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 Blake and Aaron Dean who both have just graduated with MDivs from Beeson. We say just graduated, but we're recording this before graduation and you're listening to it after graduation. It's a little chronologically confusing to us, but we'll try to be good here.
Blake served last term. It's this term as we speak. It's last term as you listen, as our James Earl Massey student preacher of the semester and has since joined our staff as recruitment coordinator and alumni relations officer. Erin serves as the children's minister at St. Peter's Anglican Church just a few miles from campus. They're a Beeson power couple and we're thrilled that they've joined us on the podcast today. So thank you, friends, for being with us.
>>Erin:
Thank you, Dean Sweeney.
>>Sweeney:
All right. Well, let's introduce you to our podcast audience. Tell us how you came to faith in Christ, how you first met, how did the Lord get you together here to Beeson Divinity School. And we want to hear from each of you, but maybe Erin, we could start with you. 
>>Erin:
Yeah, sure. When I tell my testimony, I think I'm just so grateful that I can say that I really have never known a time without Jesus. My childhood and upbringing, my parents did a wonderful job of having us in the church, sending us to any camp, any evening activity, anything to where, I mean, my earliest memories and some of my fondest are just with other believers. So I was little when I accepted Jesus and knew that I needed him to come into my life. I was probably six. I think it was around a campfire. It feels a little cliché, but ...
>>Sweeney:
Sounds wonderful to me.
>>Erin:
Just really grateful. I think I've seen a lot since then of how that childlike faith has been tested. And I've really had to learn that for your faith, your faith has to mean something. And yeah, when things get hard or dark, that He is the light in the midst of this world. So, I mean middle school and high school that was true, but kind of skipping to college and kind of vocational ministry was never something I really considered. 
>>Sweeney:
Even in the middle of college? 
>>Erin:
I think it was college that kind of really changed it for me. I mean I knew that people worked at churches. I knew that you could get paid to study the Bible and preach, but I think that was just something I didn't see myself doing and saw myself going into physical therapy or something in the STEM world, because I love math and science. And going into college, was studying that. And after my first year was at this event where college students were being trained by other college students to be leaders on their campuses. And it was the first time I think I had meaningfully been taught how to teach the Bible. I had done a couple of mission trips where I got to teach in different settings, but it was at that event, I was listening to someone teach back to me something I had taught them. And it's one of the only times I've heard the Lord just speak to my soul of, this is what you're meant to do. And I have no idea what that means still, but just kind of stepped out in faith of going to change my major, going to take studying theology seriously and figure out what that means. And we both went to Berry College, and that was a wonderful place to get to both study theology and watch people doing church ministry, parachurch ministry, and it was a really formative time. 
>>Sweeney:
All right, so Blake is Berry the place where you were blessed to meet Erin?
>>Blake:
Yes. 
>>Sweeney:
Did you know each other before? 
>>Blake:
No, we met on the first day of orientation freshman year, so I unfortunately was dating someone else, but that is when we met and then through a series of events we became really dear friends and then started dating about two years later. My family kind of jokes they had met her a couple times before through some other things and my dad was like it was an inevitability it was just one would Blake catch up. 
>>Sweeney:
And is your faith story similar to Erin's or did you come to faith in a little bit different way than she did?
>>Blake:
No, I think there's a fair amount of overlap. My parents were in ministry growing up. They were in church ministry. So my dad was a worship pastor for all of my life. And I like to say that I got to see the best parts of the church. I think being a pastor's kid sometimes comes with a different story, which is also true. I've seen some of the kind of more honest and hard and sinful parts of the church, but I'm a triplet. And so my parents were immediately outnumbered. And so I got to see, and these people still are in my life and matter to me, people feel called by the Lord to help raise us because my parents not only needed that help, but they also grew to love us. And I think between my parents and my grandparents, and then these people who had no reason to love me except the call of Jesus on their life, I was kind of loved into the faith by an early age. 
