Becoming a Pastor Theologian | Heather Joy Zimmerman

In this episode of the Pastor Theologians Podcast, we invite Heather Joy Zimmerman, a member of CPT's St Irenaeus fellowship, to share how profound personal suffering shaped both her faith and her calling. Reflecting on the loss of a close friend, her father's battle with cancer, and her journey through lament, Heather explains how God used Scripture—especially Romans 8 and the Psalms—to deepen her understanding of God's goodness and inspire a lifelong passion for helping others faithfully navigate suffering. 

Heather also traces her path from Moody Bible Institute to Dallas Theological Seminary and Wheaton College, where her academic work on the Psalms of lament and preaching emerged from her own spiritual journey. She discusses her passion for theological education, forming faithful preachers, and bridging the gap between the academy and the local church. The conversation offers a compelling vision of the Pastor Theologian—one whose scholarship is rooted in personal faith, pastoral ministry, and a deep love for Christ and his people.

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Transcript

Heather Joy Zimmerman 2:35

I have never doubted God's existence. I've doubted God's goodness. But it's not just God, where are you in terms of like an existential question? But uh, you say this is who you are. I have not seen you. It's like a child saying, Well, Mom, Dad, where are you? Like, come, it's an invitation to come.

Zach Wagner 2:55

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the CPT Podcast. I'm Zach Wagner. I am joined as always by CPT President Joel Lawrence. Hello, Joel.

Joel Lawrence 3:05

Hello, Zach.

Zach Wagner 3:06

And we just finished up a conversation with CPT fellow Heather Joy Zimmerman. And you gotta buckle up for this title, for Heather's title. Uh, here we go. She serves as Assistant Professor of Advanced Pastoral and Ministerial Leadership Studies and the DMin program coordinator at the Moody Theological Seminary here in Chicago. And this was a lot of fun uh getting to know Heather in this context. We've been getting to know her. She's kind of been around the world at the CPT for a few years and like I mentioned, uh just became officially plugged in as a fellow in our new St Irenaeus Fellowship this past year. What stood out to you about this conversation with Heather?

Joel Lawrence 3:52

Well, I you know, I I think as people hear from Heather, her vibrant personality and just kind of her her very her her presence is just a a joyful presence. Um her her name appropriate Heather Joy. Uh that's very that's very fitting for her. Um but also to hear her story, how that joy is also rooted in the way that she lives that out is rooted in some some real tragedy in her life and lament in her life. And I think for me, the the thing that I appreciate so much about her is the way in which her personal journey of faith, uh, how that has really aligned with her academic studies, so that her her academic studies are not are not theoretical for her. They're they're deeply rooted in her journey of faith. And that that really comes across and I think does paint the real picture of the theological vision of the CPT, which is we want to be robust, theological, but but rooted in the reality of ministry life and and and suffering and the challenges that come with life. And so I think she just really models well for us in her just her very journey, the the vision of the CPT.

Zach Wagner 5:06

Yeah, and I think that intersection of the kind of personal story on the one hand and then the ministerial academic work scholarship on the other, to your point, I think she models that about as well as anybody. And it's very striking in this conversation and moving to hear her talk about what the Lord, the way the war the Lord was working in her life through these circumstances and how that shook out into um the passion for the uh scholarly work and teaching that she's doing now. Um yeah, I don't know if I have I have much to add other than that. We can get right into it. I know uh folks will be blessed and encouraged, and um we'll uh hand it over now, as it were, to our conversation with Heather Joy Zimmerman.

Joel Lawrence 5:59

Heather, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you with us.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 6:04

Thank you. It's such a it's always a privilege to have a conversation with you, gentlemen.

Joel Lawrence 6:08

Excellent. Very good. Well, we're we're excited to have you on, and Heather has joined the CPT officially as a fellow uh just in this last year, and we're really excited to have you in the St. Irenaeus Fellowship and uh wanted to get you on the podcast soon after you became a fellow to have this conversation. This is one of our 'Becoming a Pastor Theologian' podcasts where we just get to know the fellows of the CPT. So um, Heather, we want to just start at the at the beginning and and hear about your life, hear about your early life. So tell us where were you born, where did you grow up? Tell us kind of about your your journey of faith in your earlier years.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 6:48

Yeah, well, the random fact many people don't know. I was actually technically a Michigander by birth.

Joel Lawrence 6:53

Oh, really? I didn't know that.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 6:55

Yeah, my parents met at the University of Michigan. Um, my uncle played for them, so JJ McCarthy, there's a lot of um familial interest in the Minnesota Vikings because of us.

