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 student J.T. Reeves, who serves this year's student government president. JT's here to tell us all about his time at Beeson and about the ways in which God is using Beeson to equip him for a fruitful life of ministry. So thank you, my friend, for joining us.
>>Reeves:
I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. 
>>Sweeney:
Well, before we get into your time at Beeson and SGA and all those really important things, let's introduce you to our podcast listeners by having me just ask you a little bit about your childhood, how you came to faith in Jesus, and how the Lord started working in your heart, moving you into a life of ministry.
>>Reeves:
Yes, let's do it. Yeah, I love talking about that.
>>Sweeney:
All right, so tell us about your childhood and how you became a faithful follower of Jesus.
>>Reeves:
Yeah, it's not hard to become a faithful follower of Jesus when you've got folks like mine. My parents are church planters, so I grew up moving every one to three years, and we'd go and there's six kids, and I was the fifth of six. So you start with eight people in your church immediately, which is my family. And we would move and go to a new place, and wherever the Lord seemed to be guiding my parents. And then we'd settle down, and they'd throw us into all of our sports or whatever, and they'd meet everybody in the town, and we'd start a church in our living room. That went on nine times before I ended up in college. So I was definitely in the Jesus environment growing up.
Sweeney:
So how'd you get from that kind of an environment to feeling like the Lord really wants you involved either in pastoral ministry or some kind of full-time ministry?
>>Reeves:
Yes. Well, the first time I might have expressed some interest was in kindergarten when I was the preacher for the Thanksgiving play. And apparently I had a booming voice and was very excited to be on stage. So that was my first experience as the preacher.
>>Sweeney:
Was this a Christian school?
>>Reeves:
This was not a Christian school. 
>>Sweeney:
So why did the Thanksgiving play get to have a preacher? 
>>Reeves:
They got to have a preacher because I guess there was one role for the preacher. You know, we had the Indians, we had, you know, the ladies in the town. 
>>Sweeney:
Oh, I see. You were reenacting the pilgrims in Plymouth. 
>>Reeves:
Exactly. And I signed up to be the preacher. So, I guess I was interested from a young age. But really, never, it took me a long time to really think that I might be called into ministry. I encountered the Lord when I was 12 in a really unique way. And so, I had always grown up, probably had believed far before then that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. But when I was 12, just, I would say like I learned to be a worshiper. And I can remember a moment when I just had a time with the Holy Spirit where I realized that the Lord is with me right now.
And I remember where I was. I was at camp. I remember leaving the pavilion where everybody was worshipping, all my friends were at this camp and having to come away and just be with, in the presence of God. And so I go up by this tree and I'm just praying and saying, Lord, like, I really want to be with you. 
And so from there, I just had this fire to read the Bible and to learn about this God that I've like encountered. And I start reading every single day and praying every single day that really like took off for up till now in a lot of ways. So, that's where I really met the Lord. And then it took him a long time to kind of ... even as a pastor's kid ... to like have the imagination that I might actually end up in ministry.
>>Sweeney:
So how'd that work with your own dad who was a pastor? Was he talking to you about ministry? Was he kind of standing back and seeing what God was doing in your life and trying gently to nurture? And then when you did have a conversation about whether you might be led by the Lord to move at least into seminary, maybe thinking about pastoral ministry, what did he say? What's it like for that kind of relationship, a pastor and a kid who's thinking about going to seminary?
>>Reeves:
Yes, he was very careful of never putting that on any of us, any of the six of us, even though our names are Old Testament names and then New Testament middle names. So I'm Jeremiah Titus. So we have a very biblical background, but he never put any pressure on any of us or expectation that we might end up in ministry. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about it. 
And his ministry was so unorthodox, never went to seminary, sort of just had this burden to find a way to draw people toward Jesus. And so he and my mom start, you know, I guess we'll start a church and then I do it again and again and again. And so it wasn't anything that was ... it wasn't really a career path that was an option ... if that makes any sense. It was just what they did and there were other career paths that seemed like more options. 
I did a lot of writing, I did a lot of thinking, and so I'd kind of grown up with this, “I would love to be CS Lewis” thing in my head, and still would love to write in that capacity. But by the time I went to college, I went to Wheaton College, I was tired of, I mean, I love public school. I was public schooled all the way through, but was ready to have some friends that had the same kind of mindset as me. You're a Wheaton College guy.
>>Sweeney:
Yes.
>>Reeves:
Yeah. So it just could be a potential place for me. But COVID hit when I was a freshman in college and dropped out and worked in the church for a full year under my dad, although not under my dad because he made sure to keep us pretty separate.
>>Sweeney:
Well, I was about to ask you how that went because I know at some point he started giving you assignments at church, giving you ministry assignments. How did that kind of develop? How'd that get catalyzed?