And then college became a time where instead of having kind of a tangible experience like Erin did, I actually just saw my kind of imagination and affection shift towards the church in a way that didn't make a lot of sense to me. I had seen beautiful parts, I had seen less beautiful parts of the church, and I thought I was going to go do some other kind of degree. And I didn't want to be like my dad in some ways, you know, it's that youthful kind of like, I'm not going to do what my dad did. I wanted to be like him, but not do what he did. And, but I just kept finding kind of in conversation or in prayer, like a love for the church being, like growing in me and imagining a life. It was difficult for me to imagine a life not serving God's people in some way. And so it was kind of more of a quiet calling than a seismic one, but one I'm grateful for.
>>Sweeney:
One of the groups of people I often have in mind as we record our podcast episodes are people that in-house, Blake, we would call prospective students, but they're Christian people, they're often young adults, sometimes they're dating somebody, sometimes they're recently married, so their decision about whether seminary is for them or maybe not for them isn't just an individual decision, but they're sort of together with somebody else thinking these things through. 
And while I have the two of you with us on the podcast, you know, it'd be great to ask you, so how did you process these questions together? Were you already kind of seriously dating one another as you were both feeling a tug into ministry and thinking maybe seminary's for us? Or how did that conversation go for you?
>>Erin:
Yeah, so like Blake said, we were dating by our junior year of college. And I think by that point, both of us felt a pull towards seminary and didn't quite know how quickly we'd get there or if we'd take some time off in between. So thankfully, the Lord had worked in us individually, feeling a calling towards further theological education, a call towards this church. But then as we got married, we got married in COVID. It's a great time to graduate and get married. We graduated in 2020, married in 2020. It felt like a lot of decisions were kind of taken off the table and life was put on pause a little bit. And I think it really refined our values as we were making decisions about seminary. I mean, at that time, everything in the world was online. And so we considered, okay, do we try online education? And we actually did. We tried.
I did two semesters and you did a semester. But we found that we were just fitting it into our lives rather than actually getting to pay attention to it and let it form us. And I think that's when our values were realigned to what we had talked about when we were first dating and got married of going together somewhere that would support both of us going into ministry, a place where we would both thrive. I came into Beeson really wanting it to be my terminal degree. I think Blake still is a bit more open-handed of, well, the Lord would call him to more education or not, but a place that would really equip us both well for either one of those outcomes.
>>Sweeney:
So, Blake, as you guys were thinking about this together, how'd you hear about Beeson? And why was Beeson the place that you ultimately decided to enroll? 
>>Blake:
Yeah, I heard about Beeson because our chaplain's office at Berry College had a Beeson mug and it wasn't because of Beeson, the shape of the mug was my favorite mug to use. So Beeson was kind of in the back of my head because I was drinking coffee out of the mug every day. Merchandise will do it. And then there were a series of kind of odd events I got connected with someone who was on staff at the time, Kristen Padilla. And so that kind of embodied, there was kind of like, oh, there's someone I know there or have gotten to know in a small way who's at this place that'd be worth checking out. 
As we were thinking about seminaries we had a couple as Erin mentioned kind of qualifying criteria. One was like not only kind of preparation in the way we see fit but also in the way our denomination seats fit so that kind of limited some of our options to be like where would we be able to move into an ordination process? Where would both me and Erin be able to thrive as students? And so we had a fairly kind of short list of in-person opportunities that kind of fit some of those criteria. 
And honestly, we toured Beeson because we both had full-time jobs and it was closest to where we were living at the time that we only had to take one day off work and didn't have to like it was less logistically kind of complicated than some of the other places and so I think we were excited to come but we didn't really know a lot and we didn't have real expectations and it was kind of we walked in kind of checking something off the list. We were like, oh, this will be worth seeing.
