase “fill out” right there because have you ever seen this guy? >>Sweeney: I don't think I have. >>Parks: He will fill out the whole place by himself basically. He's 6'10". Yeah, he's a large guy. He's super witty. He's a great presenter. And the content, when he shares, is always just excellent. So I'm really looking forward to him being here. So also for the community, we started something last year with the tours for the timeline. We had a big renovation, and it's not just a meeting space. It's also set up to where people can come in and they can get a tour for a biblical view of God's salvation for all tongues, tribes, and nations from creation to new creation. We walk them through the biblical story and what it says about all nations and then we walk them through missions history, and we illustrate how the gospel's gone from culture to culture. And as we're doing that, sometimes even showing videos, then all kinds of modern day applications arise. We can show videos for student volunteer movement or where we are today with finishing the task. And we've had some great conversations through that. So if you have a church missions committee that is interested in, you know, you're interested in bringing them here and we can just for an hour, hour and a half, walk them through this. We've seen that be really fruitful. If you have a student group you want to do some training for next summer before they go on missions, that would be a great thing. But also what we've done is we've had Samford undergrad classes come in. Last year, at the end of the semester, we had a couple of classes where they were taking their biblical foundations, just a general biblical foundations class. And in each class for that one day, they had one person respond that they were interested in changing their major to missions. And so we're seeing God use that, and I'm pretty excited about it. >>Sweeney: That's fantastic. So if I'm a pastor or a lay leader of a missions committee or something at a church that's within driving distance of Beeson and Samford, and I wanna do this, how do I do it? >>Parks: Okay, contact us, look us up. You can contact me directly or Jonathan Fletcher, my program assistant. Email us and then ask us what you're interested in and we can arrange a time for you to come on campus. >>Sweeney: Yeah, wonderful. All right, so what are some of the other things we got going on this year in the Global Center that we want people to at least be praying for for us, but if they can swing it, also come on and participate in? >>Parks: Yeah, so in October, we have our annual Go Global Missions Fair. And the man I mentioned before, Brian Ficker, he will be sharing that week, but we'll also have a lot of agencies who are there. The dates will be October 8th and 9th specifically. We'll have two different events. So he will share again about the ... he's sharing about his latest book, Becoming Whole. >>Sweeney: Oh, with Kelly Capik. He's been a friend of Beeson as well. >>Parks: Oh, okay. Yeah, didn't realize that. The gist is that we don't simply want to help people materially around the world because as the West has often been helped materially, sometimes we're increasing in anxiety and meaninglessness. And so he wants to speak to us about how to make sure we don't replicate that aspect around the world. But also Daniel Salinas, a friend of yours, he will be sharing about theological education globally and how we can partner. So I'm looking forward to that. I think it's gonna be a good week of equipping and just connecting people to agencies and real world opportunities. So, yeah, I'd really appreciate prayer for that because we can bring the agencies here, we can have the good speakers, but it feels like God has to do something to connect the right students to the right agencies and leaders for that to really work out. That piece in particular, we always feel like, okay, we can only do so much and we want to see God send people out. The other, I guess the other events, I want to get ahead of, there's a question you had. >>Sweeney: No, no, no. I want our listeners to hear about what's going on. We want to invite them to come and participate. >>Parks: Yeah. So you asked me a question through email, what are you most excited about as you look forward to what is happening in the fall? And I feel this impulse to respond and say, I love all my children, just the same. They're all great. But I figured, you know, I need to choose. So I'll tell you which child I love best in this case. I'm looking forward to Renee Pitts being here for Global Voices. And not just because she's an old friend of mine, not just because her brother's my closest friend, but she's going to be reporting on some research that came out through the UK's Bible Society last year. The gist of it is this. This is a very deep and wide study, 17,000 people for each year. And in 2018, they found that only 4% of young people between 18 and 24 went to church as much as once a month. 