Beeson podcast, Episode 495 Jacob and Suzanne Simmons May 5, 2020 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my cohost, Kristen Padilla, and we are delighted to welcome you to the program. We have tWo Beeson graduates with us today who also happen to be married. We have invited them to talk to us about their respective ministries, what it's like to minister together as a couple, and who they have become since their time together at Beeson. Kristen, would you please introduce these two dear friends? Kristen Padilla: Welcome, everyone, to the Beeson Podcast. We are delighted to have Jacob and Suzanne Simmons. Both are graduates of Beeson, having earned their Master of Divinity degrees. Jacob is the minister to single adults and pastoral care at Shades Mountain Baptist Church here in Birmingham, and Suzanne is a chaplain at UAB Hospital. And I should add that they have two beautiful children. So welcome to the Beeson podcast. Jacob Simmons: Thanks so much for having us. Suzanne Simmons: Thanks for having us. Kristen Padilla: Let's begin with a brief introduction of each of you. Where are you from? How did you come to faith in Jesus Christ? How did you meet? And then maybe a word about what brought you to Beeson? Suzanne Simmons: Yeah. Okay. I'll go first. Originally I am from Lakeland, Florida, central Florida, and grew up there my whole life. Actually, my parents are still there. And I came to faith in Jesus Christ as a little girl. I grew up in the church. My granddad was a minister and we spent a lot of time going to church. So VBS when I was eight years old. I confessed Jesus as Lord and was baptized a few months later and really have been on the journey as a believer since those formative days, so don't really remember a time that I didn't know about Jesus, and I think that's been a grace in my life for sure. Suzanne Simmons: Then how did I end up at Beeson? I met Jacob, an undergrad, actually, at Samford in 2004. We didn't get married until 2013, so there's some time in between there. Jacob Simmons: Yeah, and that's a different podcast. Suzanne Simmons: That's a long... That's a different story. But we met many moons ago and then came to Beeson separately. I came in 2008, started, and I was really discerning a call to ministry at Samford in my undergrad experience, and then my senior year felt really pulled towards theological education, and had a good mentor friend who had gone to Beeson and that was good enough for me. It was an amazing place by all understanding, and so that's how I got here. It was, I feel like, again, the Lord's providence for sure. Jacob Simmons: I am from Hendersonville, Tennessee, which is just North of Nashville. Born to Christian parents who took us to church, and at age nine, at Vacation Bible School, had the opportunity to respond to Jesus in faith, and say that while I could not have given you all the Trinitarian doctrine, I knew that I was a sinner in need of Jesus. And so we laugh now. Jacob Simmons: We get really excited at Vacation Bible School week. We're a large Southern Baptist church and the programs have been around for a long time and yet when you see the body come together and teach children about Jesus, it's a great thing. And it was those volunteers, those lay leaders at Vacation Bible School that wanted to give to the children and I responded to Jesus, and it was truly a moment of repentance and regeneration for me. Jacob Simmons: I did come to Sanford, studied business here, and then right after that came to Beeson, so I'm going to do a quick plug for the MDF MBA program because I got a chance to do that and I loved it. All the students who come in with a business background get a significant number of classes off the MBA taken off. And so I did that, I looked at it and it was a no-brainer, dollars and cents, said, "Hey, I can take just a few extra classes and come out of seminary with an MBA, as well." Knowing that I wanted to pastor, I thought that would be an invaluable piece of education so did three years doing divinity school during the day and business school at night, and it was a good, hard three years. And I think the Lord has used that in a number of ways. Doug Sweeney: We'd love to hear from both of you about your ministry journeys and about whether there were many surprises along the way for you. Did you expect that you'd be doing what you're doing now even as you came to Beeson? Jacob Simmons: Yeah, that's interesting because I would say that where we are now is probably what had been expected, but the journey to get there was really unexpected. I graduated from Beeson in 2009, which was a terrible time to try to find a job. The economy had just hit. If there were other ministers, I was bottom of the food chain. And so I prayed through what serving looked like, and I went on the mission field for a year serving with London City Mission, an organization I had actually connected with here at Beeson. They'd put me in touch, and so I did one year in London, placed at a church plant in North London. My experience with churches had been these large mega-churches, for lack of a better word. And then there I was serving a Church of England church plant in the