Beeson Podcast, Episode #717 Dr. David Parks Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of ֽ. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. >>Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney. I’m joined today by my friend, Dr David Parks, who teaches missions here at Beeson and directs our Global Center. So, Dr. Parks, thank you very much for being with us. >>Parks: It’s great to be here. >>Sweeney: So, we want to focus today on the ministries of the Global Center and let folks know what’s going on at the Global Center these days. And how the Lord is at work in and through your shop here at Beeson. But before we get into that, how about if we just re-introduce you just a little bit to our listeners who have heard you talk to them before? Maybe by asking you how did you first sense that the Lord was moving you into cross-cultural ministry? Did you grow up with that sense in a church surrounded by missionaries? How did that happen in your life? >>Parks: My church did teach missions but I had from a young age no idea whatsoever that would be the case. I remember my best friend growing up said something about wanting to be a missionary and I knew the right church answer but deep down I was thinking, “That’s crazy! Why would you want to do something like that?” I’m from a blue collar side of Birmingham. Grew up in the ‘80s. There’s really no one around me except for people who were Christians or said they were Christians. But I just happened to be in the sport of tennis and so when I entered college tennis all of a sudden I’m around people from all over the world. And I’m beginning to see Christianity through their eyes, especially cultural Christianity. And all of a sudden for the first time in my life I started to think about ... okay, so I say that I believe there’s this man who said he was God. And that everyone should follow him and we should all tell everyone all over the world. Okay, maybe that’s weird. And so it really opened my up to be thinking about the rest of the world. It was my experience with international tennis players that then dovetailed with teaching at my home church about missions, especially when I got to ֽ for undergrad for my last two years. I’d gone to junior college first. It just seemed like I met one globally-minded Christian after another. And at some point I just knew, I didn’t know when or where but I knew at some point God was going to call me into missions. >>Sweeney: Wow. That’s wonderful. Real quick – how did you get from there as a 19 year old kid at ֽ to becoming a missionary yourself? How did the Lord kind of mature you and kind of steer you toward, say, Malaysia, which is where I know you spent some years as a missionary? >>Parks: I started off with a heart for youth ministry. The common theme here is a desire and a conviction/burden to do those things that seem to be really important. But not many people wanted to do them. And so I always had a burden for youth and I knew at some point God would call me into missions. So, throughout my time at ֽ I was preparing for youth ministry while I was at Beeson. There were times I was teaching tennis part time, or as a coach. I was a part time coach for ֽ’s team. I was assistant coach one year at Jefferson State. But at other times I was already in youth ministry. So, I began to think through that idea of missions and wondering about the young people around the world. I had a burden to kind of know – is anyone on the other side? When people come back from mission trips and they’re telling you all these great things that happen, eventually you would find out it’s the young people becoming Christians quite often. And I started wondering, “Is there anything there for them when they Americans leave?” So, I started researching when I went and did a PhD in Missions, which is another long story – we don’t have that much time here. Then I started thinking and researching this issue. Is youth ministry training relevant at all, or is it just more of an American method? And I became convinced that it was and the church around the world is certainly asking for that kind of help. So, when I went to Southern for my PhD I met some people from a group called Youth Ministry International who did this thing of training leaders globally. That kind of dovetailed with the mission organization that I went with. >>Sweeney: Wonderful. All right. Let’s tell people all about Beeson Divinity School’s Global Center. How long have we had a Global Center? When did you take over the Global Center? What is the Global Center? >>Parks: Good question. People will often ask me what is the Global Center with that quizzical look on their face ... with a little bit of shame because they’ve been on this campus for a while. (laughs) So, in 1995 it opened up. Bill O’Brien who was my professor – he opened up the first Global Center. I was a student here during that time. He’s the one who told me you need to get a PhD in missions. I told him, “What’s your next suggestion?” Because I was done with school ... and he kept harping on that. So, we’ve always had a Global Center. The Global Center’s mission is to encourage, equip, and connect the campus of ֽ and the Church for cross-cultural and global mission. We do that through a variety of means. On one hand we are a space, the mission has been pretty strong. I would say I feel like it’s been good in the last 10-12 years I’ve been able to observe it – I wasn’t here before that. The missions there, the events were important. But the space before we had the renovation was underutilized. And they didn’t have a clear purpose for the space because what Bill O’Brien had put in to work was great for its time. But the technology got old. The static facts on the wall and the old globe – that all got old. It was a little bit dated. So, the space itself now has a purpose of helping us to be able to walk people through a timeline of salvation for all tongues, tribes, and nations. We start with the inspiration of Martha Myers who is just this outstanding missionary who became a martyr. She is a ֽ graduate. Which is one of the reasons we chose her. But her witness and her story is so compelling that it leads someone to ask, “Why would she do this? Why would she take a risk knowing that she could be martyred?” So then we invite people to know the story of scripture, the history of missions, and then the invitation to step into the story. So, we do tours now and I haven’t really heavily advertised it yet. We still have people coming in, churches are coming in and I’m learning what is helpful, what is not – and so if you’re hearing this I love having mission groups or church groups to come in and we can walk through the narrative scripture to see how it is one long unfolding story of God’s salvation for all tongues, tribes, and nations. How do you at least begin to get a grasp on how the gospel has gone forward throughout history to different tongues, tribes, and nations and where are we today? And what are the main priorities for today? I love walking people through that. We’ve had some church groups do that. There will be a group from Church of the Highlands who are going to be here in a few weeks. So, there are several things we have going on with that. I’m really interested in growing that ministry. So, if you’re hearing this and your church ... or maybe have some students, or maybe there are some students who are going to be doing some preparation for a short term mission work – I think the