Joel Lawrence 7:06

Yes, we do Michigan and Minnesota connections. Yes. Yes, yes.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 7:09

I grew up in Minnesota. We moved when I was little, and I can't remember a time where I didn't love Jesus. I grew up in the church, would always talk about Jesus, love Jesus. And uh, you know, different people have different theological perceptions of salvation and everything. So if someone needs a token moment, I usually give a little schpiel about how I don't believe my salvation rests on my memory of a moment. But if you need a token moment, I um attended the Billy Graham crusade.

Zach Wagner 7:37

It makes you feel better, dear listener.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 7:39

Yes, yes, if you need a moment, okay, fine. I've got Billy Graham. Is that a moment enough for you?

Joel Lawrence 7:44

That's a good moment. That's a good moment. It's totally legit.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 7:47

Exactly. He came and preached um at a whole crusade at the Metrodome. So that's how I put the Vikings into my testimony.

Joel Lawrence 7:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 7:55

Billy Graham. And as a kid, I like he just brought it down very accessibly. And I always loved I love Jesus, I love the church, I wanted to be a missionary. I'd pretend that my Barbies were missionaries. Uh we actually during our parents' small

Joel Lawrence 8:11

That's amazing.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 8:12

Oh, it was it gets better when my parents had small groups.

Zach Wagner 8:15

Okay, Barbie missionaries. That's a CPT podcast first. I love it.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 8:20

Yeah, then we we would pretend when our parents were having a small group, I'd be like, guys, let's pretend we're communists. They're the communists and we're trying to smuggle Bibles past them.

Joel Lawrence 8:29

 Wow.

Zach Wagner 8:29

Um my goodness, that's incredible.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 8:33

Yeah, I was like a little Jesus kid passing out tracks in school. I was in the uh we were at a Pentecostal church. I actually got um called into the principal's office for um pretty aggressively evangelizing my fourth grade teacher because I didn't want him to go to hell because he was Catholic. And which had all sorts of assumptions around that.

Zach Wagner 8:54

 This just gets better and better.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 8:54

But yeah, so that's what I got called. So that's that wasn't part of like the early childhood, Pentecostal, growing up, very zealous, very passionate. And I'm so thankful for that era. And there's times now where I really miss that boldness I had as a kid. I I hope I've grown a little more tactful. Um but yeah, and my parents, I mean, they they love the Lord, they brought me to church. I have a brother we're really close to, but they're um my mom's a nurse, my dad's a computer software guy. So we weren't a formal ministry family by any means. And I think that's again, as I'm sure we'll circle back, that's something that I appreciate about CBT is not um getting our theology so academic that's not something that impacts the lives of people like my parents. But the first like major, I guess, thread of my testimony beside just origins, is when I was um 17 in high school, I found out my dad had cancer, and he was diagnosed really early with prostate cancer. They caught they had some phenomenal treatments even back then in the mid-2000s. And it was around that same time I was in public school still, and uh had this friend named Grace. We found out we were Christians in biology class because we both believed in creation, and we started memorizing Romans 8. And that was when all the the songs about grace were coming out on the on CCM, like Chris Tomlin, um Amazing Grace, My Chains Are Gone, Todd Agnew, Your Grace is enough, or um, Grace Like Rain. All those songs were coming out. So it was just such a symbol as I was working through stuff myself as a kid and seeing God's grace, and I'd see it with this friend. It she was a gift from God I didn't deserve in public school. And we started memorizing Romans 8. So I remember telling her about my dad's cancer because I just didn't know how to talk about it. We were at a Baptist General Conference church at the time, which I loved, but both faith traditions just didn't really have a framework for how to process a theology of suffering, that to be spiritual, is to be happy and to rejoice in the Lord always. I didn't know what to do with this pain I was feeling. And so Grace was one of the few friends I could tell. And then I remember saying goodbye to her for Memorial Day weekend. Her family was going up to North Dakota, and then two days later I found out that day she had been killed in a car accident with her dad. Um, and her brother had traumatic brain injury, just a freak accident of a car towing a camper that fish-tailed and hit the median, and the camper hit their car. So it was just really traumatic as a 17-year-old. And I didn't back then there wasn't the psychological language that pervaded us non-psychologists, of language of triggers. So it was like every time my senior year of high school, I'd go to school and see everywhere Grace should have been. I'd go home and had to stay like six feet away from my dad during his cancer treatment, and it just felt like there was no escape. And I finished memorizing Rowan's A. So I remember I was working in the Outer Banks of North Carolina that summer, and I was sobbing in a hammock memorizing the words I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. So then I went to Moody. We can probably come back to that, but I was still planning on going into missions, and everyone there was a pastor's kid, missionary kid, went to Christian high school. People would talk about exegesis, and I'm like, You're doing what to Jesus? And I'm like, I've read every Bethmore Bible study, but I don't know all of these terms. What's a dispensationalist? Oh, left behind. Okay, that's what I grew up with. Now I'm mortified by that. No shade to left behind. It probably helps pay for some of my um the school I love. But there's more to wait for the reaction. But there's there's more to dispensationalism than that. But uh when I was in school, just every I mean in Christian environments, we talk about grace all the time, and I didn't realize that the name Grace was this trigger for me of okay, now where is God's grace in my life after losing my friend? And I saw um, Joel, you might remember this the holodazzle parade in the Twin Cities, like a Christmas yeah, yeah, a Christmas parade, and I randomly ran into Grace's um mom and sister and brother there, and it was just this trigger. And I remember going home that night, and it was so selfish, but in immature. And I was just like, was God, why why is Grace in heaven and not me? Like she she didn't go through that much suffering here on earth, like she had nothing to compare heaven to. And the spirit reminded me of the words of Romans 8:18, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing. So, and the Greek word there for you, New Testament Laguzamai is to calculate, not just to randomly think about something, but to stare in the face of our sufferings and find they don't compare to this glory. So I go back to Moody, we have a worship chapel, and I um was wrestling with Calvinism versus Arminianism. Of course, my Pentecostal background was much more Arminian, and a guy, my brother for read me Romans 9, and I'm like, huh, what if God? I don't know what to do with this.