projects of North London with 15 people in a room half this size and was, "Oh, that. The church can look like that, as well." Jacob Simmons: For the first time I really experienced that this is what it looks like for the church to be a light in a dark place and I loved it. I really took to it well, and so coming back to Birmingham for about a year and a half before I moved to Chicago to be a part of some church planting efforts there, and ended up not planting a church, but was on staff at a church in Chicago, which was a more mid-sized church in urban Chicago. But again, seeing how the church can be a light in a dark place, like a big city like that, was not something that was on my radar when I was at Beeson, but an experience that has absolutely impacted me to where truly formative experiences of doing that kind of work. Suzanne Simmons: Yeah. It's funny to think what I thought vocational ministry looked like when I was at Beeson. I probably had a couple things, couple of images of that as far as being a woman, and I probably thought I could do student ministry or children's ministry or something else that I didn't know. I think in my mind vocational ministry was a giant question mark. I didn't really know. I just felt the Lord moving me towards that and towards a pastoral calling and towards theological education. And that was an interesting conversation to have with my parents to say, "Yeah, I feel called to do this. I have no idea what it's going to look like on the other side." Thankfully, I did have a few female mentors and ministers in my community that I could look to, but even those were few, so I don't know. Suzanne Simmons: It was a pretty big question mark when I was here. And then what it's looked like since then? It's looked like a little bit of everything. I did college ministry at a local church here in Birmingham for a couple years before getting married, and then up in Chicago I worked at the church but not in a ministerial position and that was really challenging but really served to further confirm my call to pastoral ministry and pastoral care. Suzanne Simmons: And then when we landed back here in Birmingham, clinical pastoral education came on my radar. And again, I had heard about it and had a couple friends who had gone through that, and then decided to pursue that here at UAB and it was like a fish to water. Things just started making sense and a lot of the things that had been shaped in me through my different experiences, especially at Beeson, came together in that place as a ministry context. Suzanne Simmons: So, yeah, it's been very surprising. Definitely was not planning on being a hospital chaplain when I was here at Beeson, so, thankfully, the Lord has, as he does, organized and ordained those steps and, yeah, brought it together. Kristen Padilla: Jacob, talk to us now about your ministry at Shades. What does your role there look like? I know we said that you're the minister to singles and pastoral care. What does that ministry look like and how is it maybe different from the ministries that you've already mentioned that you were involved with both in London and Chicago? Jacob Simmons: Yeah. The single adults... We have a growing, exciting single adult ministry. It's, basically, all the adults 22 and up out of college that are unmarried. We have programming... Programming, I say programming. Actually Sunday school, small groups, discipleship groups, service opportunities. Jacob Simmons: Suzanne is our best Sunday school teacher, and I say that both biased and unbiased. She is the very best, but a young professionals class of 22 to 26 year olds that come and are bright-eyed. I say it's different doing college ministry. It's similar in a lot of ways, but then with none of the arrogance because life is going to beat them up a couple of times, which is fun, so they're ready to listen and they're there and great people. A lot of the trends of 22 to 26 year olds is they're not going to church but these are the people who are and it's a real treat to minister to them. Jacob Simmons: And another young professionals class, 27 to 35-ish, and then a new Sunday school class for 40 to 60 year olds, and then older classes, divorce care. We have service projects, small groups, all the things that a church would offer, and then some things that the rest of the church would do that they can be a part of serving together. Jacob Simmons: The pastoral care piece is honestly a piece that I got shortly after Suzanne started working at the hospital and seeing how her experiences of being a chaplain have informed me as a minister just in our conversations and talking about it. So that's our benevolence ministry, our encouragement ministries, some other partnerships of how we can visit people in the hospital, visit people who need help, connect with those, serve people who just need a little extra love at that season in their life, and so I oversee some of that stuff and it's been good. Kristen Padilla: Can I ask a followup question? Jacob Simmons: Yeah, of course. Kristen Padilla: Sometimes we hear from single Christians who are singles that they often feel maybe ignored in churches or overlooked. For those of us