Beeson Podcast, Episode #
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>>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 Beeson alumni Nancy Hartin and Margot Cooney, who've recently concluded their time as students at Beeson. This is funny to say because we're recording before graduation but this podcast will drop and you'll listen to it after graduation and they're both brilliant students so nobody has any doubts that they'll graduate in December. 
They're here to tell us all about their experiences here at Beeson, so thank you friends for being with us. 
	>>It's an honor and unexpected. 
	>>Thank you for having us. 
>>Sweeney:
Let me begin by introducing you to our podcast audience, maybe just in turn tell us a little bit about how you became a Christian, how you came to faith, and then how the Lord got you to Beeson Divinity School. Margot, you want to take that one first? 
>>Margot:
Certainly. I don't know how much would be appropriate to say, but the Lord had always been calling me my whole life, but I didn't hear it or respond until about 15 years ago. And he sent a field of puppies my way. 
>>Sweeney:
Really? 
>>Margot:
Yes. 
>>Sweeney:
A literal field of puppies? 
>>Margot:
A literal field of puppies. I was 23 and I was just born into abundance. I had absolutely everything. And I found myself at 23 with the best education, the best apartment, the best job, best boyfriend at the time. Just everything was just so, what the world told me was good, I had it. And it just wasn't enough. It wasn't fulfilling. And one day, December 29th, I got down on my hands and knees and I said, “If you're real, prove it. Prove it in a way only I would know.” And I had tried everything. I'd tried every religion. I'd gone around the world just seeking it out, and it was just so much work. And I prayed that prayer and just kind of got up and was like, well, I'm going to continue my day.
And through a series of just very unexplained situations, I just found myself experiencing waves of peace I'd never felt before. Anytime I tried to do something I had planned to do, it wouldn't happen, and I would go to get mad, and this peace would hit me. And towards the end of my day I just kind of gave it over and I said obviously what I'm doing is not working so I'm gonna try a new way.
I just took a simple right when I should have taken a left and I turned and found this field of puppies. My entire life ... this is so foolish to say so I’m kind of embarrassed, but my whole life I had wanted to find a puppy or a dog that just wanted me and needed me. Everything I did was just so wonderful. I got out of my car and the fluffiest puppy ran into my arms. And I just remember thinking, someone really knows who I am for this to happen. 
I now know my heart was crying out for Jesus, but in that moment, my whole life, it was some sort of dog. And after that, I was just kind of like, I'm going to try out every church. And the third one I went to was 16th Street Baptist. And at the end of the first service, they had an altar call of anyone who wants to give themselves over to the Lord. And I was like, me, me. And I go into the front and I just assumed that Pastor Price heard the Lord say, “Someone here really needs to do that.” And I came back next week and they did it again. And I realized Baptist churches do altar calls. And that, that's how I came into the Lord. 
>>Sweeney:
Wow. All right, so before we turn to Nancy and ask her, that's a hard story to follow.
>>Margot:
Sorry. When I get talking about those puppies.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, but before we do it, tell us, so how'd you get from there to thinking, you know what, maybe seminaries for me?
>>Margot:
Seminary, yeah. The way that 16th Street poured into scripture, it was line by line, and it was just, it was so filling that I knew I wanted more. And I was reading a lot of commentaries and listening to a lot of pastors and preachers, and I just loved when they went into the Greek and the Hebrew. And I just thought that was so exciting. And so I started looking at seminaries that had that. And one that was 10 minutes down the road was for me. I looked at some on the Northeast but they don't require confession that Christ is Lord and I just remember thinking, well what's the point? What's the point if you don't declare that? So Beeson is how I found it. 
>>Sweeney:
All right. Did you know somebody who'd gone to Beeson or you just knew Beeson was in Birmingham because you're from Birmingham? 
>>Margot:
Yeah, I'd never heard of Beeson. I came here for, I think it was a Martin Luther talk. And oh, it was Bonhoeffer. I came here for Bonhoeffer. And then I was like, this is it. This is it. And Lyle Dorsett is the one who took me around Beeson, and he looked me in the eyes and said, “Jesus Christ kicked in the gates of hell for you.” And I was like, that's what I want. I want a boldness in how you proclaim the word. So Beeson was it.
>>Sweeney:
Fantastic. All right, Nancy, how did you come to faith and how did you get to Beeson Divinity School?
>>Nancy:
I came to faith at a very young age, grew up in a Christian home, and came to faith at the age of six and just continued in faithful pursuit of the Lord and His Word. I actually came from Central Florida where I grew up to Samford for undergrad, and at the end of that undergrad time when I knew that the Lord was leading me into accounting, my pastor from Central Florida encouraged me to consider going to seminary. And I did pray about it.