Zach Wagner 16:00

And we say that is the brother floor Romans. Yes, yes, you know, Romans 9. Like you're you're you're checking the stereotype boxes in Bible college view, just be like, Have you read Romans 9? I'm like, Yeah, have you read anything else? Um I I I digress.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 16:17

Yeah, yeah. It was I mean it was good for me.

Joel Lawrence 16:20

Go ahead. Yeah, before we dig, I I want to dig into your time at Moody, but before we do that, you so you taught, you know, you started with saying you never really knew a time when you didn't love Jesus, and now you have this experience of suffering as a 17-year-old. Um would you say how how would you describe what that did that cause you to doubt? Did that cause you you you you alluded to some of the things wrestling with God, but what did that tell us a little bit more about what that did to your faith as a 17-year-old and in and working through that and the categories that now you're having to confront about what it means to follow Jesus?

Heather Joy Zimmerman 17:04

Yeah, I mean, first off, I I would say I never felt permission to be angry with God. I thought that was to be unspiritual. So even asking questions, but then again, I personally, other people have different issues in their faith. I have never doubted God's existence. Um I've doubted God's goodness and God's character. So for me, it was the okay, God, like where are you not in terms, and this is actually I think happens in the Psalms a lot, which I'm sure we'll come back to, but it's not just God, where are you in terms of like an existential question? But uh, you say this is who you are. I am not seeing you in this situation. Where are you as a plea to come? Just like a child saying, "My mom, dad, where are you?" Like, yeah, come, it's an invitation to come. But I didn't, I didn't have, yeah, I didn't feel permanent. I I cried almost every night. I couldn't actually enter the pain. So it was actually in this worship chapel at Moody, where we sang the song, Our God Reigns. It just the simple refrain, Our God reigns, our God reigns forever, his kingdom reigns. And it hit me, okay, wherever you're at, and and this is tying back to what you're asking too, Joel, of whether you believe God ordains suffering or allows suffering, however you frame it philosophically, he's still reigning over it. And and at first it felt so unjust, like, God, you were reigning over my dad's cancer. You reigned over you, no matter how we parse it out, you could have stopped it and you didn't. But then it hit me that the lyrics of that song weren't our God reigned, it's our God reigns, forever his kingdom reigns. And that personally gave me so much hope and finding comfort in God's sovereignty that the God who reigned over my pain is still reigning over my healing.