And we came and we met with the admissions team. We sat in a class, we had lunch with a student, we met with a faculty member. And just throughout the day, Erin and I just kept looking at each other and being like, wait, this might be it. We weren't really even prepared to make that kind of decision that day, or to feel that confidence, but it was the charity in the classroom was really striking to us. Not just interdenominational in spirit, but the way that that informs the way learning happens. Students were genuinely excited to be here. And that was something that was really evident to us. We had an incredible tour guide who just gave us a tour of the building and you know, told us all the things he was supposed to tell us but also was just sharing his own kind of story of getting to Beeson. 
>>Sweeney:
Nice. So who was your tour guide?
>>Blake:
It was Caleb Craft.
>>Sweeney:
All right, way to go, Caleb. Thank you, Caleb. (laughter)
>>Blake:
It was Caleb Craft. While he was still a student. And then we just left, and we didn't tour anywhere else.
>>Sweeney:
Really? It was that decisive.
>>Blake:
It was coming onto campus and seeing this place and it felt like a kind of unicorn to us. To be like a place that in what, 2022 at that point, didn't feel like it really existed anymore. A commitment to in-person, kind of interdenominational charity and a classical education. Like those things were really important. And then to be a place where both a male student and a female student could thrive in their callings to ministry and where we could do it together felt like a gift. And as we were talking about kind of our experience with an online program, the language we kept using was, what's our center of gravity? And it felt like because of the way our life was structured, our jobs were our center of gravity. And that was a great thing.
We had great full-time jobs that were meaningful and really meaningfully prepared us for ministry. But kind of like Erin said, our education was kind of like tacked on in the margin when there wasn't a lot of it. And I'm so grateful for other kinds of programs where for people who that's what their life has to be, that they have opportunities to learn. But for us, we knew we were in also a very special season of life where we were fairly newly married, we didn't have kids yet. And we could and wanted to be able to relocate to be able to be formed together. And I think doing it together made that more important because it wasn't just me in a library or you in a library, but it was us in a classroom together. 
>>Sweeney:
Wonderful. All right, so Erin, can you take us from that day to the present, and again, don't give us a snow job. I know, you know, Blake is now on the admissions desk. He's helping me sell Beeson to people. But what I honestly have in mind now is the kinds of people are listening to this. Some are wondering about seminary and they don't want a snow job. They want to know exactly what they might be in for. And then others are, they love Beeson and they support and they pray for us and it'll help them if they kind of get the real story. Help them to support and pray for us better. So how was your experience at Beeson as you entered and made your way through Beeson? Was it what on that day you decided it must be like? 
>>Erin:
Honestly, yeah. We've had a wonderful experience. And I think any grad school is a difficult time in life because some of your friends are starting their jobs, starting families. They can travel a lot more than you can. And you're living in the library with not a lot of money focused on the thing in front of you. 
>>Sweeney:
Praying that the Lord would let this be your terminal degree.
>>Blake:
That's right. That's right.
>>Erin:
Maybe so. But also it's been just a really special time because we've been surrounded here by new friends, new chosen family that they're doing the same thing as us and they understand how difficult it has been and we're right there to support one another. So I mean the community here has been amazing, not just students but faculty as well, like our mentor groups, the fact that we meet every week with other students and a faculty member and we pray together, like it's yeah it really does matter and you can tell the difference that we don't know what's going on in everyone's life, but we know what's going on in enough people's lives and people know what's going on in our life. 
So in that sense, though it's been difficult, it's been exactly what we imagined. And I think we were really excited about the course work here too, of getting to do a history and doctrine sequence instead of systematic theology. We were just curious about what that would be like. And I think that was your favorite sequence, bar none. 
>>Blake:
I have so many friends from that sequence. From history, they're dead, but they're my friends.
Sweeney:
Yeah, I love it.
>>Erin:
And I've loved the languages. It is hard but I think because I have a math and science brain like it kind of worked like a formula to me and getting to see just how beautiful other languages are and getting to read scripture in its original language and working with faculty who have written commentaries on the text you're studying, it's just made scripture come way more alive and has slowed me down as I read it in English too. I can notice these things in another language but I can also notice them in my own language. 