>>Sweeney:
So, why? If you were presenting yourself as somebody who's going to be an accountant, why is he saying you should go to seminary?
>>Nancy:
Well, we should ask him. I don't know. I think that I had been in high school unusually in proclaiming my faith and very public and taking opportunities to speak about my faith. I had done so and had been given opportunities at church. I really am not sure. I've never even asked him. He's since retired, but he brought me into his office and said, “I think you should consider this.” My plan was that I was going to get a master's in accounting and pursue a CPA, and I did pray about that, and I really felt like the Lord was saying no, and that the place, because of a business professor here at Samford, the place I needed to minister was in the business world. 
And so I felt that that was going to be my mission field, my field of evangelism. So I wanted to make it a calling and that's what I did. Then in, I guess in my 30s, maybe my late 30s, early 40s, I felt the nudge again. And my wise, sweet husband looked at me and said, we have three sons to put through college. You have a master's degree. We're set. And I'm like, you're absolutely right. But, time changes all things. And my husband and I were on a family mission trip to Ecuador and through a variety of circumstances, which I won't go into right now, we both sensed that this was the time and ended up being a professional door was closing as I was an accounting professor at Birmingham Southern.
And so moved to pursue seminary the year before Birmingham Southern closed. So we felt like that was God's providence. Now interestingly, the last place I looked at going was Beeson. I looked within my own denomination because I thought that the convenience for my family of doing an online education would be more suited for them. Even though I had taught online and it was miserable, so I don't know why I thought that that would be a good idea. 
I also thought it would be reasonably priced and it seemed very skill based. In other words, if I had a particular tract or interest, there was a specific title degree to match that interest. Thankfully, my pastor here is a Beeson alumni and he pulled me in and said, have you thought about Beeson? And I said, well haven't you heard Samford's a little expensive? I mean, I am an accountant ... And he explained to me that it is not cost prohibitive and I, being a dedicated accountant, ran the numbers, and it certainly was not. And it was in person and right down the hill. And since I was an undergrad, when they put this dome on the building, it seemed like I was kind of coming back home.
>>Sweeney:
You remember watching them construct the building?
>>Nancy:
We did, we did. Back in our un-air-conditioned Vale dorm. 
>>Sweeney:
Ah, back in the day. 
>>Nancy:
Back in the day. 
>>Sweeney:
You had to walk miles uphill to get to school back then. 
>>Nancy:
Actually, don't get me started. The 1992 snowstorm, the great snowstorm of ‘93 took place and I was stuck here. 
>>Sweeney:
All right. Well, let's talk about your time at Beeson. What's it been like for you? What's your favorite thing been like? What's your least favorite thing about Seminary been? I'm thinking right now, not only of prospective students, but partly of prospective students who are wondering about Beeson. I get told all the time they tune into some podcasts just to get a feel for what Beeson is like. What would you say Beeson is like, for better and for worse, and what's it been like for you personally to study at Beeson? Margo, you want to go? 
>>Margot:
Certainly. I started Beeson in COVID, so it's been a very long run of ... every year I feel like I come back to a different school. And what I've enjoyed so much with the pace and the timing that I'm doing it is just the flexibility to be a whole person. I've really been thankful that I have wise teachers, wonderful, we can call them colleagues, friends at school, in a way that I felt I was ministered to as a mom, as a daughter, as a child of God, just by interacting with different students. My cohort graduated three years ago, and I still love being with them. I also get to meet new students every semester as the prayer coordinator. And so I just feel like my family just gets bigger and bigger as the years go on. And I really appreciated that.
>>Sweeney:
Nancy, how would you, to somebody who doesn't yet know very much about Beeson, how would you describe it? And what would you say a prospective student ought to think about as he or she is wondering where the Lord wants to send them?
>>Nancy:
Well, I think that again having considered an online education, an in-person education has been enormously rich, and I would say rich would be how I would describe my whole Beeson experience. Someone asked me the other day if I was going to be sad that I was graduating and a word came to me that I had not thought of, I will not be sad but I will be satisfied. And I think that there is a longing that my soul has cried out for that for the first time. It's been fed in a variety of ways. Certainly one of the most significant ways was when I learned to study scripture for myself without the aid of a written Bible study or under someone else as teacher, but just scripture. That was certainly pivotal, but I will be satisfied with what I've been able to experience both in the caliber of teaching, also just the breadth of the teachers to come from so many denominations has been enormously rich and satisfying and I would never have had that type of breadth had I gone to a denominationally based seminary.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. So, as I'm sitting with the two of you whom I've known for quite a while and about whose lives I know a little bit, I think I know that you're not sort of the typical seminary student who comes in his or her 20s and is thinking about moving right into a church ministry position, you've had different sense of callings, different sorts of ministries over the years, it might be helpful to our listeners just to hear a little bit about what your sense of calling is from God, what kind of ministries he's been giving you, and what kind of ministries you have in mind after graduation, and then how you think about the value, the role of a seminary education in equipping you for the work the Lord's giving you to do. Is that too capacious a question, Margot, or can you address that one?