Center itself has become a source of a new ministry for us in this past year. >>Sweeney: You’ve got pretty much the most popular part of Divinity Hall and you get the most traffic over there. It looks really impressive now that you have led in the renovating of the space. Of course, in that space you and Jonathan and the rest, you put on some pretty impressive events on a very regular basis all year around. So, we want church groups to come to those. We want students and everybody else to attend these events, too. Give us a feel for the kinds of stuff that you all do in the global center that others might benefit from. >>Parks: Okay, so in the fall we have Go Global which is a missions emphasis week with mission agencies. It’s more of a mobilization event. In the spring we have world Christianity focus week which is a time where we kind of step back and we ask what’s going on in the world with Christians? What can we learn from them? And how do we see ourselves as part of the global missions? What is the role of the Church in North America – is always a big question there. Global Voices is the event that’s the most easily accessible throughout the semester. We have about five of them each semester. One of the things that I will often say to people who haven’t come before is that it is a free lunch. It really is! Everyone really is invited to come. You do need to sign up ahead of time for that seat. We typically do have a good number. But the idea here is the tagline is “Stories from the nations.” So, we want our students in the ֽ community, church community to be exposed to what God is doing in the world through the lens of sometimes a local student. We had one who grew up as an MK and has had quite a few missions experiences herself since being a college student that she shared a few weeks ago and it was just really phenomenal. Sometimes we’ll have missionaries who come to tell us what’s going on in their country. How to think critically, it’s not just inspiration there’s also emphasis on the information of how to be wise in how we partner in missions. But we have a few coming up this semester I’m pretty excited about. Very soon we’re going to have Dr. Byron Spradlin. He is going to be talking about missions and the arts. He’s an arts professor. A lot of experience in missions in training people how to use the arts, not just for mission in general but cross-cultural mission specifically. >>Sweeney: I bet not a lot of people have thought about that before. >>Parks: Yeah, so he’s been working with [LA-ZON 00:11:20] Congress for a long time on this. So, this is not someone who just has some ideas locally. He’s really bringing a wealth of experience for that. We have another one that’s going to be one of the more unique ones. We have three pastors who are going to be coming and sharing about their experience of being on mission together globally, training pastors as friends, so many of you listening will have heard of Buddy Gray, Pastor of Hunter Street, John Tweet, Pastor of First Baptist Pell City, and Ryan Whitley who is around here quite a lot, Pastor of CrossPoint in Trussville. They have gone to multiple places together to train pastors. What I’ve enjoyed watching over the years is the fellowship they obviously have developed together in part because of that and I think this is going to be a unique idea for people to hear what this might look like if they went with their friends to go and train. And it’s also going to be pretty entertaining because they’ve already started messing with each other in email and I’m looking forward to that. >>Sweeney: They’re good friends. They’re faithful and wonderful pastors. All three of these guys, especially when they’re together but even when they’re not are just a lot of fun. >>Parks: Yeah. Definitely. So, the first time I came across the fact that they were working it was before I got to Beeson. The seminary in Malaysia, we were connecting with another closed country and they told me ... I was in Malaysia for a short term trip and they said, “When you get back you should meet with Ryan Whitley, we’re working with him to possibly go to a place [where I’ve already been].” And so he and Buddy Gray, the first time I met Buddy Gray, they peppered me with questions about what it’s going to be like. I think that’s going to be a really fun one. >>Sweeney: All right. So, we encourage students, faculty, and staff to attend these things. A bunch of people listening to us right now are not students, faculty, and staff but are friends of the school, want to be encouraged about what’s going on in the Global Center. Are they allowed to come and how do they find out about how and when to come? >>Parks: You’re not allowed to come – we WANT you to come. So, you’re invited. A welcomed guest. I say this often because even in things like coming into the space and having coffee. Undergrad students will ask, “is it okay?” I’m like, “No, it’s not okay, you’re invited, you’re a welcome guest.” The easiest way honestly is just to type in Google: ֽ Beeson Divinity School Global Center Events. And it will pop right up. That I think is the easiest way. If you’re on campus you’ll see the QR codes, that would be faster of course. >>Sweeney: We can put this information in the program notes, too, when we air the podcast episode. And encourage our listeners to contact me personally for sure and I’m sure you would be fine if they contacted you. >>Parks: Yes, of course. >>Sweeney: If they have questions about how to get involved. >>Parks: Of course. >>Sweeney: I happen to know a bunch of our listeners enjoy praying for and are faithful about praying for Beeson Divinity School, its students, and its ministries. So, last question for you, Dr. Parks – how can they be praying for the ministries of the Global Center at Beeson? >>Parks: I’ll ask for a specific one. We have a new ministry this year. We’ve started a cadre – cadres are designed to be bible studies where undergrad students can get their convocation credits. All undergrad students have to get a certain amount of convocation credits. The cadre is an eight week bible study they can choose to go to get those credits. And we used to do lunch club as a way to build relationships cross-culturally. But we’ve shifted here to doing a cadre which has been great so far. We don’t have a lot of students, but from day one we get spiritual conversations, we’re teaching the bible to people from other places in the world, and one of the craziest things happened recently – I’ve mentioned my tennis background – I’ve got a couple of tennis players in there. And so it’s really hard to get to the bible study because we just want to talk about tennis. But one of them is actually from Malaysia! >>Sweeney: Is that right!? >>Parks: Yeah. We were there at the same time, born in the same hospital as three of my kids. So, just pray that we’re able to encourage these students and that that ministry would grow and that we would just have an encouragement in that world on campus. >>Sweeney: All right, listeners, this has been Dr. David Parks. He is the Director of Beeson’s Global Center. He teaches missions. He would like you to pray for this new cadre of his. So, please do. Please continue to pray for the faculty and staff, the ministries at Beeson Divinity School. We’re praying for you. We love you. And we say goodbye for now. >>Mark Gignilliat: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of ֽ. 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.