listening who are not single, how could we better minister to singles in our churches? Jacob Simmons: That's a great question. Suzanne Simmons: Great question. Jacob Simmons: One of the things that I tell our singles is that the church will not feel like they're doing less than, but if they, say, have a thriving children's ministry, which our church does, there's going to be a spotlight there. And just because there's a spotlight there, doesn't mean there's less light anywhere else, but it does feel like it a little bit. And so we have to work a little extra hard with our language, with how we validate that God uses marriage. God uses singleness both to edify us, to make us Holy. Jacob Simmons: So really being aware, asking single adults, "What are your needs?" What are the things that you can... How can you love these people? I would truly like to work myself out of a job to where there's more interconnectedness between young singles and young marrieds. They're going through a lot of the same things, which is finding yourself, finding your calling, going through those questions, so, ideally, there would be more intersection between singles and marrieds, but with the way our church is structured, we do get to minister to those singles. And then sometimes we do just get to talk about the things that they need to talk about in specific ways, which is always a gift. Jacob Simmons: To answer your question specifically, finding single adults and having them in your home, making them a part of your family. You can't have all 50 over in your home, but find one or two and let them know that you love them and continue to have them in your home because many of them are away from home. They'd love to be around a table and they love just seeing kids or having a home-cooked meal for more than one or more than them and a roommate. That's low-level stuff, but it really, really goes a long way. Would you agree, Suzanne? Suzanne Simmons: Oh yeah. I think recognizing them as full functioning, thriving, flourishing adults even when they're not married. I think some of our younger singles confess they feel like they won't be recognized as an adult until they're married with a kid, especially in the church, and that's just really unfortunate. The non-married adults have spiritual gifts just as much. I think, yeah, just language awareness and hospitality go a long way. Jacob Simmons: And this is a very practical one. Don't try to set people up unless you ask them first. Don't just assume everybody's out there looking to get... Like, "I'd love to meet somebody." Get to know them first. I try to make "Hey, who are you dating?" the last thing I ask about. Ask about family, job and all that stuff. They will want to talk about dating, but you're going to have to let them bring it to you before you just put it on them. So that's a very low-hanging fruit, easy for everybody to do. Doug Sweeney: Suzanne, we would love for our listeners to learn a little bit from you about what chaplaincy in a hospital is like. Some of them know that we're working even now at Beeson to strengthen our curricular offerings in chaplaincy ministry, and as we do so and we look to invite more people into this kind of work, we need to know more about it. What's it like? What opportunities does it afford for gospel witness and do you like it? Suzanne Simmons: I'm so excited. Yes. I have really found a special niche of ministry in hospital chaplaincy that I didn't really know about, didn't know existed. Fortunately, haven't spent a whole lot of personal time in hospitals and so didn't have a whole lot of need for a hospital chaplain in my life. However, it has been an incredibly enriching and challenging and humbling experience. Suzanne Simmons: So hospital chaplains... I've only worked at that UAB so I can speak about pastoral care in that specific context, and the hospital chaplains are interdisciplinary teammates with every other kind of medical professional there. And we are charged with the responsibility to just offer emotional and spiritual support to patients, families and staff. I would say that's the very truncated summary of what we do. Suzanne Simmons: That looks different every single day and it looks different in every single room. So that means a lot of what I do, if just thinking about tasks, I guess a lot of what I do is sitting and listening with patients. We're brought in to a lot of crisis moments, as you can imagine, so if there's been a diagnosis or a death or if there is a death impending, those are definitely occasions in which the chaplain would be brought in. A lot of times nurses and medical staff may just need assistance with a patient, saying they maybe are in a particular emotional state that is needing a lot of attention and a lot of processing, a lot of conversation and that we have time. Time is our currency. Suzanne Simmons: That is the gift of this job is really being able to offer a ministry of presence with people, and to some, it might be maddening because there is no quantifiable way to measure it, what you're doing. Is it happy? Is it good? Is it successful? I may not see this person again, but what that's required of me is lots of things