Beeson Podcast, Episode #571 Scott Dunaway Oct. 19, 2021 >>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’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Today we continue our three week series on the experiences of those involved this summer in Beeson’s cross cultural ministry practicum, or CCMP. Before Kristen gets us started, let me invite you to attend our annual reformation heritage lectures at the end of this month. October 26-28, with Dr. Michael McClymond, professor of modern Christianity at St. Louis University. The theme of this year’s lecture is “Seeing Christ’s Cross Through a Reformation Lens.” All lectures will take place at 11:00 in Hodges Chapel. No reservations are needed. Just come and be a part of this. Find out more at www.BeesonDivinity.com/lectures. Kristen, would you please introduce today’s guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes. Hello, everyone. We are so glad to have another student with us on the show today. We have with us as our guest, Scott Dunaway. He is in his last semester of the Master of Divinity program. He is married to Stephanie and they attend Valleydale Church here in Birmingham. He’s also a native of Mississippi. So, I’m sure you’re going to tell us more about your background in just a minute. But welcome, Scott, to the Beeson Podcast. >>Scott Dunaway: Thank you all so much for having me. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, as I said, we always like to begin by just learning more about our guest, hearing a little bit of your story. So, could you introduce yourself? More about where you’re from in Mississippi and what the Lord has been doing in your life up to bringing you to Beeson? >>Scott Dunaway: Yes. So, I’m from the coast of Mississippi. My wife and I both grew up in Ocean Springs. I grew up in a family of two older brothers and a little sister. Growing up in that context, went to Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. After I graduated there with a Christian Studies degree Stephanie and I got married and then moved to Birmingham. So, we’ve been married and have lived in Birmingham for a little over three years now. >>Doug Sweeney: Scott, tell us a little bit about how you got to Beeson Divinity School and what you’ve liked best about being here. We’re going to get into the details of your summer experience in just a minute, but help our listeners get ready for that by learning just a little bit more from a student’s perspective about what life is like at Beeson. >>Scott Dunaway: In my final year at Mississippi College I was really starting to determine which seminary I wanted to go to. I was already determined that I wanted to go to seminary to be a sharper tool for God’s ministry. Growing up on the coast in Mississippi, I was in proximity to New Orleans where a lot of the pastors I was taught under went. But there were certain alumni from Beeson in the Clinton area, and professors at Mississippi College, that asked me to look into Beeson. After visiting the campus and getting to know the faculty and staff and seeing what happened in the classroom on Preview Days I just felt led to come here to Beeson. Being a student here at Beeson has been an amazing experience. Not just structured on the scriptural knowledge, but also interested in our own spiritual formation. One of my favorite experiences here at Beeson has been the mentor groups. A group of students meeting with professors in a very casual context of bringing up different topics each week, discussing very practical issues, and just concerning ourselves of the requests that we have each week. >>Kristen Padilla: You spent two weeks this summer in Alaska for your cross cultural ministry practicum. I know you went with a group of Beeson students. Before you ever got to Alaska, why did you choose this particular location as your cross cultural ministry practicum choice? And what were you expecting before you ever got there? >>Scott Dunaway: Choosing my CCMP location there were a variety of good choices here in the states. Honestly, talking to my wife who was able to accompany me in Anchorage – both of our fathers have had time in Alaska. And just knowing their experience in the state we just wanted to partake in that experience in a slightly different way and see what it was like for them in Alaska, again, seeing it in our own way. >>Doug Sweeney: So, tell us what you did there, Scott? Where did you go? With whom did you work? Who was your mentor, your supervisor there? What kind of ministry did that person have you doing? >>Scott Dunaway: Stephanie and I, and a handful of other Beeson students, were all in Anchorage at the same time. All in the same house of the Goodwin family. A husband and wife with two sons invited us into their home to stay with them. The entire two weeks Stephanie and I stayed in a guest room, while other Beeson students stayed in the rooms of their sons. They were extremely hospitable guests. So much so that they had their two sons sleep in their room for the duration of the two weeks so that we could have our own rooms and rest while we served in Anchorage. So, very kind people. And I think we actually had the extra benefit of being able to stay in that house, in the residence, of our mentors – the Goodwin family. Because we weren’t restricted to exposure with them just during the times we met during the week, but during breakfast and during dinners, during the late hours as we wound down before bed. We just were able to have very cordial conversations with them. The Goodwin family, they are natives of Oklahoma. They served a little bit of time in Muslim ministries in California and eventually made their way up to Anchorage. They haven’t been at Anchorage too long. So, over the duration we got a really fresh take on their experience moving to Anchorage, very fresh take on how they’ve learned a lot about the city. During the time that we were there for the two weeks they invited the leadership of their sending organization up that first week to pour into us, the Beeson students. We got to partake in part of their leadership training. They called it Activated, but essentially the goal of their training is to show how God uses personal life experiences into the ministry to serve others. Five straight days, or four straight days, of partaking in that training program ... it was definitely counter what I expected. I expected to do more of the working, but they spent the time to pour into us during that time. While we weren’t in the classroom doing the training we partook in a lot of prayer walks. We would spend time dedicated in prayer, walking around downtown Anchorage, walking around various parks in the area and praying for the families there. Praying in preparation of our time there but also just in the future time that the Goodwin family would be spending there. So, the second week we spent more time on the ground. We spent a week at the parks where children would come and play. We partnered with an organization called Grace Works. Grace Works, the organization that stays during the summer and hosts short term missionaries week by week just to put on different park games and park bible studies for the kids that would come. And