Beeson Podcast, Episode #752 Name 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 Beeson alumni Taylor and Lydia Whitley, who serve as pastors of Community Church in Berlin, Germany, and supervise current Beeson students doing their required cross -cultural ministry practica in Germany as well. We thank the world of the Whitley’s. We're eager to introduce them to you, ask them about their experience as Beeson grads serving the Lord in church ministry overseas, and find out what God is doing in and through them these days. So, thank you, friends, for being with us. >>Taylor Whitley: Absolutely. Thank you for having us, Dean Sweeney. >>Lydia Whitley: Yeah, thank you for having us. >>Doug Sweeney: Let's introduce you to our podcast listeners. Some people listening now are friends from the old days of yours, some I'm sure are family members, but there'd be lots of people who will listen who haven't had the privilege of meeting you yet. So, Lydia and Taylor, tell us just briefly how you came to faith, how you came to feeling like the Lord was moving you into ministry, maybe even especially in a place like Berlin, Germany. There's two of you, so maybe Lydia, ladies first, can we start with you? >>Lydia Whitley: Yeah, thanks so much, Dean Sweeney. I think Taylor and I actually have very similar testimonies. We both came to trust in Jesus as children because of the faithful witness of our families and also our local church. But I would say that neither one of us was necessarily interested in going into church ministry. Taylor is a pastor's kid, and I was a seminary professor's kid. And so, I think we were definitely wrestling with what our calling would look like and what exactly God would want us to do one day. And we met each other at Samford University during our undergraduate studies while we were both wrestling with that ministry calling and kind of resisting it too. And that's why we became friends and eventually started dating. And we both had the mutual desire to pursue theological education. And as undergrad students at Samford, it made sense, why don't we just go and apply over across the campus at Beeson Divinity School, and the Lord opened up the door for us to study at Beeson, do our MDiv work there. And during our time at Beeson, we kind of honed-in our calling a little bit more. Specifically, when we participated in our CCMP in London, God really opened up our eyes to see what he was doing in Europe, but also specifically through English -speaking international or multi -ethnic congregations in Europe and what that looked like in an urban context, and we were really interested in pursuing that more. So, once we finished with Beeson, God opened up a door for us to move to Germany in 2015, and we've been living there and working there ever since. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, that sounds great. Taylor, I don't know. Do you have much to add? Do you have a story at all? >>Taylor Whitley: This is the problem when Lydia goes first. She says it all so well that I don't really need to add anything. >>Doug Sweeney: I guess so. >>Taylor Whitley: But I think I concur with everything that she said and just the progressive calling of taking the next step of faith with the Lord of pursuing theological education and not really being quite sure of what that meant. And then eventually the Lord using that to put us through the door of international ministry to lead us to where we are today. It's been that progressive step-by-step calling for both of us. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. Well, how would you say, Taylor, you discerned that the Lord wanted you to be deployed overseas? You know, when we do these interviews, I'm thinking about all the different kinds of people who listen to them. And one group I always kind of have at the front of my mind are the students, prospective students, people who are where you used to be, maybe a decade or more ago, just trying to figure out, Lord, what do you have for me? What do you have for us, if they're a married couple? Are there ways in which we can be in ministry together? And a lot of students these days have a big heart for the global church but are just trying to figure out whether they're supposed to stay domestic or go elsewhere. What was that process like for the two of you, and how'd you decide that it was going to be Berlin? >>Taylor Whitley: Yeah, I think for both of us, again, it had similar things for both of us individually and together as a couple. Both Lydia and I during university had the privilege to either study abroad during summers or to have internships outside of the United States for the summer. And so, we were essentially spending our summers in university, either in Europe or other places. And that really impacted us. So, there was the experience of our perspective being broadened during university that gave us the vision to see there's more to ministry and life than just what we've experienced in the United States. And then as Lydia mentioned, it was really during our CCMP that we came to realize the opportunity of international ministry. It was while we were studying there in London with Dr. Fuller and Dr. Searby and every day engaging with people living and working in extremely international city like London with people from all different places and seeing what that could be like. We came back and had a debrief with Dr. Parks and one of the last questions he asked was, who would do this if you had the opportunity? And everyone went around and said, you know, I think I might stay in Birmingham or maybe I'll go back to my hometown in Arkansas or Tennessee. And Lydia and I were the last ones. And we looked at everybody and said, you all are crazy. We would have stayed in London if somebody had invited us. We have to do this one day. And so it was through that experience, it was very confirming of showing us that there is a huge global church out there that really is an incredible witness for Christ. And we can play a part in that via international ministry. >>Doug Sweeney: Wonderful, and we should maybe clarify for people who are not yet involved at Beeson who are listening to this, CCMP stands for cross -cultural ministry practicum, sort of a cross -cultural ministry internship. We use the word practicum as a synonym for internship, and all our MDiv students are required to do one of these while they're pursuing their MDivs here at Beeson, and The Global