>>Reeves:
Yes. So I started under the executive pastor. His name's Jerry, and Jerry had just come on. And so he tried to get me to do all these X's and O's kind of things. And I can do some of that stuff. Not exactly my best gifting, which Jerry figured out. And then he kind of moved me over with a lady named Andrea. And I'm more creative, so we started doing some kind of creative projects. And I stepped into that role. And dad really wanted to give separation between he and I when I'm first starting on staff at the church. And so never directly kind of reported to him for the first bit, for that first year.
But then started helping with just this crazy story of the Lord where my mama was talking to someone in the neighborhood and they wanted to give a building in downtown Columbia, South Carolina to our church. And they just gave us this old, beautiful stained glass building right on the campus of University of South Carolina. 
>>Sweeney:
Pretty nice.
>>Reeves:
Pretty good. And so we start meeting with that congregation of 15 folks, average age 82. 
>>Sweeney:
Really? Even though it's right on a college campus?
>>Reeves:
They were dying out, just an old Baptist church. And they realized that they were dying. A lot of times it's so difficult, some of those situations and just a lot of holding on and iron grip. And they were very gracious of allowing us to enter in. And so I started doing a little bit of preaching over there at the very beginning, just because no one else was there. And I started leading worship over there. Eventually I got a pastor.
Then I led worship there for the year. And by the end of that time, just kind of being able to step into a bunch of different rooms with a bunch of different gifts and see what I was good at, what I wasn't good at. It was just clear, this is what I want to do for a long time. And not just what I wanted to do personally, but things that are being affirmed to me from the church around me.
And so I finished up that year before I finally went back to school, begrudgingly, and was sure that there's nothing I would rather do than commit myself to the church. 
>>Sweeney:
Right. Well, in a family like yours where your dad got busy doing ministry without going to seminary, was seminary, did he think, “Oh, JT, if you're serious, you should go to seminary?” Or did he say, “Well, you could do it or you could not do it.” How did you make this decision to go to seminary?
>>Reeves:
Yeah, it's actually a funny question because he would coach some of my siblings differently than me. He purposely didn't go to seminary and has often tried to remove some of the cluttered language in order to just communicate with the average people that he knows about the Bible. But he always wanted me to get more education. And so I was trying to drop out of Wheaton. I was trying to, I mean, I could learn on my own. I was like, the internet, we got so many things. And especially when it was COVID and everything was online, I was like ... 
>>Sweeney: 
So he was doing more pushing than I might have guessed. 
>>Reeves:
He was pushing me to go back and steward some intellectual gifts that I had that he saw in me. And so he just thought it was really wise to do some more school. And again, begrudgingly, I really worked through it and worked through it with the Lord, and it just seemed like it was clear I needed to go back to Wheaton. And then at the end of Wheaton, again, it seemed like it was clear I needed to take another step. And through a lot of prayer and processing and cool things happening, I ended up here.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. Who first told you about Beeson? How'd you learn about this school?
>>Reeves:
So I can't remember who was first. Dr. Ryken mentioned it to me a while back from Wheaton.
>>Sweeney:
We've had Dr. Ryken on the program, but for those who don't know, he's the president of Wheaton College. 
>>Reeves:
He spoke very highly of Wheaton College. Dr. Abernathy also spoke very highly of Wheaton College. Old Testament. 
>>Sweeney:
Of Beeson Divinity School.
>>Reeves:
Oh, yeah, of Beeson Divinity School.
>>Sweeney:
Both, I'm sure both. 
>>Reeves:
I'm sure they like their own school. So, a couple of those guys. And then I visited here because of Shades Mountain Baptist Church was connected to my church back home Pastor George Wright. Yeah, and so I had already known a little bit about Birmingham and just ended up in this in this place. 
>>Sweeney:
All right. So you pulled up, unloaded your stuff, started taking classes, and what was what was the Beeson experience like for you at the beginning? 
>>Reeves:
Yeah, I think there's always a transition from college. You go to the next thing and it's not college. So there was that coming in. I think there's also, I already had some theological education coming in. So I was nervous that like maybe this would just be repeat sort of things. But I think every time you move somewhere, having moved somewhere a lot of times, like the first year is tough to ground yourself to root yourself to find community and to figure out what that looks like. 
And so there was there was a lot of things at Beeson that I was trying to figure out that first semester, especially. But as time went on, like my classes, pretty much from the start, just really excited me. And my favorite part about Beeson was this: I felt like I was lacking in understanding the history of the church. And to have this history and doctrine sort of thing really excited me. And so even from the very beginning, I've just really enjoyed some of that, some of that sort of a thing. But yeah, it was both a really fun transition. I think I was, we got all your classes are about the Bible. I'll put it that way. In college, you got all these different kinds of things going on. And I was very happy to have all my classes centered on the person of Jesus. 