Joel Lawrence 18:46

Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 18:46

And then we sang the song before the throne of God above, which I had heard for the first time at Grace's funeral. And the third verse goes, Behold him, there the risen Lamb, my perfect, spotless righteousness, the great, unchangeable I am, the king of glory and of grace. And it was like though I just always use the same phrase, this on a side academic note. This is why I believe in oral tradition, because I realize when I start saying the same, I actually use the same wording when I'm often telling my testimony because you finally find the sweet spot. But it was like this lightning bolt pierced my soul that God Himself, the great unchangeable I am, He is that glory that will be revealed in us. And nothing compares to Him. And it gave me this foretaste of heaven where it's not just that all of our memories, I think we just have this popular idea that all our bad memories will be erased, but it's like you can actually look in the darkness for as dark as it is, because no matter how dark it is, you know the light of the goodness and glory of who God is is that much greater. So that was this college worship experience of reflecting on that was what really got me into both personally and academically discovering lament and that, oh, I can actually, I don't have, and I think joy is a prerequisite of lament, that if I have hope in the resurrection, I don't have to minimize my suffering, I don't have to ignore it, I don't have to just say, oh yeah, but that was before Jesus. Like I can say, no, this is I know why it's so awful. We don't have to just emotionally validate pain, but we can theologically validate pain. Death is awful because it's the destruction of an image bearer, because it's the result of the fall. So we can people who don't know Christ grieve, but we can give them not only emotional validation, but theological validation. And it was later in seminary, studying the Psalms of Lament, when my Hebrew prof would say, You won't hear these on positive, encouraging Christian radio, where like, oh, you're so right. Like they don't really play Psalm 88 or Psalm 139 on Christian radio. Sorry, it was Psalm 137. But that was when I finally began to have a more academic response, and there was a bridge between academic processing of suffering and deeply personal in my walk with the Lord. So sorry, I know that was a lot.

Joel Lawrence 21:03

No, that's fantastic. It's so really appreciate you really gaining that out. One of the things I just admire about you and appreciate about you is the way that that that bridge is so solid in you between the personal and the academic, and um there's not a choice to be made there for you. And that's that's so evident in in who you are and how you how you're living this out. So I I I want to get to kind of the steps to building that bridge. So you're at Moody, you had this experience. Um at what point did did further education enter into your mind? At what that at what point are you starting to think about vocational realities, trajectories? Is that is that in the undergrad? Did you did you bring that into Moody with you, a sense of direction? Or tell us about how that started to come together in your story?

Heather Joy Zimmerman 21:53

Yeah, kind of what I alluded to earlier, I was not um even some of the church traditions I'd been in earlier on, not the Baptist church that I went to, but there's a bit of a distrust of academia.

Joel Lawrence 22:06

Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 22:06

And so I do remember coming into Moody and my my brother, when he was younger, he would have all these theology debates with his friend. Like, why can't you just love people? Theology is just people arguing. That's what I thought. And then of course Moody formed me, as I'm sure you know, Zach. And I was like, oh wait, kind of like J.I. Packer, to there's importance to knowing the God that we worship theologically. And I um it was actually the president at the time, Dr. Michael Easley, his preaching and the love for the Word and just the atmosphere there. I discovered Bible translation through the Linguistics major, and I thought, how incredible would that be to be able to give people God's word in their language. So as soon as I started to move down that path, I knew I would have to go to grad school.

Joel Lawrence 22:48

Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 22:48

So Dallas Seminary was the only school I applied to because it was the only school that had an MDiv equivalent plus the linguistics degree.

Joel Lawrence 22:56

Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 22:57

And in after my junior year of college, I interned at um with Pioneer Bible Translators, a fantastic holistic Bible translation organization in Papua New Guinea. Um yeah, it was funny. I had some I I grew up in uh an affluent suburb of the Twin Cities, so I had friends who were worried about how I would handle the jungle. And I'm like, guys, I'm fun. Maybe this is not podcast whether you want to edit it out, but I had friends who were like, You need to practice peeing outside. I'm like, I live in Chicago, that is illegal. And it was fine, it was fine, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was the experience, yeah, sophisticated moody professor talking about. We're not gonna pee outside here. But that's the practical side of ministry. And no, I was fine. I was fine, I could handle camping and all that. But but it was such a formative experience to see. I learned so much from the missionaries who are on the field and they partner so deeply with national Papua New Guineans. I um was fascinated thereby the the location we were at. There's over 800 language groups in Papua New Guinea. So not to project on the entire country, but the area we were at had been initially evangelized by Lutheran missionaries who translated hymns into the local language probably back in late 1800s, early 1900s. So that was when I first saw the importance of contextualization, where I was like, I don't know if this the hymns, this music is actually resonating with the people. And the highlight of the experience was we spent, we did a translation course for 40 different national Papua New Guineans from nine different language groups, got to learn the pidgin language, which is just it it sounds kind of like awkward, funny English to us, and got to teach and preach even in um their trade language. And that was when I fell in love with cross-cultural theological education. But it took about two years to actually process that. So I got to Dallas, and in linguistics, I love grammar and syntax. So Greek and German come much more naturally to me. Phonology, like the study of sound systems and how sounds change when you add like a prefix or suffix, that's a lot harder for me. So ironically, even though I'm in Old Testament studies, Hebrew and French are much more difficult for me. So I was looking at the course catalog and I'm like, I would hate that phonology class. I would hate that phonology class. And my at the time, my 40-year plan for my life was to go to Dallas, get my THM. That takes four to eight years, as you know, Joel. Then I went, then I was gonna translate the Bible back way before AI. That would take about 30 years. And then I was then I'm like, oh, then I can go get a PhD and then teach and be a professor. So it wasn't like I had every moment of like because I didn't have my life planned out in 10 minute increments. It was uh, oh, there's three things I want.