so that week Beeson students filled the spot of a short term mission team and were able to play with kids that came from a nearby trailer park and we would teach bible studies every afternoon. That’s what we did for that week before we left. During the whole time we were able just to talk frequently with the staff of Novo, the Goodwin’s sending organization, and the Goodwin family themselves. >>Kristen Padilla: Scott, what did the Lord teach you about ministry during your CCMP? Secondly, how did you see the CCMP converge with your own call to ministry? >>Scott Dunaway: What I learned specifically from the Anchorage CCMP is the importance of personal conversation in evangelism and church planting. The main course of action that the Goodwin family takes for their mission in Anchorage is hosting home bible studies and speaking to families individually at community parks. That’s where the majority of their time is spent. And being able to witness them in their conversations, and them inviting us into those conversations with them, it reminded me of the simplicity of just getting to know people for the sake of the gospel. Getting to know people and open up to them so that they may open up their lives and allow an opportunity for us to speak the gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives. So that they might take it and proclaim it and believe it themselves. And specifically the Anchorage CCMP aligned with what Stephanie and I plan to do next is it gave us exposure into the northwest context. Stephanie and I, coming up this January, will be serving at what is now an established church but started as a North American Board church plant. We’ll be serving with the church planter there at that church, hoping that he will further plant a church on Vancouver Island. Stephanie and I will be moving up to Victoria, Canada this upcoming January. Our time at Anchorage has given us exposure to the northwest climate, the northwest culture, and just some of the work that we’ll be doing in helping that church planter bring the gospel to that community. >>Doug Sweeney: That sounds wonderful, Scott. It occurs to me, we probably ought to help our listeners out a little bit by explaining what we seminary people mean when we talk about cross cultural ministry. In seminaries we use that term a lot. In missionary circles that term is used a lot. But I’m not sure everybody is familiar with that term. What is cross cultural ministry? What’s the experience of Beeson students like when they do these CCMP’s? These cross cultural ministry practica ... Did you get a feel while you were up in Anchorage for why we require this of students and what good it is? >>Scott Dunaway: There are so many cultures different than the ones we grew up in. I know a lot of Beeson students I got to meet at my time at Beeson had their cross cultures just to study at Beeson in Birmingham. But the CCMP especially gives you a strong contrast of proclaiming the gospel into another culture. So, thinking about cross cultural ministry is how do you spread the gospel and evangelism and build up disciples within a church, within a body of believers, in a particular context where they live daily life differently than you? You reminded me with the cross cultural context in Anchorage, even though it is the United States, it’s very much a western culture. Anchorage is a hub of a lot of refugees. Two of the school systems in Anchorage are definitely within the top five of most languages spoken in the school systems. So, even though Alaska itself is a different culture where we get to see the local expression of the Body of Christ practiced, it’s also cross cultural to where there’s a lot of people speaking languages, a lot of people who have come from cultures that are of unreached people groups. Unreached people groups, meaning that there is not a Christian foundation or the knowledge of the name “Jesus Christ” within their culture. >>Kristen Padilla: Scott, as you think about just your entire time at Beeson and the preparation you’ve received, you’re here at the end of it, and you did your CCMP near the end. What value has this experience added to your own theological education and your preparation for ministry? And secondly, how might you encourage someone who is thinking about seminary and is looking maybe toward Beeson? How might you encourage that person to really go to a place that will make this a requirement of their preparation for ministry? >>Scott Dunaway: Reflecting on my time at Beeson, I see that it has been a process. The fact that Beeson requires you to be in person, requires you to be a full time student on the campus, on the facility, definitely caters towards spiritual formation in your own personal life and just deeper engrains the knowledge that you’re learning in the classes into calluses on your hand to bring into the ministry ahead of you. That it’s not, I’m not taking away a sheet of paper or a certificate showing that I’ve read certain books or learned certain terminology, but I have been formed and I have been taught different perspectives, which make me hopefully a more robust minister. The fact that my spiritual knowledge is deeper and can be applied in more diverse situations that no seminary can prepare you for. But as people, as students look and consider whether or not to attend seminary or which seminary to attend is a very formational time for me and my walk with Christ and also in the calling that he has on my life to serve the Church and to serve the people of the Church. >>Doug Sweeney: Regular listeners of the podcast, Scott, know that we always like to conclude our interviews with guests by asking them what the Lord is teaching them these days. So, we want to ask you that question. Is there anything that God has been showing you or teaching you? Maybe something that’s even related to the ministry experiences you had over this summer that we could conclude with by way of encouraging the listeners of the podcast? >>Scott Dunaway: In preparing for this podcast I was reminded of a devotional that Tiffany Goodwin led us in at the beginning of our trip. She read aloud Ezekiel 36 and really pointed to Ezekiel’s prophesying of the mountains. That the mountain which are barren would be plowed and become fertile ground. In Anchorage that was a very vivid picture as you looked around and saw the mountains surrounding the city of Anchorage, like a bowl, knowing that the people of Anchorage are also to reap that good Word. But just as Ezekiel prophesied to the mountains to be fertile, to be fruitful, so is God sending out people to make fertile the harvest and to work in the harvest. >>Doug Sweeney: He is indeed. Listeners, you have been hearing Scott Dunaway, a current MDiv student at Beeson Divinity School, who is almost done. And this reminds me to ask you, please, to pray for Scott and for all of our students, especially for those who are almost done with their MDiv degrees and getting ready to head out into places like Western Canada to engage in gospel ministry. We need your prayers, Listeners. We thank you for tuning in. We love you. And we say to you, “Goodbye for now.” >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.