But it was also difficult coming off of the Asbury outpouring, which really affected a lot of my year at Wheaton and thinking, how do I like put powerful encounters of God into rhythms was something personally that was, I was working through all year, that year as well. So that adjoined with the school experience at Beeson and this increase in theological understanding, it was it was really trying to put into rhythm encountering Jesus day by day. And a lot of work went into that. And now, but now in year three, you kind of see that all of that was very worth working through, especially for that first semester. And now you kind of are entered into a new kind of rhythm and deeper relationships. And it's really beautiful. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah. Let's think for just a minute and speak to people listening to us now who wonder whether studying at a seminary like Beeson is for them. The way you're telling your story, it's very clear that for you, it wasn't just some automatic thing where you didn't put any thought into it at all. You needed the right kind of encouragement. There were things the Lord was doing in your life that kind of led you in this direction. But as you kind of step back from your own personal story and personal experience, and based on your knowledge now of what seminary is like, or at least what this seminary is like, how would you counsel people who are wondering? You know, we get prospective students who they're just they're trying to figure out what God's doing in their lives and whether they should come to seminary or not. What is your counsel for somebody who's just not sure but is entertaining the idea?
>>Reeves:
Let me say this from the standpoint of I came in really wanting to serve the church. I think there's another kind of student who comes in just interested in learning. And those are both good, they're a little bit different. So I think from a learning standpoint, let's just start there, just raw. I think it is really important, the incarnational aspect of being in person with another professor, being in person with other people. You can bounce ideas off of people after class. Like there's just the learning online versus the learning in person is really significant. And that's actually what really drew me to Beeson was they're doing something here and they know what they're doing that is real and learning just cannot be replicated in that sort of a way.
For me, though, as far as I want to serve the church, yes, that was a huge part of it. I think this is the best area where I can learn. I can go into a professor's office and just fire away questions or like have a relationship with a professor. And we get to talk across the table. And that's someone that I can actually maybe communicate with in the future. And I've got peers that are excellent at certain subjects, and I can communicate with them in the future. Like there's a lot of things relationally that are significant.
But maybe what I would say I'm most passionate about, especially for younger Gen Z leaders, this generation knows nothing about the Bible. And it is shocking how little we know about the Bible, even for those of us who grew up in church all the way through. And I think it's more important than ever to have really strong theological education if we want to see a church that is rooted and founded on the word of God. 
And so, I mean, the statistics of over half of the current church in the United States of America believes that Jesus sinned, and over half of the church in the United States of America believe that Jesus isn't actually God. And that's just like our starting point. And there's so many other topics beyond that, that we really need a common language and a thread of like, orthodox right belief for a long time that we've been doing for 2000 years. And let's like, ask the experts for a couple years and spend some time doing that, and do it in relationship and in community. And that actually strengthens us to go out and serve people. In such a fast paced age, we think that immediately we have to get started in our ministries. And I feel that. And you know, I feel that we've had conversations about that. And there's some beauty to using your 20s to go. But I think if we like this sort of season of learning, of hungering, and of rooting ourselves in truth, a lot of things will fall apart in the future. 
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, well, of course, my view is doing both all the way through is ideal.
>>Reeves:
There it is. 
>>Sweeney:
There is ministry and theological study and a discipleship mode. I mean, they feed each other so well and reinforce each other.
>>Reeves:
Did you start out in your position, was that already in play before you came or was that something that you were really passionate about, bringing sort of this, hey, let's make sure you are involved in church ministry at least one year while you're doing your school?
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, I mean, that's something that I've believed for a long time. Yeah, and it's something that I really like about Beeson and the structure of the MDiv program at Beeson is that whether or not you agree with us, you have to do it. So over time you experience why it is this is so important to us. And you've been a great example of that. I mean, you've almost worn yourself out, driving back and forth because you're preaching a lot still in Columbia, South Carolina, while you're a student at Beeson. So I love it. But I'm praying for you on the roads that you're safe and you're not too tired to drive safely and those sorts of things. 
>>Reeves:
Yeah, we made it again today, just in time for this. 
>>Sweeney:
That's great. All right. How about just a little bit about the Student Government Association? Was that something that you thought about before you got talked into running for election? Or did you just hanging out with friends and they said, JT, why don't you think about it? You'd be a great president. How did you become the president of the SGA?
>>Reeves:
I don’t know where that started. I was the student body president of River Bluff High School.
>>Sweeney:
So, all right, a man of experience.
>>Reeves:
Yes, so many years ago. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoy being in a place and hoping, dreaming, shaping a little bit from a student perspective, places that I care about. And so that's true of River Bluff High School, that's very true of Wheaton College, and that's true now of Beeson Divinity School, which is probably why I was excited about a place that was super passionate of, let's be in person and let's be together. And so we have other things that we're doing. But I really wanted to run for this in order to just draw this, this community into this beautiful vision that I think Beeson has, and to draw us deeper into that in a world that is so trying to separate us. 