2024, 16% are going to church monthly. So they're calling it the quiet revival. And I've asked her to kind of flesh it out to help do some research, give us some stories. She's with Greater Europe Mission now, because I think it's really encouraging. We're just so used to hearing that Christianity's always on the decline in the West. And here are some really hard numbers that tell us something's happening. >>Sweeney: Wonderful. So when's she coming? >>Parks: That will be October 23rd. >>Sweeney: And for the listeners who don't know what Global Voices is, just give them a little lowdown. >>Parks: Yeah, so that's an event we meet in the Global Center, and it's the tagline, Stories from the Nations. We're talking about missions, cross-cultural ministry, and we're wanting to not just mobilize, we hope to inspire people with what God's doing. >>Sweeney: Of all the events in the Global Center, and there are many every semester, are any of them closed to the public or all of them are open to everybody? >>Parks: No, none of them are really closed. There are some that we don't advertise as widely as others, and it's not so much this semester, but there are times that because of some security, we won't be recording it. >>Sweeney: Yeah. Safety of the people who are speaking. >>Parks: But at the same time, there's really none that we would say we don't want outsiders in because if it were that private, we wouldn't need to have it anyway. >>Sweeney: Okay. So how do I get onto the Global Center webpage? >>Parks: Well, follow the QR code that I gave earlier. >>Sweeney: Yeah, what if I'm old like I am, but I'm not a QR code guy? >>Parks: So Google Beeson Divinity School Global Center and look for events and you can find it. >>Sweeney: Wonderful. All right, Dr. Parks, in addition to your ministries at the Global Center, what else you have going on these days as a professor, as a thinker, researcher, writer, we wanna get to know you a little bit? >>Parks: Okay, so the last few years I've been working on something that I'm calling a worldview mapping model. A few years ago, I was asked to teach world religions for the first time. My background in Southeast Asia and interacting with a lot of internationals, not just there, but here, makes me really dissatisfied with trying to equip someone to share with Muslims simply by saying, “Hey, here's Islam, use this method, use this line of reasoning.” Because so often, whether it's Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, there's a difference between Buddhism and Buddhists and Hindus and Hinduism and quite often they're a mix. Sometimes they retain the religious label because to not do so would invite persecution. It would be dishonoring family. And so you dig a little bit and you find out their heart is actually, it seems like they're more modern, postmodern, some kind of a mix. You know, they haven't completely left their religion in their minds. And how do you make sense of that? So I kind of came up with a model, started using it, started getting a lot of feedback. And over the last few years and through a paper I wrote for Ewan's Oklahoma Psychological Society, I've been encouraged to kind of move forward, so I'm going to, I've begun to work on a book for that. >>Sweeney: That sounds marvelous. All right, you know already our audience is a praying audience. They like to be praying for Beeson and Beeson's students and Beeson's professors. Everybody I know who's a serious Christian also wants to be praying for gospel work among the nations in a regular way, so praying for the Global Center at Beeson is a fantastic way to do that. Can you give us a little bit of a prayer assignment? How can we be praying for Dr. Parks and the ministries of the Global Center at Beeson? >>Parks: I'll make it simple. One, that students will be called out to go to the neediest places, both places in need of evangelism, church planting, and places where they need theological training. Maybe the church has grown, and any other place where there's hurting in a way that that student can actually help in a unique way where if they didn't go no one would be there. That type of prayer. But then along with it that we would do a good job of taking care of these students. We are calling students out to the nations in the middle of an age of anxiety. It's hard to know the lines somewhere sometimes. We want to do a really good job of taking care of our students. >>Sweeney: When you refer to the lines, it's hard to know where the lines are. Are you thinking about the degree to which you want to kind of push students to think about this without making them so anxious that it does more harm than good? Or what lines do you have? >>Parks: Well, that's a good question. Off the top of my head, I guess I'm thinking, how much risk. You know? Granted, I guess if we really look at that, there's no real lines. Jesus gave us to the risk that he calls us to. >>Sweeney: But going to some places that really need the gospel is a really risky enterprise. >>Parks: It is, and so you combine that with an age of anxiety and you begin to realize that not just us, but mission agencies and others, that there's something different going on right now with students and other young people going in a different kind of care they need. >>Sweeney: Okay, listeners, this has been Dr. David Parks. He leads Beeson Divinity School’s and Samford University's Global Center. He plays a bigger role than almost anybody else here at Samford in encouraging students to engage in cross-cultural ministry, educating them so that when they do it, they do it well, they do it faithfully and with excellence. Please pray for him as he leads our Global Center. Please pray for the ministries of the center. Please come and join us, participate in the ministries of the center. Email or call David or myself if you need help figuring out how to do that. And please continue to pray for Beeson Divinity School students, and today especially students who are feeling a tug from the Lord to go into cross-cultural ministry and need discernment and all the best kind of encouragement. Thank you for tuning in. We're praying for you. We love you, and 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.