Joel Lawrence 25:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 25:52

There's three things I want to do that take a long time each.

Joel Lawrence 25:55

Yeah. Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 25:56

So that was when so it was really processing the internship that and processing the courses where I was like, wait, maybe if my heart beats theological education, this is a move that we should go into. Maybe instead of waiting 40 years from now, maybe I can start moving into academia now. And so that was when I wrestled with okay, do I pursue a PhD? Do I not? Long story short, I taught for a summer in Ethiopia at a Bible college there that's fantastic.

Joel Lawrence 26:25

During your time at DTS? Yeah, uh, right after I graduated. Okay, okay. Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 26:30

So I was working on my thesis to wrap up that I had walked. And yeah, it was there because I was wrestling with like with a THM. There's so much you can do around the world with that. You don't necessarily need a PhD, and there's formal education, informal, non-formal. And this was at an accredited school, and I realized, oh, first off, my my credentials do matter for a school's accreditation. And I do feel a sense of calling to formal education, even though I love with academia, I can use summers and spring breaks to do more non-formal training. So that's a little bit of that part.

Joel Lawrence 27:05

So uh just a little bit of kind of curiosity inside baseball, Dallas seminary grads chatting a little bit. Who are your key kind of key professor inputs at DTS? Who are the people who really shaped you there?

Heather Joy Zimmerman 27:19

Yeah, absolutely, Darrell Bach. He he took me in when I desperately needed an internship. And his his passion for cultural engagement shaped me. Um, Dan Wallace was fantastic. I remember because I we used his Greek textbook at Moody, I nerded out. And when I saw him at new student orientation, I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to get to know it's Dr. Dan Wallace. And I sat right now, I was unafraid to sit right next to him. And then he like, I think I added him on Facebook and I was like, Dr. Wallace posted on my wall. So total fangirl, um, Greek nerd. And um there were there were so many of the faculty there who shake me deeply. I'd be afraid of who else I I miss. But the Old Testament faculty, too, Dr. Brian Webster, he was the one who really put in radar, same thing with Dr. Chism, Dr. Hawks with Hebrew. There's so many just amazing faculty. And I think that was something that I wish I could cast as a vision for the next generation. Is the millennials, we sold our souls for formation for better or for worse. But I think, and sometimes I think the younger generation, I see this in teaching all the time, where they are um fist there, there's a strong focus on being fiscally responsible. So I'm gonna get in, get out as quickly, as efficiently as possible to make as an income to sustain my family. And a lot of people are rejecting going, and I'm making a broad statement. I have I know a couple anecdotes of people who've rejected going into ministry or left ministry because they couldn't make a six-figure income to support their family.

Joel Lawrence 28:57

Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 28:58

So I am really pushing and challenging the undergrad students when I teach them at Moody is hey, don't shortcut formation.

Joel Lawrence 29:07

Yeah. Yeah. So so uh you mentioned um uh lament in a in a more like a more formal academic way coming into your coming into your life during that time in in seminary, and you've already referenced the Psalms. And um so now now take us through the the movement to the PhD and the the way that those things started to coalesce as you were were thinking through your doctoral work.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 29:41

Yeah, so uh the first time I applied to PhD programs, I had no idea what I was doing. The the GRE, I didn't know to reach out to individual professors. So I got waitlisted at both Wheaton and Catholic University. And Daryl Bach was the one who suggested, because I both interned him for him and work for him at the Hendrix Center and the fantastic work that your dad was involved with, Joel. That I was the next generation working on that. And I was passionate about this bridge between I wanted to write on something academically that actually impacts daily life for people. So something related to biblical theology of suffering, and I was more looking at biblical ethics in terms of perhaps the criminal justice system. But so the second time I applied, I thought, and I didn't get discouraged the first time I didn't get accepted. I mean, I was sad, but it was like, well, now I know how to do it. Let's actually try to do it when I know what I'm doing.

Joel Lawrence 30:35

It's more of a process thing than a who than a who you are and your capacity thing, right? Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 30:41

Exactly. And I've just I've seen that where people apply for PhD programs at a bad season in their life where they're not able to put their best foot forward and then they just give up. And I'm like, well, maybe now that you're getting more sleep at night, you'll write a little more coherently.

Joel Lawrence 30:52

Right. Yeah.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 30:53

So I I didn't know exactly what to do. And oh, the year before that, um, one of my mentors at Moody, Dr. Winfrey Neely, encouraged me to join the Evangelical Homiletics Society, a preaching society. And I was like, Oh, I don't know if there's a place for me there as a woman. And I got second place in a student sermon competition, and they're like, you need to do a PhD in preaching. I'm like, ha, how is an evangelical soft-complimentarian woman ever get a job in that? And um, so the next year when I was applying for PhD programs the second time, I thought, okay, I could spend a lot of money to just get my GRE score a tiny bit better. So it looks it was it was a good Wheaton score, a bottom-of-the-barrel duke type score. And I was like, or maybe I could just present a paper at a conference, so and that could help round out my CV. But I realized I hadn't, I'd taken six preaching courses and I'd never actually written a paper on preaching. So I looked through all the past papers and realized that there'd been one paper in the last 16 years at that time written on topical preaching. And even though I hold expository preaching, we all know intuitively you have to do a topical sermon at some point. So it's like, is there a better way to do it? Well, so I presented this paper, and the fantastic thing about the Evangelical Homolytic Society is that you're not allowed to just stand up there and read your paper. They distribute the papers ahead of time. You read what you're interested in, you come in for like a five to seven minute, give a five to seven minute summary of your paper, and then it's 30 minutes of QA with experts in your field, which is fantastic for the participants, but it's terrifying as the especially I was fresh out of my THM, and I'm like, there's men here who've been writing on preaching as long as I've been alive, and I was terrified, and I don't normally get nervous, so the fact that I was nervous was making me more nervous. And I'm like, why did I write on topical preaching, the thing we all hate? And by the grace of God, it got the Will Height Award, and the last seven winners had been long-term preaching professors, and they're like, No, you need to do a PhD in preaching. And I'm like,

Zach Wagner 32:57

Amazing

Heather Joy Zimmerman 32:57

crap, deadlines are two months away now that I actually know what I'm doing. Do I do homiletics? Do I do biblical studies? There's all the mutual snobbery between practical ministries and biblical and theological studies. And I just remember venting to my mom on the phone and she's like, Can I ask a thought-provoking question? And she said, If God made you a man instead of a woman, if you were Henry instead of Heather, would you do homiletics or would you do ethics? And I'm like, I don't know. And she's like, You want to know my opinion? I'm like, sure, mom, you know me a while. Like, what do you think? She's like, I think you would jump into homiletics. I think you would have actually changed your major back in college when Dr. Neely tried to get you to change your major to preaching. But I still was wrestling with, okay, do I want to do biblical studies? Do I want to do homiletics? And at the end of the day, I realized my heartbeat is to equip the church to faithfully preach and teach the Old Testament. And I can do that better, I thought, in an Old Testament PhD at a school that would be willing to take on an integrative project. And Wheaton was willing to do that. So then I was also thinking in terms of, okay, how do I want to tackle this big thing? Really interested in how, what does it mean for us to preach and teach the Old Testament Christianly? And Dr. Dorian Cooper Cox suggested, why don't you pick a genre of scripture? So I thought, what if I do lament? So it was the sweet way of tying my whole story together where I do believe in the Psalms, the royal psalms point directly to Christ, but I think we miss some of the rich, distinct theological contributions of lament psalms when we um when I think sometimes we rush our process to find Jesus in them. And so that was my my dissertation was on a theocentric canonical reading of this altar with attention to lament and royal psalms.

Joel Lawrence 34:35

Wow. So so you've you've finished that recently. Congratulations. Thank you today.

Zach Wagner 34:42

Um who was your supervisor?

Joel Lawrence 34:44

Yeah, yeah. Tell tell us about that process. Go ahead, Zach.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 34:47

Yeah, so Dr. Richard Schultz. So he was some, so I'd actually, sadly, I'd proposed, well, I proposed two different topics, and Wheaton said, You should, you should do both. I'm like, crap, no, that's double the work. I actually proposed this topic on Christological Approaches to Preaching to Dr. Dan Trier. And he basically was trying to as nicely as possible tell me, I'm not a systematic theologian. He didn't say it quite that way. But then um, and Dr. Kevin Van hoozer helped um, but they he he was saying it wasn't my stronger of the proposals, but Dr. Van hoozer in just a one-off meeting, because I was looking at TEDS as well, gave me such helpful feedback that really strengthened the project. And then Dr. Schultz, and I was applying to Dr. Carroll to do um something on Malachi, and Dr. Schultz said he was interested in both proposals, and I thought, wait, I could do this more theological homiletical project under an Old Testament scholar. So he was my primary supervisor. Dr. Amy Peeler, she's wonderful, as you both know, part of the CPT. She was my second reader because I had a chapter on the New Testament use supplement in royal psalms, as well as for the preaching component as well.

Zach Wagner 35:54

One uh kind of technical nerdy question, just because lament and Old Testament and wheat and it all intersects with this. Um is Psalm 139 a lament psalm?

Heather Joy Zimmerman 36:07

So I mean it depends on how you define lament. Um I tend to I think I think I did, I mean, I could go look in my footnotes. I think I included it as a lament psalm because I think it does have like when if you if you are crying out to the Lord to deliver in, so I have a very broad view of lament psalms. So if there is a specific petition for deliverance, for deliverance, yes, and or crying out to God in the midst of anguish, even though it ends in trust, or even if the dominant tone is trust, I still lean toward lament. And for that, if I can just give a little plug about my dissertation, the we forget, I think we often don't realize that 20% of lament psalms end in petition rather than praise.

Zach Wagner 36:54

 Hmm Yes

Heather Joy Zimmerman 36:54

And that's that's something that I like. I did the statistical research in my dissertation, and it's just a footnote, but it's something that I think is so theologically significant. So if you're preaching Psalm 88, do you feel a need to get to the resurrection at the end of your sermon? Or can you recognize that psalms don't end in resolution? Sometimes they end in resolve to trust God, even if we never experience the resolution here on the side of earth or the side of heaven.

Zach Wagner 37:24

Yeah, the reason I ask is because I have a very, it's like one of those core memories of my theological education was in undergrad taking a class with uh John Walton, who taught both at Moody for a while and then also at Wheaton. But he his kind of mic drop moment was this like 139, Psalm 139, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, like, oh God knows me so well thing. And he really leaned into this. Like, well, if you look at some of the elements of this psalm, this looks like a lament psalm to me. And it completely changed the way that text, which a lot of people, you know, it's like plastered on everybody's walls, it's this beautiful thing. And and it's it's actually uh there's a way of reading it that the psalmist is is quite agitated with God rather than just praising God for the be the beauty of their creation. So I digress, um, but that's that's one of my, like I said, theological education core memories is that lecture on Psalm 139 from from John Walton. So um back over to you, Joel. Let's uh keep keep us moving here.

Joel Lawrence 38:27

Yeah, so um as we said, you finished up your dissertation recently. You're you're now teaching at uh at Moody. Um tell us how uh these themes have continued to shape you, your your sense of vocation, your sense of your calling to serve the church um as you as you serve at Moody and and um as the Lord puts different opportunities in your life. Tell just tell us how you're you're continuing to uh recognize God's God's vocational calling on your life.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 39:04

Yeah, it's it's such a delight. I it's such a gift to teach. And I I love people if you can't tell. So to that's what I love about it. It's very evident. It's very evident. Yeah, it's extra brilliant. I joked when I first started adjuncting. I'm like, oh, I'm finally paid to get to talk because I'm normally the rest of my writing gigs, like I'm paid to shut up and just get my work done. So this is great. But what I love about teaching is this, and this is why I love teaching in a seminary, is the formational aspect, the holistic, that it's not just a content dump, I'm not just coming in as a subject matter expert, but I want to create a a classroom environment that is safe for students to wrestle because I and I Zach, you probably saw this too. Like in my era at Moody, they had like a 19% acceptance rate. So everyone, there was so much pressure of you are the best and the brightest in your youth group, you are the hope for the church, which is terrifying. And it wasn't a place that was safe to struggle with sin. And I had a number of friends who walked away from the Lord after Moody, but they it wasn't just because they left the safe confines of Moody. They were wrestling with the same things they've been wrestling with while they were at Moody, but often in isolation. So I see so much of a discipleship aspect in teaching. I teach um primarily preaching courses, but as well as Bible as needed, and I love the coaching aspect of teaching, where of teaching preaching in particular, where you're dealing with both anxiety about public speaking and how to be coherent, but then also trying to move them to okay, how do we be faithful to scripture and be compelling in in our communication of God's word? And I love getting to teach, particularly preaching Old Testament genres, and as well as okay, how do you talk about moving to relevance? How do you preach in a way that has a realistic view of suffering? That we're not promising things that aren't in scripture, but we're also challenging people to move toward trust in getting toward concrete application. Like you can preach yourself the sometimes people I think minimize application in sermons. And sorry, we're getting off a little bit of the earlier question. I think we miss because we often say, oh, you just need to preach yourself the gospel every day. It's like, okay, well, if someone's having an affair, you don't just tell them go home and preach yourself the gospel. You tell them stop it. Like you need to like some like and this is this comes into both hermeneutics and preaching. I don't think we've faithfully interpreted scripture. Janine Brown and others would say this too, until we've lived in response to it. So this call to respond, I think, in preaching is so important. So it's it's a gift to watch students develop as preachers, to realize, oh wait, I actually can do this. I make them preach with no notes. Not because I think it's the only or it's a great pedagogical exercise where it shows them. No, you can actually do more of this than you realize. And then when they go back to their notes, they're not as tied down to them and can be better communicators even with notes. So I I just, yeah, I see I see teaching in the classroom as a form of discipleship, as a way of impacting the global church. Another theme with suffering is at maybe one of the things I love most about teaching at the seminar is how diverse it is. We have students from all over the world. So it hits differently when you're talking about persecution in the Bible, and you're talking to students whose parents are actively undergoing persecution around the world. And that is such a gift and privilege to learn from my students, to learn from their family stories of faithfulness. So right now, yeah, it's it's a gift to be able to do what I love. And also I am really active in a local Christian missionary alliance church. And yeah, so vocationally, it is that sweet thing of, oh, I've arrived, but not necessarily like we're all on a journey. And in the state of higher ed these days, you take every moment day by day and trust the Lord with it. Yes.

Joel Lawrence 42:54

Yeah. So uh last question kind of brings some of these things together. Um, as you said, you've you've become a fellow of the CPT in this last year, have been a champion of the CPT over these last few years, and fun to get to know you through some different CPT Wheaton circles where we've connected. Tell us about kind of your sense of the vision of the pastor theologian and and what about that excites you? What about that do you do you want to be a part of that that has connected you to the to the CPT?

Heather Joy Zimmerman 43:30

It is that that what we've mentioned, the need to bridge academia and the church. Um, just a very quick anecdote. I remember when I was in my Pentecostal church growing up, the um the pastor's wife told the parents that we needed to get rid of anything that had magic in our household because it was giving Satan a stronghold. So we threw out Mary Poppins. And I remember as a kid thinking, what's wrong with Mary Poppins? And it was just this little story that I realized, oh, theology matters so much because my parents thought they were doing the right thing. So there's this need to have um to bridge the church and the academy. And that I want to be able to do writing, I want in my teaching, I want in my preaching to be able to help do that bridge where preaching, it's even just preaching itself, should be pastoral, whatever your ecclesiology is in the view of the office, that it's not detached from the it's not just you come up, you show off your speaking skills and leave, but it should be rooted in caring for the body of Christ in the community that you're preaching to. And it should also be we robustly biblically and theologically formed and not just whatever cultural pressures and whims there are at the moment. And that's that's where I I love, and I was just so excited when I found out about the CPT of oh, we can bridge the because I feel that in academia between biblical studies and practical ministries. And that plays out on such a more macro level and the separation of the academy and the church. So I love what CPT is trying to do to bridge those together.

Joel Lawrence 45:03

Well, we're we're really grateful to have you as a part of the CPT community and grateful for this conversation. Thanks so much for sharing your your life, your heart, your mind with us, and uh pray God's blessings on you as you continue to serve.

Heather Joy Zimmerman 45:18

Thank you so much. It's such a joy to be with you.

Zach Wagner 45:22

Thanks for listening to today's episode of the CPT Podcast, a theology podcast for the church. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider subscribing if you haven't already? You can also help us out by leaving a rating and especially a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. We love hearing from listeners in this way, and it helps others find out about the show. The Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can learn more about the CPT at our website, Pastor Theologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on X. This show is produced by Seth Porch and Sophia Luke. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Seth Precorn. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Rae Paul, and me, Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.