I think the other thing I just would celebrate about Beeson is you don't just keep people in these four walls, you really push them out into local churches. And that's a critical part of our formation here during these years. And Birmingham has so many wonderful churches to offer with so many wonderful pastors who are ready and willing to take seminary students of any age under their wing and really work with them, mentor them, so that once you leave these four walls, you've had experience, you've done hard conflict conversations with parishioners, you've gotten to preach, you've gotten to teach, you've cared for someone in a hospital or something, like that's invaluable too. So it's been wonderful.
>>Sweeney:
So Erin, I think both you guys a few minutes ago talked about when you were looking at seminaries, you wanted to be in a place where both of you would thrive.
>>Erin:
Yes.
>>Sweeney:
So that puts me in mind of asking you, maybe it's a two-fold question. What has it been like as a female student for you at Beeson? And then what has it been like, maybe you can both address this if you want, as a married couple? Because you're not the only married couple who's ever come to Beeson. And there are others who maybe are thinking, is this feasible? Can we both do this at the same time? How's it been for you? 
>>Erin:
Yeah. I mean, I remember orientation day, there's a moment where different centers all have tables and talk about what's going on. So there's the missions table, there's an Anglican studies table, there's the Center for Women in Ministry, like all these tables. And I remember being in the best way overwhelmed by how many tables there were for women. There was the Center for Women in Ministry and the Peace and Wives Fellowship that your wife runs.
And so, I mean, as a student here, I have so many fellow students that we get to pray together, talk about what we're going through. And there's not, I think there's been one class where I've been the only female that didn't make me feel any less than my fellow students.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, it was probably a language class and you were smoking everybody.
>>Erin:
It was a language class, Greek three with Dr. Park. Anyway, that was a good class. And yeah, so being a woman in ministry is not ever something I felt that has slowed me down. I'm very thankful that I haven't had many experiences where people have told me no because I'm a woman. But because that's not my experience, I've gotten to listen and bear the burden of people who that is their experience. There was a year I got to be in an all-female mentor group. And just hearing what other women had to go through, we got to cry together and laugh together and just support one another. So that's been wonderful. 
But then also as a wife, I mean, your wife has an incredible ministry to not only wives who are in seminary, but wives who are supporting their sweet husbands who maybe don't come home because they're at the library until the wee hours of the morning. And that community is so special for so many people where, again, it's people who understand what you're going through, because they're experiencing it too. And either they're on the other side of it and can say, you're almost there, like keep coming, or you're sitting in it together. And yeah, doing it together has been a challenge, but he's the best study partner. And I mean, there's days our house doesn't get cleaned and our dog doesn't get as good of a walk as maybe he should, but through it all, I am so grateful and thankful we didn't have to do it another way.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. Blake, so how did you pull it off financially? That could be a useful piece of information for some people listening right now.
>>Blake:
Yeah. So, I mean, there's a couple answers to that question. One is Birmingham's cost of living really does make it possible. If we were in a different kind of city with a different cost of living, I think it would be less possible. We have friends in other cities and it just wouldn't be possible. So Birmingham has a fairly low cost of living or it's possible to kind of have a low cost of living. And then we both worked part time. I started in a coffee shop and worked there and managed there for a bit. And then we both ended up getting some virtual jobs that was really helpful. But yeah, I mean, we definitely didn't do certain things because we couldn't, but it really has not been as difficult as I think we anticipated it being. 