>>Margot:
I think I can get there. When I came to Beeson, I just had such a love for children, and I absolutely still do. I have three of my own. And I love getting to figure out how to explain the Trinity to a six-year-old and a 16-year-old. I love just getting to be creative in that. When I started at Beeson, the idea was I would get an ice cream truck and I would go into neighborhoods with artwork. And while we were creating, I'd tell them about the Creator.
>>Sweeney:
Are you serious? 
>>Margot:
Yes. 
>>Sweeney:
I did not know that about you.
>>Margot:
That was in my application. I was like, this is how I want to administer the gospel. And I'm doing that, except my car ... 
>>Sweeney:
You don’t have an ice cream truck?
>>Margot:
My car is covered in ice cream from the kids in it. 
(laughter)
I was given the keys to an 18 passenger van and I take kids into the places that I'm going now. So before I had just this idea that it was going to be me going in and now I bring kids with me into these, and it's just been invigorating. It's been so wonderful. So I knew I wanted to do work with kids, but as I got here, the Lord was really turning my heart to teenagers. I feel like I'm forever a teenager, moaning and groaning, complaining about the meat pots back in Egypt. But it just made me realize just how much the Lord delighted in me and in them.
And since I've been here, the Lord has fashioned the ministry that He's called me into to include parents. Parents are, if you take care of the caregivers, the patient gets taken care of as well. And so the Lord's just, as He's been growing my heart the way that when the Grinch learns the meaning of Christmas, I feel the Lord is just calling me to love parents as well as their children. And the reason I came to seminary is I knew I could sit there and I could tell them about the love of Jesus.
But in the quiet moments when they would turn to me and ask questions of, “Well, what happens when my mom loses her baby?” And being able to comfort them and offer them scriptural evidence of how the Lord cares in that way, like really difficult questions. Sure we could talk about the Trinity and eternal life, but what do you say to them about when they lay their head down at night?
And so Beeson, for the six years that I've been here, has given me just kind of the patience to sit in mystery and then allow the Holy Spirit to do the better work in that teaching. Because the Word works. Giving them the Word of Christ is giving them Christ. And so that's kind of, that's where I feel satisfied with my time at Beeson. I don't have all the answers, but I know someone who does. And I'm not just talking about my friends and students and teachers, I'm talking about the Holy Spirit. And Beeson really gave me a place to understand that part of the Trinity of how much the Word goes before us and being comfortable in those awkward silences when I'm doing [inaudible 00:16:38] with middle schoolers. So, that’s my time at Beeson.
>>Sweeney:
Alright, so Nancy, what's your sense of kind of calling these days? How's the Lord leading you, and what difference has seminary made for the kinds of ministries you're doing already, and are thinking about doing after graduation?
>>Nancy:
Well, so seeing my profession as a mission field, I did try to be sensitive, maybe even obstinate or determined to find opportunities to minister to my co-workers or my students when I became a teacher. And so one of the things that I started doing, I would always introduce when I taught, I would introduce my class and say that accounting is my profession, but my passion is my faith and the study of God's word. So I just, I did that day one. And so that would inevitably lead to some conversations and put some, you know, raise some ears. 
So I did have the opportunity to teach young people how to study the Bible for themselves. Biblical literacy ... I moved around a lot as a child. I had 13 pastors in 9 different churches in 3 states. And my dad went to seminary, and no one ever taught me how to study scripture. You know, you're told to have a quiet time and you're told to spend time with the Lord, but what that looks like without a supervisor is really not taught. And so being able to give that freedom to believers, whether they are 5 or 15 or 55, has been a great thrill. So that has carried over. 
My husband and I work with the young adults and have for many years at our church. So I do teach “Our Bible, The Bible.” That's our curriculum and have for a number of years. But in addition to that, Chris and I together have a real burden about financial literacy and managing your money God's way, but also speaking to adults and helping the church to realize that we are all ministers. 
Now, regardless of your profession, that you are called to be a minister whether you are working at Publix or whether you are a physical therapist or a pulmonary surgeon. Do we have pulmonary surgeons? I don't know. But every position has an opportunity to minister and so to wake up and use that and that comes from a place of spiritual overflow. So we got to feed ourselves Sunday to Saturday so that we can minister Monday through Friday.
