This week, Jamie reflects on being at NOBTS & Leavell College for a year. And then we play a game.
Jamie Dew: I would have thought that maybe there was a possibility that I'd spend my life doing music. I started playing drums when I was a little kid and guitar and other things like that.
Joe Fontenot: Hang on. Can we pause for one second?
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: We just started recording.
Jamie: There?
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: So you need to start over?
Joe: I'm that person.
Jamie: That's okay. That's okay. We hadn't gotten into it, so that's good.
Joe: That was a really good on ramp preparation. Okay. So.
Jamie: We're recording now.
Joe: We're recording now.
Jamie: Good.
Joe: All that stuff I said before, you've missed. So we are recording. This is a video podcast, so we're going to have it on audio and video.
Jamie: Nice.
Joe: And so we have something, I have something special, a game.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: I feel like a youth minister saying that, no offense to youth ministers.
Jamie: I'm not eating anything disgusting or anything like that.
Joe: Maybe we should pause and talk about this. Ruins my game. But before we get to that, I have a question for you.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: All right. So I play music,
Jamie: What do you play?
Joe: I play guitar.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: And most things with frets, I will claim it until you asked me to play it.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: Right. So, but I play music. And so I saw a guitar in your office.
Jamie: Yep.
Joe: So do you play guitar?
Jamie: I play a little bit. I don't play well enough that I think I need to do anything with it publicly or anything else like that. I do it more devotionally and to relax. And there was a very long period of my life, I didn't do it at all. But about two years ago, two and a half years ago, my daughter, Natalie, my oldest daughter, came in and said she wanted to learn to play guitar. And I figured, well, I'll teach her everything I know until she maxes that out and then I'll get her real lessons.
Jamie: And I just hadn't put it down since. So for the last two years, two and a half years, I started playing when I was in high school and then got busy in ministry and everything. And my guitar sat in its case for 18 years. But the last couple of years especially, I played a lot more.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have like a preference on brand? This is not an endorsement. I'm just curious.
Jamie: I have a Taylor.
Joe: Okay.
Jamie: I have a Martin and then I have one of my favorite guitars. My daughter has two Yamaha's, one of my favorite guitars is just this generic guitar. It has no name. We call it Anonymous in our house. I think it was a custom made guitar. It looks like a Martin D-35, but it's not, and it sounds really good.
Joe: Where'd you get it?
Jamie: A friend of mine, it was in his attic and it was all beat up. And I was like, "Dude, what are you doing to your guitar?" And he's like, "I don't know, do you want it?" I was like, "Yeah." So I thought it was just a terrible guitar. I get home. I start looking at it and I'm like, "Dude, this guitar is pretty chill. I like this thing." So I got it cleaned up and fixed up and had some repairs done on it. And I love that guitar.
Joe: Nice. So I have one more question, just personally, I'm curious, and we're recording, so everybody gets to hear. What kind of music do you like to play or to listen to?
Jamie: Well, to listen, to play. So I'm much more limited on what I can play, but what I like to listen to, I'd it completely depends on the mood I'm in. I'm not a country music fan at all. I used to, a long time.
Joe: You got squinty eyes when you said that.
Jamie: Well, I can feel myself-
Joe: It feels like there's some pain in there.
Jamie: I don't have a lot to work with up here so I can feel myself getting dumber when I hear Country music and I don't want that to happen. I'm not a country music fan. Now, old school country, sure, maybe. And I'm not a hip hop fan. I like Motown and I like classical music and I like jazz and I like nineties music and eighties music and seventies music, and man, I like about anything. I just don't tend to listen to anything in those other two genres.
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: But even that, what I'll pick, I even like a good bit of Christian music. I've gone through the phases where I hated Christian music because it sounded so cliche. I think it's gotten a lot better in recent years. And so I'll play on my guitar, Shane & Shane stuff, praise music. I love trying to pick out and figure out James Taylor music.
Joe: My wife is a really big James Taylor fan.
Jamie: How can you not be?
Joe: I'm not really actually. So to just kind of answer that directly, I don't know.
Jamie: Something's wrong with you.
Joe: I know. I remember my uncle, who also plays music, hated John Denver.
Jamie: Well, that's understandable.
Joe: Yeah. I'm not a huge John Denver fan.
Jamie: I don't hate him, but, it's John Denver.
Joe: Yeah. I remember when we would go to church, this is a little memory, we would go to church. I was like 12 or something. My dad would always listen to John Denver in the minivan. I hated it from then. But I asked my uncle why he hated it and he was just like he grew up during all this time and he's just played it too much. And so I think even though I didn't grow up with James Taylor, I think I just heard it one too many times.
Jamie: Oh, well that's understandable.
Joe: Yeah. And it's just sickening to me.
Jamie: But to play, it's a lot of fun.
Joe: Yeah. To play. I kind of like anything that would have made it in Easy Rider, the movie. I love to play.
Jamie: I don't think I've seen the movie.
Joe: It's probably questionable.
Jamie: Great.
Joe: Just reflecting. Okay. I have a game.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: Let's pull this back onto the tracks. So my game is this. I'm going to ask you a question, but you can only answer with 11 words.
Jamie: So I get 11 words?
Joe: Get 11 words, but there's a twist.
Jamie: Do I have to keep track of them as I do it?
Joe: I'll count them.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: I'm keeping you accountable.
Jamie: Oh, thank you.
Joe: That's a Christian thing. Twist, I'm going to ask 11 questions. So you only get one word per question.
Jamie: Okay. So I got to answer in one word each.
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: Okay.
Joe: Could have just started there, but I wanted to add a twist to it. Okay. Are you ready for this?
Jamie: I'm ready. What are these questions about, by the way?
Joe: They're just about different things, about life and mostly about me. I'm just kidding.
Jamie: Bald.
Joe: Yeah. Bald. Awesome beard. My wife doesn't like my beard. Okay. So I'm just going to get started.
Jamie: All right.
Joe: How would you describe the city? One word. The city being New Orleans.
Jamie: Resilient.
Joe: Okay. Question two. How would you describe the culture here in New Orleans?
Jamie: Vibrant.
Joe: How would you describe the people of New Orleans?
Jamie: Happy.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. That's very true. How would you describe the food?
Jamie: Delicious.
Joe: Thought you were going to say saturated fat. That's two words. How would you describe the 12 months preceding coming here? So not the last 12 months, but the 12 months before that, when you were at Southeastern?
Jamie: Exhausting.
Joe: Okay. How would you describe the last 12 months? So you've been here for 12 months now. How would you describe those 12 months?
Jamie: Intense.
Joe: You should have said extra exhausting.
Jamie: That's two words.
Joe: That's right. It was hyphenated. How would you describe the last three months? And for perspective, if you're watching this or listening to this after, this is the end of may. So we're kind of coming out of COVID, we have social distancing. How would you describe the last three months?
Jamie: Sustained.
Joe: Ho would you describe NOBTS in one word?
Jamie: Faithful.
Joe: How would you describe the faculty here at NOBTS?
Jamie: Servants.
Joe: And how would you describe our mission here?
Jamie: Urgent.
Joe: Last question. How do you think about our future? What comes to mind when you think about the future here? Our future here.
Jamie: Hope.
Joe: That's good. Okay. All right. Well that was my question. I mean, those are my questions.
Jamie: I did 11 words.
Joe: You did 11 words.
Jamie: You did 11 questions.
Joe: I didn't really have much leverage against you, being my boss's boss's boss. I was like, "I have nothing to, if you use 12, what am I going to do?" But it's all good. All right. Well, this is great. Do you have anything else you want to add? You've been here for 12 months. This is your first anniversary being here, this is why we're doing this special podcast. We have a squeaky table. Is there anything else that you wanted to throw in there that comes to mind as you're thinking about these things?
Jamie: Yeah, obviously, it's amazing to think, and still, a year later, just overwhelming to think that we're here, and there's still, even after a solid year of doing this, there's never a day that goes by that at some point me or my wife or my kids, or all of us together, just stop and shake our heads and say, "How in the world did we get here?"
Jamie: This is so unexpected for us. And now looking back on it, through the last year, there's more that's unexpected. So for example, a year ago it was unexpected that I would be the president of a seminary. That's still very much unexpected for me. But in addition to that, the ease with which we've had to come to love this campus and love these people and to be loved back and for it to already have gotten to the place where it's just home for us, and we feel settled here and thrilled to be here, that was unexpected. I trusted God, but I still never really expected it to happen that quickly or even to this depth. So it's mind boggling to think that this has happened and we are where we are.
Jamie: So I look back on the year with a tremendous amount of gratitude and we're still very humbled by the opportunity that's before us to do this.
Joe: Yeah, we were talking about before we started recording, how so much has changed in the last year. I don't even mean the pandemic, but that's been its own massive thing. Right. But so much has changed in the last year that it does not seem like a year. It seems like almost a decade or something. And it's been very fulfilling, very satisfying.
Jamie: We got a lot done this year.
Joe: We did get a lot done.
Jamie: We've gotten, I mean, we've gotten from mission statements to rebuilding departments and branding and Leavell College on the right footing, relationships throughout the denomination, we've already been able to really get going with and establishing. And what I'm most excited about right now is, in addition to all the tangible things that you can look around this place and see movement and see different with, which are all really exciting. What I'm most excited about is that there's this sense of a new ethos that has begun to emerge. And it's identifiable in many people's minds here. They can see it, they can touch it and they buy into it and the campus and the people here at NOBTS Leavell college, just really wrapping themselves around that and the momentum that's now beginning to emerge on that.
Jamie: That's a cool thing to see. And I didn't expect that to happen so quickly. I was told when I got here that people were ready to do something like that. And I believed it. I did, but boy, I believe it now. People were just ready to go. So that's fun, to be in a moment like that.
Joe: Yeah. I've certainly seen that from my point of view as well. Well, thanks so much for doing this. Thanks for my game.
Jamie: You bet.
Joe: And we'll do more of these.
Jamie: You bet.
Joe: All right. Hey everybody, this is Jamie and Joe again. If you like this podcast, would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcast? That helps other people find it.
Jamie: And if you have any questions, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to Jamiedew.com/questions and send them in that way and we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.