And so our team this year is really seeking to create more community on this campus and to create it around sort of prayer and deep worship with a lot of fun. And we had an awesome time at a retreat just the other day. Dr. Fuller kind of got us set up there, and it was just amazing. But we really wanted this place, we want to leave this place as we're kind of finishing up with, and also there's a little bit of a shift in Beeson over the last few years and it's gotten really young all of a sudden and some new faculty and some old faculty leaving and it seems like this was a year where it's a good year to just serve and try to re-solidify some of who Beeson is, especially for the younger folks like me. The average age is pretty young here right now.
>>Sweeney:
Yeah, comparatively speaking.
>>Reeves:
Comparatively speaking.
>>Sweeney:
Because we are in person and we have a strong emphasis on forming pastors to serve the church. It's not that you couldn't decide to do that in midlife, but more often than not, that happens when you're younger.
>>Reeves:
Yes.
>>Sweeney:
All right. So, what are a few of the particular things that as president of SGA, you're trying to make sure we get done? You've got a fantastic team, you've been doing wonderful ministry already, but what should our listeners know about what the current president and team of the SGA is doing at Beeson this year? 
>>Reeves:
Well, we're actually meeting tomorrow to think a little bit more about that and process our events for the next semester. But I think back to those a few things you just mentioned. Number one would be how do we build community in an age where we have most of this group is both working and doing school. So how do we kind of streamline that and allow people to enter into relationships here at Beeson that aren't actually stretching us more thin, but that are strengthening? And so that looks like a couple events that we'll run. It also looks like our own team trying to be really purposeful about being with others. 
And then it looks like, I think, allowing people to enter into a common vision of the Lord being magnified in this country, and particularly through prayer. This country and beyond, a lot of missions focus on our team, even within our little SGA team. But yeah, particularly through prayer, if we had, if we were to say, hey, we want to lead Beeson differently, we want this place to have a stronger bond between its own members, deeper life of prayer and bond with Jesus Christ, and then just a spirit of worship, which is in each classroom, and that the work would be more and more considered an act of worship. 
And so this upcoming semester, we're trying to process of how do we how do we run a couple things that would really draw us deeper into a life of prayer here on this campus and make that like normal for students to just want to stop in the hallway and say, I really need to pray through what Dr. Tennant just brought up about missions, and it really struck a chord in my heart. Or I really need to pray through this assignment that I'm like pretty stressed about right now. And so that's the beginnings of what we're hoping for. 
>>Sweeney:
Fantastic. Well, we're almost out of time and speaking of prayer, the podcast audience likes to pray for us, likes to pray for guests on the podcast itself, likes to pray for what the Lord's doing at Beeson, likes to pray for Beeson students. So with that in mind, how can we be praying, maybe I'll ask this in a twofold way, how can we be praying for J.T. Reeves himself as his seminary education is culminating and he's thinking about what the Lord has next for him? And then we'll treat you as a representative as the president of the SGA of the student body as a whole, what should people who know a little bit about us but aren't in our halls every day be thinking about as they pray for the students of Beeson Divinity School?
>>Reeves:
For me personally, I'm praying for a deeper heart for this generation that is where my whole life is sort of directed is asking the Lord for awakening in Gen Z. So if you wish to pray for me, I would ask that you pray for that. Just the movement of God in this generation, which is already beginning. And I'd love to be part of it. I'd love to be part of what He's doing all over the world. And it seems to be waking up a group of people and we pray that the waking of Gen Z would push out to all other generations and nations. So prayer for awakening in Gen Z. 
And then as far as how to pray for us here at Beeson and the students. I think, I think praying that everything would be, well, I think praying for calling, maybe that in particular. There is a lot of pressure and often aimlessness and confusion about maybe to what are we called? And so I think a prayer for calling first the piece of simply knowing that our God has us, but then to pray for specific callings for the folks here at Beeson. So even as they're doing their studies, there's direction, there's less confusion, and there's movement towards something as opposed to a lack of grasping for things.
>>Sweeney:
Wonderful. Folks, you've been listening to JT Reeves. He is a friend of mine. More importantly, he's one of Beeson's best and brightest. He's the president of the SGA, the Student Government Association, here at Beeson Divinity School this year. He's very active both on and off campus. Please pray for him and his own ministry. Pray that the Lord would continue to guide and direct him as he uses his Beeson education in the service of the church out in the world as well. 
And pray for all the students at Beeson Divinity School. And maybe especially given what JT has just said, for the youngest students at Beeson Divinity School, the students who would be part of Gen Z, asking the Lord to give them a real clear, firm sense of calling with respect to the ministries He has for them and a real strong sense too that he is with them and guiding them and helping them as they continue to discern how best to walk in step with his spirit. Listeners we love you and as you know we always pray for you as well. We thank you for joining us 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.