How has Beeson helped me? Well, certainly it has expanded my understanding and the opportunities to learn. I certainly am all the time telling the members of our class, “Well, I learned this week!” It's amazing how much it has intersected. So certainly, maybe my teaching support system is a lot deeper, my teaching will, my teaching resources. 
Now, where we'll head from here, only God knows. I don't know if the Lord will open up additional ministry responsibilities or whether there will be accounting professional opportunities. I'm open to both. I've already told you where my heart is, but we'll see where the Lord leads.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, super. It also occurs to me, I should ask the two of you about our Master of Arts in Theological Studies program. People who know a little bit about Beeson may well know that the vast majority of the students are in the Master of Divinity program. That's the program that most people are told to engage if they want to be pastors. But we also have this wonderful master's program in Theological Studies. It's not quite as long as the MDiv, Master of Divinity. It's more flexible. Why did the two of you enroll in the MA in Theological Studies and what would you say is the value of somebody choosing to do the MATS? 
>>Margot:
I appreciated the flexibility with the MATS because I was raising really young children, still raising them, and I was so grateful that the faculty was able to work with me to understand, okay, well if I take this this semester, my year looks this way and that way. But I think my greatest joy in the MATS program was just getting to take things that I really enjoyed. I got to take Cappadocian Fathers my third semester when I should have, if I was doing it a certain track, I should have taken that my last. And I really got to spend a whole semester just loving on Macrina. And I just remember writing little hearts in there for Father Gregory and getting to be with older people and younger. It was just always, it wasn't that my appetite was guiding me. It was just that the Lord was allowing me to be joyful in the classes I took. 
One semester, I only was in medieval theology. And by the end of that semester, I was just desperate for the gospel. And just my heart was just so, it was just in so much pain for the group of people that went without the Word being given to them, that it was withheld from them. And knowing that we have eight Bibles on our shelf, and I can take that to someone and just teach them how to read it and just to understand it was just such a gift that I don't think I could have gotten if I was on any other track other than MATS of just getting to sit and actually take in what I was learning and get to just slowly move through it. Moving slowly is not my pace, so that was a gifting of the Lord for me. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. Would you say something similar Nancy? Is that the sort of attraction of the MATS to you or did you engage the MA in Theological Studies for other reasons? 
>>Nancy:
Well initially my approach was time. At my season of life based on where my kids were and what our family could sacrifice. I wanted to do this as full-time as opposed to part-time. No disrespect, but I just felt like if I strung this out, you know, a million things can happen. And so I did, I asked the Lord to close the door. I mean, he could have changed his mind, but to close the door if those whom I care for, if this was not going to be feasible for them. So there was a sense of urgency because of those who are responsible for caring for.
So the MATS from a practical standpoint, however, when I just I mean I have to confess my pride. I don't know ... maybe no one else has it, but when I arrived and everyone else was ... so many others were doing MDiv and goodness, there is so much richness in learning Greek and learning Hebrew I felt like I was shortchanging myself to not pursue the languages and yet as I proceeded in faith that this would be sufficient for what God has called me to do, I've really reached a peace in that. 
It's not that I can't learn Greek and Hebrew. And I also have to tell you that a huge plus, once I got here and got established, is even though I've been through in a full-time two-year period, okay, two years in one semester, I now can come back and take other classes. That door is always open to me. So my learning, my quest, my hunger does not have to stop.
But, you know, it's not necessarily performative but just for soul building. So I think that's a tremendous opportunity. Does that does that help?
>>Sweeney:
It does. Yeah, I'm sure it'll help lots of people who are thinking these things through. All right, we're nearly out of time. We have a podcast audience that really does like to pray for Beeson and Beeson students and the things that God is doing here. So on this occasion, I ask the two of you: our podcast people are going to be praying for you. How would you like them to be praying for Margo and Nancy in the months and years ahead?
>>Margot:
I would love to continue in the freedom of walking with Christ. Just there's a true freedom to it. And I want my kids to continue their life in that freedom as well. That would be wonderful.
>>Nancy:
That I will be found faithful as a woman of the Word, whatever that looks like and wherever it takes me.
>>Sweeney:
Alright listeners, you have been listening to Nancy Harton, Margot Cooney, two of Beeson's finest. I introduced them by saying they're alumni of Beeson Divinity School and that's true by the time you listen to this but they're in their last semester as we speak right now here at Beeson. Thank you ladies for being with us, it's been a wonderful conversation and we say to our listeners we love you, we're praying for you. 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.