I think through Beeson's financial aid has made it possible. We had some external financial aid that was really helpful, but also kind of living small and yeah I think the center of gravity comes back to me. It would be like we knew we were here to be at Beeson, to study at Beeson, and to be a part of our local church and so that meant we were making certain kinds of choices financially. And some of those things, like, are things other people can make choices. If you have little kids, those aren't choices, you know. But it's all, like, unique to each person. But I think we are very humbled and aware that it was the Lord's kindness and provision for us for it to be possible. And it's certainly not impossible, it just, it's kind of an ongoing conversation.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. And Erin, speaking of part-time jobs, the last several months of your seminary career, you've had a ministry job at St. Peter's, the church where you had been worshiping before, and they brought you on staff. How has that been? I don't want to make this too confusing. You can just sort of talk in the way you want to talk, but the questions I have in my head are, how did you get that position? How has it been doing that work while you're still in seminary? And to what degree do you feel like there's a nice synergy between what you're doing in seminary and what you're doing in the practice of ministry? 
>>Erin:
Those are great questions. So St. Peter's was the church that we've been at our entire time at Beeson, worshiping there really since that first summer. And we couldn't tell you why, maybe we could, like when we were looking for churches, thinking about our time at seminary, thinking about who could train us, who would we want to learn under? I mean, I kept coming back to St. Peter's.
I've just been so grateful throughout, but we actually both did our supervised ministry practicum there through Beeson. So we did that last year. We both were interns under Andrew Russell, who's another Beeson alum. And we got to teach the youth and we were with them every Sunday and do other odds and ends, but last December, so almost a year ago, our interim children's director went on paternity leave, and they thankfully had two interns. I love children and was happy to step into that role during his paternity leave. So after that month of filling in for him, the job was still open for a Director of Children's Ministry, full-time role. So that January after I served, I came home to Blake and it's like, I really liked that. And he looked at me and told me like, you really came alive during that month. And I didn't know what was on the other side of seminary for me.
Stepping into this education, stepping into this time was truly open-handed of, I don't have a vision of what I want to do. I just know that this is the next faithful step and the Lord will make it clear. And he made it very clear. We actually decided not to apply that January because it was a full-time position. We still had a year left of school. Did not feel like it was the right timing, but just kept leaving saying, if the Lord still had it open in the summer, I would reconsider and see. 
Well, Holy Week, my pastor came to me and he asked me to apply. Ryan was about to leave. They knew they needed someone else. And because we had been serving there as interns, because I had filled in, they had seen the ministry I could do and asked me to step on. And because of that, they also really worked with me to finish school. So this will be a full-time position, but right now it just gets to be part-time. And I've had the best time. I think I've seen the Lord bring together so many longings of some of my first roles in serving my church growing up was in the nursery. 
And now I'm getting to watch other 14 year old girls do the same and I think I just am continually so grateful that as I finish my time here at Beeson it's not just theoreticals. It never really has been we've gotten to serve in so many ways during our time but now the work that I'm actively doing to finish my degree, I see the little people it's going to get to minister to. So as I'm thinking through my pastoral care and counseling work, I'm not really thinking of adults coming to me, though they might, thinking of these little children who, who knows what they're experiencing. The questions I get asked and the things that linger on their little hearts are more than you would ever imagine.
>>Sweeney:
It'll make a theologian out of you.
>>Erin:
Yes. So that, I mean, I get to study scripture for my job now, which again, I never thought was a thing, but get to write lessons and curriculum for other adults to get to teach to kids. I get to teach it to them. And thinking through, okay, I've learned lots of really big words here. I've learned Greek and Hebrew here. These four-year-olds, these fifth graders, they don't care about any of that. They just want to know that Jesus loves them. And so it really makes the gospel matter. And so, yeah, I'm just so grateful for St. Peter's and their formation of our time here at seminary, but that, as I've talked about our jobs, both at Beeson and at St. Peter's, the places that made Birmingham feel like home, I'm so thankful for the places we get to continue ministering to. And my prayer is just that these kids will never know a day without knowing Jesus. And Lord may it be so.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, I love it, amen. All right, Blake, we're running out of time, but I wanna ask you about being the Massey Prize preacher of the semester. So our listeners need to know that every semester we have a student preacher of the semester and that person gets a prize. It comes with a little bit of a cash award and a certificate and it's named after Dr. James Earl Massey, who's with the Lord now, but was a wonderful preacher who was connected to Beeson for a long time. And you're it. You're our student preacher of the term. What's that like? What are you planning on? How should we be praying for you as you get ready to give us the Word of God? 