Center here at the Divinity School administers these experiences and subsidizes some of the costs of them, so it's a real wonderful way that God has used in the lives of many students to kind of lead them into the future that he has for them. Were you guys fluent in German back at this time in your lives, or when did you learn to speak German? >>Lydia Whitley: Oh goodness, no, not at all. >>Taylor Whitley: Not at all. >>Lydia Whitley: We could not speak any German when we first moved abroad. And we immediately, when we moved to Germany, we immediately went into an integration course and were in language school for about six months and got fairly decent with our German, but then we started working at an English speaking international church. And so, for about four years, we really weren't engaging much in the German language. But during our time working on staff in an international Baptist church in Stuttgart, Germany, that's when God opened our hearts up to church planting. And we ended up going and doing an internship for church planting with a German -speaking church. And that really helped our German improve a lot during those two years. And then we ended up moving to Berlin to start a new English -speaking international church in the former eastern part of the city. >>Taylor Whitley: So, we knew no German. We probably spent a month desperately trying to get as far in Duolingo as we could before we moved over and learned just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to have a meaningful conversation. And it wasn't until we actually worked in German. Turns out working in a foreign language really helps you learn it. And it was when we really worked in German that we actually were able to get a good grasp of the language. >>Lydia Whitley: And now we feel like our life is in Denglish, English and German, Deutsch, because obviously our ministry is primarily in English because Community Church is an English -speaking church, but many of our friends are German -speaking and our kids go to German preschool. >>Taylor Whitley: Yeah, I had to help our oldest son with homework in German today, because that's the language he uses at school, so. >>Lydia Whitley: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: That's great. Before long, he's going to be outdoing you in German. Oh, he already outdoes us. He runs laps around us, but we remind him that we are the parents, and so he still needs to be kind to us. >>Lydia Whitley: Corrects our pronunciation. >>Doug Sweeney: Nice. All right. Well, just tell us a little bit, then, about your church in Berlin. It's called Community Church. It's international. What kinds of people do you get there? What's your ministry like? What's God doing these days? >>Taylor Whitley: Wow, so many things to say. Well, Community Church, we're about a year and a half old officially as a church. We are a project of the International Baptist Church of Berlin, and so we've been working with a local international Baptist church here in the city to start this new church. It was a dream that they had for over a decade to start a new English -speaking international church in the former east side of the city. And we've partnered with that church to start Community Church. We're international, which the way that I like to describe that is, it's like a United Nations meeting where everybody gets along because their foundation is Jesus. And so that's kind of the best way to describe our church. And we are a small, growing congregation with people from all over the world whose vision it is to invite people from all nations to walk with Jesus. Would you add anything to that? >>Lydia Whitley: Yeah, so I'd say we have probably about maybe 50 people that would attend a worship service, but we have about 20 different nationalities represented in that group. And so that's the great thing about doing ministry in Europe, but specifically in Berlin, is that you can really reach all nations when you work here in the city. And people are moving into Germany and to Berlin for so many different reasons, for work, for studies. There's a huge tech industry here in the city, a great art and music scene too. And so, God is bringing so many different fascinating people into this city, and we just get to kind of enjoy coming alongside them and helping them grow in faith and inviting them to walk with Jesus. >>Doug Sweeney: Would there be one or two ethnic groups that you'd have the most of or it's really just a smattering of people from everywhere? >>Taylor Whitley: It is really just a smattering of people. from everywhere. I was sitting, well, let me share it this way. We had a leadership team meeting recently and we were sitting around the table, with five leaders, and I realized that everyone had two passports that was sitting at that table on our leadership team. And it was everywhere from Benin, South Africa, Germany, the United States, Egypt, Sudan. I'm missing one or two in there. >>Lydia Whitley: And then the spouses of those people are from Malaysia or Australia, things like that. >>Doug Sweeney: All right. And do they come to your church already kind of convinced, believing Christians? Or do you get people who are seeking, looking for international fellowship? What's the, what's the ministry like as you kind of conceive of it and practice it these days? >>Taylor Whitley: It's kind of all of those things. One of the interesting things about when you start a church in a global city is it's actually quite easy to just attract Christians. If you just throw up a website, an Instagram page, you can collect 50 people reasonably simply. But our goal is not just to collect Christians. We want to reach people for Jesus. And so, we're happy to have people who have moved to the city and who are looking for a church come and join us. But we want to be a place where we can invite people to take that next step of faith in Christ. And so, in Berlin, it's a very spiritual but not religious city, and so there are many, many, many spiritually curious people and people who are seeking meaning and faith in their lives. We have the privilege of being able to walk alongside those people, both those who come to us seeking that and also just people that we meet in our daily lives on the playground, people's work colleagues, people from all different places who are at various stages of belief. Would you add anything to that, Lyd? >>Lydia Whitley: Yeah, I would say, I like