that I have learned and am learning, but one is this deep dependence and trust on the Holy Spirit. It takes the responsibility off of me in a lot of ways that's helpful. I am not there to produce anything. I'm not there to extract anything. I'm there to be present, and the better I can be present with a person, that's how I can do a good job. And so I feel like what chaplaincy does is it's an extension of Christ's ministry. It's a very specific ministry, but it is caring for the sick and caring for the vulnerable and bearing witness to someone's suffering in a way that I think Christ did in His ministry while He was here on earth. Suzanne Simmons: So that's some of what it looks like. I am very excited about it so I can talk about it for a long time, but that is the basics that looks like sometimes talking about Jesus and praying. Sometimes that looks like talking with somebody about their grandchildren or talking with somebody about their lifelong career in the military. It looks like grieving with somebody. It's like laughing with somebody. It's just being present, fully present, with people in their challenging moments. Kristen Padilla: For many, one spouse might be called to vocational ministry, but both of you are called and engaged in pastoral ministry. And Jacob, you've already mentioned about how Suzanne's ministry has impacted the way you do pastoral care in the church. So I'm just curious, what does it look like to minister alongside one another even if you're in different spaces at times, but what does that look like and how has each of your ministries strengthened the other's? Jacob Simmons: This is a really hard part of our story. I felt called to ministry at age 14 and knew that's where the Lord was taking me, and as a single man, you just have your family and your friends that you process with. But I could move to London or move to Chicago on my own, not knowing a soul, and it looks very different with a wife and that's okay. Jacob Simmons: I was in Chicago when Suzanne was doing college ministry here in Birmingham. She was going to be the one that got away if I didn't do something about it. So I called her up and took her on a date and said, "I think we should date to see if we should get married." And somehow she said yes to that, which was really great. Jacob Simmons: But when we decided to get married, we had a choice to make. Am I going to stay in Chicago and she move up, or am I going to move down to Birmingham? And realizing that you both have these calls and they're deeply personal and you feel called my God and you've gone to school and you've got a job that... Suzanne said she had a dream job, right? Yeah, I'd felt called to move and loved this ministry up in Chicago, and we both had to get to a point where we could open our hands, not let go of our calling, but open our hands to what it might be and experience that together, which in the throes of planning a wedding and in the throes of all the logistics was really, really hard. A lot of tears shed, truly, of going through this together because one person may hear directly from God and the other is "He hasn't told me that, you know? And I need him to tell me that as well." Jacob Simmons: And so it was a long process, but one that we decided to go through together and it really brought trust in one another. We had a call as a single man and the call as a single woman and now we're called together, and we still daily talk about what that looks like and what that might look for ministry in the future. But it's challenging. It really is. What would you say, Suzanne? Suzanne Simmons: It's an ongoing conversation. I think it's been one of the greatest privileges and joys of my life to be able to share a ministry calling with a partner, both for him to understand what it's like for me to feel shaped and led for something specific, but also to be able to be a part of it with him, to have somebody that I can process this life with, this strange and rewarding and challenging ministry life. It is such a gift to have in a partner and it's a grace. I'm so thankful for it. Suzanne Simmons: But with that does come some really hard conversations because we're stubborn, too. We have our opinions and we feel strongly about things, so neither one of us are really going to just say, "Go with the flow," and whatever. We have heard from God in the past and we hear from God now and so we do that together and that looks like a lot of exchanging ideas with each other and listening and even just ongoing praying for discernment that the Lord would lead us to things together. And He does. He has every time. I mean it. Suzanne Simmons: I think about, even just in the short time we've been married, we have been able to see it that God leads us together. He does not call one without calling the other to what is next, and I am so incredibly grateful for that, that I don't feel like God prioritizes one of our callings over the other. He says, "No, we are better together so I'm going to work this out where you can be together and be on the same page." Yeah, I think that's been one of the greatest blessings, too, is really being able to see God work. Maybe it's in different times, but He calls us to things together. So. Jacob Simmons: Part of that has required us to increase our trust in one another and increase our trust in God who will lead us. And, thankfully, now we have enough experience to know, "Oh, okay, we've been here before. God has called and He will call." Jacob Simmons: Suzanne and I, this is going back a little bit, but we dated for the first time when I was in my first year of seminary, but we broke up. Heartbreaking. I have a lot of professors I should apologize to for the bad papers I wrote because of the heartbreak I had experienced. Suzanne Simmons: Oh, my word. Oh, my word. Jacob Simmons: No, no, no, no. Suzanne Simmons: Boy, you're going to put that off on me? How are you going to put that off on me? Jacob Simmons: I would like to go ahead and apologize. But truly, we had always connected in this kind of spiritual level. I had admired her so much and then we both had felt we were working through this call to ministry, and it's the thing that brought us back together and it's the joy that we have even now today. We had to mature a little bit from that time of meeting before we got married. That was nine years later almost. Thank God it happened and then now we get to serve together and it's a treat. Jacob Simmons: In terms of how it informs, I'm a better minister because Suzanne is a great minister and chaplain. I'm a better listener. I'm a better observer. I don't feel like I have to go into a hospital and do too much. Jacob Simmons: I do think that we've also figured out the different roles between a minister and a chaplain. And then if I go to visit a member of our church who's sick and I do need to be praying. I do need to be asking them questions. Reading the Bible. Suzanne does not have that responsibility. She has to listen to the Holy Spirit and see if that's appropriate or anything that we should do, so it's one of those things where a chaplain is not an evangelistic job to go in there. It's a listening job and finding where the Spirit allows you to go. Whereas, I have a different role as a minister to go and pray and care in a different way. They look similar in many ways, but they are pretty distinct, which is something I would not have known until Suzanne became a chaplain. Doug Sweeney: Jacob and Suzanne, some of the people listening to us know that we featured you this year in our new video marketing campaign that we called Who You Become. What kind of experience was that for you? And more importantly, how has God used Beeson Divinity School to help you become who you've become and who you're becoming? Jacob Simmons: It was a great experience. I did figure out that I'm arm candy to this operation. Suzanne Simmons: Jacob's my trophy husband. Jacob Simmons: Exactly. Suzanne is the one that I know you wanted to feature, and I got dragged along, and I am delighted to be here on her arm. Suzanne Simmons: You must have such a cute face. Jacob Simmons: That's it. I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to do it. It was a great experience. We love Beeson. Suzanne Simmons: We love Beeson. Jacob Simmons: We talk about it all the time. And to be able to have that experience... Though we were not married when we were in school together, we did have very similar experiences that shaped us, and, truly, just to have that shortcut in conversation of, "You remember like?" And fill in the blank and you say, "Oh yes, yes, yes." It has been really, really helpful. Suzanne Simmons: Yeah, it was a great experience. Kristen, thank you for including us in that. We are just such fans of this place, and I think we are so, so loyal to Beeson because of what we experienced God do here. In my life. I can't speak exactly for Jacob, but I learned to love God's word in an entirely new way, different way, more fully-developed way. And I became more certain of my call to ministry here. Suzanne Simmons: I love, love, love the interdenominational piece about Beeson. I feel like I have such a deep appreciation for the various Christian traditions and how those have evolved and developed. And I have a deep respect for my fellow colleagues and ministers and friends that belong to these different denominations, and Beeson just does such a great job of integrating that. Suzanne Simmons: Truly, the community that I formed, the friendships that I formed at Beeson, continue to be some of the people that I lean on in ministry, that I call on and process things with. That network has just been invaluable. Suzanne Simmons: Those are just a few of the things right off the bat that I can't say enough about them. It's just the Lord was so kind to give me those things at a season in my life that I didn't even know I needed, didn't know I would need, but He gave me this sacred time to just be focused on studying and put a community around me to do that within it. It made such a huge difference in my formation as a Christian and a minister. No question. Jacob Simmons: You come in with this eager heart but without a whole lot of skills, and you leave with a confidence that, "Hey, I can open God's word and the Lord will speak to me, and He will use that to speak to his people and encourage his people." Every time I preach, I use the same outline that we learned in our preaching class. Then it jumps off from there. Things that I didn't know, I remember from my time in class or time in mentoring groups or time in chapel, and the right moment just pops up and like, "Oh yeah, that was in there." That was part of my experience that now I utilize in ministry context. It absolutely shaped, give you confidence, give you the critical skills and the empathetic skills. Jacob Simmons: My denomination, currently, it seems to appear to lack some charity that we learned here in these halls and how to care for other people and respect other people regardless of the kind of second and third tier differences that really shaped us and guides a lot of our conversations when we talk about the church as a whole. Kristen Padilla: As we get ready to end, we would love to hear about ways that God is at work in your life right now, maybe something that he has been teaching you through scripture. Anything that would encourage our listeners in their walks of life? Jacob Simmons: God speaks to me through Suzanne, so I'm going to let her go first. Suzanne Simmons: [crosstalk] You can't take that. You can't take that away. Part of the rest of my story is that we have two little kids right now and I work very part-time at the hospital. And I think one of the things that the Lord over the last two to three years has really been working on me and offering me is His freedom for my ministry calling to look different in different seasons of my life. It sounds like such a lovely lesson to learn, but it has come very challenging. Suzanne Simmons: I think motherhood is such a gift and I'm so, so, so grateful that I am a mom and that I get to raise these children with Jacob, and it has already taught me more than I could have ever imagined and we're only a few years in. But yet it has required the surrender of something else for the time, but the Lord in His kindness has also allowed me to maintain this ministry with chaplaincy. And so I've just had to daily, monthly sometimes, seasonally, whatever, accept this is what it looks like right now to be called to ministry. Suzanne Simmons: It means raising kids and it also means a ministry outside the home. And both of those things can exist. And the Lord has not forgotten and the Lord has not removed the call to ministry just because I am a mom. It's informing, it's enhancing my ministry outside the home and vice versa. Suzanne Simmons: I would encourage listeners if they feel like maybe they're in a phase where they can't really pursue a call to ministry or the ministry they're doing isn't paying them or giving them insurance. If the Lord has called you to ministry, He is going to allow you to care for people and minister to people. It just is going to look different in different seasons. There's lots more to that but that's the recent journey, I guess, that the Lord has me on. Yeah. Jacob Simmons: Yeah. I think in a similar way for us, waiting on the Lord and for His leading and for His calling, parenthood is stretching our patience and we're practicing every day on how to be patient. And that means patience with our kids and patience with one another, but also waiting on the Lord in a holy way. He has showered us with blessings and He's led every step of the way, and we have a real temptation, I know I do, to get ahead of Him, to get the plan, to figure out what's next and then we may be praying for that. We have to wait on him because we don't want to go somewhere that He's not called us to, so we have to do that. We've been married six and a half years now and we've gotten some practice in that, but we'll definitely need more and continue to do that. Jacob Simmons: I also would be remiss if I didn't say in the previous question about Suzanne and how she shaped me as a minister. There are things that, for our single adults, single women in particular, Suzanne and I could get up and say the exact same thing, truly the exact same thing and the young women in the room will hear it from Suzanne in way that they would never hear it from me. And so for our ministry, especially to singles, utilizing Suzanne and the female presence and the female voice and somebody that they can connect to in a unique way when they might not to their pastor, but they would to their Sunday school teacher or to their friend. I have to remember to use that and lean on that as a vital piece of my ministry to our people. Doug Sweeney: You have been listening to a wonderful ministry couple, Jacob and Suzanne Simmons, both of whom are graduates of Beeson Divinity School we are very proud to say. Jacob is minister to single adults and is responsible for pastoral care at Shades Mountain Baptist Church here in Birmingham. Suzanne is a chaplain at UAB Hospital here in Birmingham. They have two children. They are a beautiful family and they are beautiful witnesses to our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in. Goodbye for now. Kristen Padilla: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pascarello. Our cohosts are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at beesondivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.