>>Blake:
Yeah. What was it like? Surprising? I think I told you when you called me, I was like, that was not the phone call I thought-
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, you were doing dishes as I recall. 
>>Blake:
I was doing dishes. It also was my first day of work at Beeson in my role so I was like I don't know why the Dean's calling me but he's calling me for some reason. Yeah I think there's a couple things to say about that. Number one, really humbling and surprising. Preaching was, it's ministered so much to me, especially some preachers in my church who just are so skilled and gifted, but also so preaching from the heart to human hearts. But with that becomes a level of intimidation. 
I remember talking to one of our pastors, I was going, I don't know how anyone gets up there every week and does this. And so going through the preaching class was really kind of an act of humility for me as well. I was not walking in with swagger. I was walking in trembling. And between, I had Dr. Webster for both semesters, between his feedback and then Andrew Russell, who was our mentor at St. Peter's, he would come to every one of our sermons in class.
>>Sweeney:
Really?
>>Blake:
Every sermon.
>>Sweeney:
Wow.
>>Blake:
And then when we would meet him in the next week, he would give really concrete feedback. And between both of their feedback, I really gratefully feel like I've gotten to grow and stand on my legs a little bit more while I preach. And also get out of the way a little bit more. I think both fear and pride are ways of getting in the way of what God might do through his word.
And I'm looking forward to it. My line has been, I'm humbled and scared, but that's where God likes to do God's work. And so preparing in our kind of patterns of faithfulness series I'm going to preach on Mary Magdalene and John 20 in particular and I have not written it yet. We're in the beginning stages of it but I expect what it will end up being is, I hope, for a room full of people who are going to be ministers, preachers, and pastors, that all the skills we learn here are actually directed towards one end, which is to say with the apostle to the apostles, I have sinned the Lord, let me tell you what he's told me. And I think not only is that what I hope to preach, that's also been descriptive of my time at Beeson, which is kind of the Lord stripping me of a lot of my posturing through the classroom, through the difficult work of study, but also through some very real suffering. To get down to the brass tacks of what God does for human beings and how his love for Jesus, yeah, it's the thing that we get to stand up and proclaim.
>>Sweeney:
Okay last question, yeah our podcast listeners not every single one of them But many of them like to be praying especially for our students, but for the school more generally as well So if they're gonna say a prayer for the Dean's What should they pray about? 
>>Blake:
That's a great question. We have a lot of transition going on at the moment. 
>>Erin:
We did it all at once. 
>>Blake:
A lot of very, very exciting things in our life but it definitely feels like a kind of monumental moment in our life together. So I think prayer for resilience, enough energy to do what God would have us to do that day, but also for some space for gratitude to be able to be together and be grateful. 
>>Erin:
Yeah. As we step out of Beeson and into these jobs more fully too, just not losing the things that we've learned here of good habits of studying the word. And yeah, I think the biggest thing is we're moving from doing everything together to a lot of not things together, which is just new for us. We've gotten to do that for the beginning of our marriage and then these last three years. So we've been so grateful and just to not miss each other in all the things that we do.
>>Sweeney:
Okay, friends, you have been listening to Blake and Erin Dean. They are currently wrapping things up at Beeson Divinity School as students. Erin is busy doing ministry part-time that will soon become full-time at St. Peter's Anglican Church here in town. Blake has already joined the staff of Beeson Divinity School. He's about to preach in chapel, all kinds of exciting things happening in their family. Please pray for them. Pray for resilience, endurance, faithfulness, gospel-centeredness, and as you do, please pray for all the students at Beeson Divinity School that the Lord would have His way in their lives. 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.