how Taylor said there are just a lot of people who are spiritually curious. I think when the wall fell in Berlin, there was kind of a generation that had maybe been raised to totally removed from the church and very atheist, kind of this science has disproven God exists mentality. But now in a lot of the younger generations, people really are seeking and open to exploring. And so, we try and be very intentional and invitational with people when they come to community church. And we try and remove as many barriers as possible for people. So, for example, we don't meet in a building that looks like a church, we rent a room in a local language school so that people can come and feel comfortable among us. And then we try and explain everything that we do during a worship service, like now we're going to pray, prayer is just a conversation with God, things like that, just to really make sure that we explain very clearly what we're doing and why, which I think is helpful and refreshing for believers, but also very invitational in clarifying for people who are still seeking and aren't really sure what they think about Jesus or what exactly Christians believe. >>Doug Sweeney: Super. All right, let's try to help, again, people who are thinking about the possibility that God's going to move them into some kind of cross -cultural ministry. You guys have some significant experience already, particularly in urban settings, church planting, ministry. If I could pose this question in a two -fold way, maybe that'd be nice. I'm interested in asking you about seminary and the ways in which the Lord used your Beeson Divinity School time to equip you to do the kind of work that you're doing now. And then maybe if the second part of the question could be, just could you give some general advice to current seminary students, maybe prospective seminary students who feel like missions, cross -cultural ministry, or ministry in Europe in particular, is something that God's putting on their heart? Coach them a little bit. How would you advise them? Is seminary for everybody? You really have to have it to go and do what you want to do? How should they think about preparing and getting ready to do the kind of work that you guys are doing? >>Taylor Whitley: You want to take part one or part two? >>Lydia Whitley: I'll take part one. >>Taylor Whitley: Okay. >>Lydia Whitley: I think as far as people interested in pursuing theological education, maybe specifically at Beeson, I would just say we are so thankful for our time at Beeson Divinity School because Beeson, one, it was helpful for us to not just, we are a Baptist church, but not everybody comes to community church because they're Baptist. >>Taylor Whitley: Actually, almost no one comes to community church because they're a Baptist church. >>Lydia Whitley: They come because we talk about Jesus and preach from the Bible. And so, Beeson was very important informational for us because it taught us how to communicate interdenominationally. And so that was really important for us during our time of theological education to be able to engage meaningfully with people and keep the main things the main things and be able to still partner meaningfully in kingdom work with people who maybe we don't always align with on secondary or tertiary issues like the mode of baptism or something like that. I would also say that Beeson set us up to be lifelong learners. So, Beeson's very academically rigorous, which is wonderful, maybe stressful while you're doing your studies, but that really teaches you and gives you the tools to continue learning even after you leave seminary. And I think Beeson taught us how to ask good questions, which is so essential, in ministry in general, but especially when you're working in Europe. When the best of the best are coming to live and work in a global place like Berlin, you have to know how to keep learning and listening and ask good questions. And we're really thankful that Beeson set us up well to do that in our ministry. >>Doug Sweeney: So, Taylor like, it'd be real hard to do? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, tell the truth. Would it be real hard to do the kind of ministry you're doing if you hadn't gone to a seminary that values serious theological education? How does that work and what should prospective people doing your kind of ministry know from you about this? >>Taylor Whitley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I would go so far as to say our education at Beeson was essential to getting us where we are today. That rigorous academic work gave us a foundation to be able to interact with some highly intelligent people that we're around every day, both believing and not believing. And so, when it comes to how important is theological training, I would say it's essential for church planning in Europe. You're coming into a place with a lot of very talented people, a lot of very intelligent people, and you need to be able to speak the language that they speak. And not just from one perspective, but from a variety of perspectives. You need to be able to understand not just what you believe, but also what others believe and how those beliefs interact with one another and be able to explain why you feel that your belief is the truth and how that matters and affects us in our daily lives. And I'd love to follow up on that, what you asked about students, prospective students who are considering something like international ministry in Europe. For students who feel that maybe they're exploring a calling to this, or they wonder if this is something that they are cut out for or they should do, I would highly encourage them to pursue that more deeply and to begin speaking directly with their current faith community. I can't tell you how important it was for us to have our faith communities, our home churches surrounding us, praying for us, encouraging us, networking us, and just confirming what we felt God was putting on our hearts. And so, invite your community into that. And as you do that, pursue opportunities to try it. Take the internships that you can over the summers in churches in Europe to see what international ministry is like. Come to the Cross -Cultural Ministry Practicum in Berlin to learn from us and what's happening here in Berlin. And just ask God to do bigger and greater things than you are imagining for yourself, because if you had told us almost 11 years ago that you would be living in Berlin having planted a church and now pastoring it, I think we would have gotten sick because that would just be so overwhelming for us back then. But to take that step of faith and trust God was the first step in getting us to where he's gotten us today and allowing us to do the things that we're so blessed to do in our current context. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, I think for a lot of young adults, seminary kinds of people these days, the prospect of doing what you two are doing is pretty daunting, but you seem so happy and relaxed about it, and it seems like things are going so well. Here's a question that might help. What's the hardest thing? What's the scariest thing that you two have to do these days? What do you find the most challenging? >>Taylor Whitley: I think it comes on multiple levels, but on a personal level, without a doubt, the most challenging is just being so far away from family and from our community, particularly when we had, when we started having children. It’s just very difficult to be so far away from family. And we, and we thank God that we have great family who, who is able to come and visit us regularly and that we're able to, pretty much once a year, return to the U.S. for a short time to visit and do partner updates and things like that. But on a personal level, just being away from your family is quite difficult, and it reminds us how important it is to have a strong church family, a strong faith family. One of our members in our church came and picked up our boys with me today. And I love it because when they saw him, they ran up to him and yelled, Uncle Mike, Uncle Mike. And he's not a biological uncle, but he's an uncle in the faith. And it reminds us how important it is that our church family actually needs to function as our spiritual family to help us overcome that personal challenge. So, I think personally, that would be certainly the most difficult. But Lydia, maybe you could speak to more ministry or work-related things. >>Lydia Whitley: Yeah, I mean, I think just we love what we do, and it's very clear to us that this is where God has placed us, but that doesn't mean that everything is always easy for us. And every day we encounter little moments of maybe cultural misunderstanding or, oh, I don't really fit in here, or maybe not being able to be as precise with the language as we would like to be. Just those little moments sometimes add up and can feel discouraging or even overwhelming at times. But I think that living abroad and doing international ministry really puts you in a place of dependency and being dependent on God to provide and having to trust Him and remember that we are not sufficient, but He can be sufficient through us. And so I think even though that's such a challenge of putting yourself in these situations that maybe stretch you personality or personality -wise or culturally speaking, just also the posture of being dependent on the Lord and then getting to just rejoice and see His grace and His generosity and His power at work through our weaknesses is really rewarding and wonderful. >>Taylor Whitley: Absolutely. >>Doug Sweeney: That's a great segue into the last question I had planned to ask both of you, and that is, how can we be praying for you? You know that Beeson Divinity School is a community that continues regularly to pray for its alumni all the time, but the Beeson podcast listeners want to be praying for what the Lord's doing in and through Beeson. They want to be praying for the Whitley’s, so you can count on us praying for you. How would you like us to be praying for you in the days ahead? >>Taylor Whitley: Well, it's really funny when you plant a church. Eventually, the goal is that the church would be planted. And when that happens, you have to shift from church planter to pastor, which is a more difficult shift than one might imagine. And so, we're not pregnant with the church anymore. We have a toddler now. And just as toddlers experience growth and challenges and joys and difficulties, a new church experiences that. And so, it's the positive growing pains that we're experiencing, like we maybe need a new space to rent, or we're trying to figure out how to engage people and develop new small groups from the ones that we already have or how to serve with one another. And so, I think just praying generally for those early stage developmental things of a new church, of how to manage growth and how to mature disciples and how to continue to be outward focused and not become too inward focused on ourselves that we lose sight of the people around us who we want to invite to walk with Jesus would be a huge prayer request for us as a church. >>Doug Sweeney: Of course, that's a great prompt for all of us, no matter where we're serving. >>Taylor Whitley: Absolutely. >>Doug Sweeney: Don't become so inward focused that we fail to keep looking out, see what the Lord has for us in terms of witness. >>Taylor Whitley: Absolutely. >>Lydia Whitley: I think in addition to just for those basic growing pains of a young church, also we would just ask and invite our Beeson community to pray for us to have perseverance. I love the book by Eugene Peterson, Long Obedience in the Same Direction, and I feel like that's definitely where we are right now is just continuing to pursue people with the good news about Jesus. And we have seen people grow in their faith or even commit and trust in Jesus and be baptized. But there are just still so many people in our neighborhood who are not walking with Christ. And so, we just ask you to pray for us. that we will be patient and have creativity and compassion as we continue to share the good news about Jesus with people in Berlin and invite them to walk with him. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay listeners, this has been Taylor and Lydia Whitley. They are serving together in Berlin. Germany, where they lead the community church there, an international English language church in a German -speaking context. All kinds of wonderful ways in which we can be keeping them in our prayers, and we'll commit to doing that, Whitley’s, before the Lord for you. And listeners, we're praying for you as well. We love you. We thank you for tuning in. We say goodbye for now. >>Mark Gignilliat: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our Producer is Neal Embry. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify.