Christy Allen (ThM, 2004) serves as the Assistant Professor of Ministry to Women at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS), where she is also pursuing her PhD in applied theology. Her husband, Joe Allen III (ThM, 2007), serves alongside her as the Assistant Professor of Missions. Their story, however, begins long before any seminary. They met on a mission trip in the Philippines in 1997. Eventually, their friendship blossomed into romance. Five years later, Joe proposed in the country where they’d met, and in 2003, they were married. A few months after the wedding, Joe began his ThM at DTS, the same program Christy was finishing. In 2007, with their degrees wrapped up, Joe and Christy, along with their one-year-old daughter, left for South Asia, where they would minister for fourteen years in a rural Muslim context and then an urban Hindu context. Eventually, their son’s health required them to return to the States. They hoped that their son’s health would stabilize quickly and allow them to return to the mission field, but God had other plans. The very week the door closed for them to return to South Asia, God opened doors for them to teach at the seminary level. A missions professor had retired from MBTS, and friends put Joe’s name forward to take his place. Neither of them ever envisaged teaching in a seminary context, but now Joe and Christy love it.
Upon arriving at MBTS, Christy immediately started teaching at the Women’s Institute. Six months later, they asked her to teach online courses for their women’s ministry program. Overall, it was a big shift from her missionary work. Overseas, she had worked with women who had been abused, devalued, and oppressed, with many being illiterate or semi-literate—not seminary students. At the same time, she saw how God had prepared her to better equip others for their callings. Overseas, both Joe and Christy had learned to share their DTS education with others, teaching theological truths in simple and accessible ways—stretching their creativity and shaping them into better teachers. In South Asia, God had also pruned and developed Christy’s character so that she could handle her future teaching load, while cultivating in her a deeper sensitivity to suffering. Students often come to seminary carrying painful baggage. Christy’s years on the mission field sharpened her ability to recognize suffering and come alongside those who suffer. Ministering among women who had been systematically devalued also forged a passion she carries into her teaching: that God’s love for women is profound and that Christian communities, including seminaries, should reflect that belief.
In the seminary context, every day looks different, which suits Christy just fine. Some days she’s deep in dissertation work or building out a new course. Other days, she is sitting with students over coffee, doing the harder work of ministering to souls. At the center of all Christy’s work is her ministry philosophy, which she finds crystallized in 1 Thessalonians 2:8: “We were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.” Pouring out the truth of the gospel alongside her own life summarizes how truth and love play out in Christy’s ministry, and it calls for Christy to face one of teaching’s greatest challenges: internalizing the truth. It’s not a content dump but a vibrancy for the truth that speaks to students. When students encounter a professor who loves the Lord and loves them, they experience God’s love for them, too. In Christy’s words, “They get to see God’s face shining on them through your face.”
During her seminary days, Christy had the joy of studying under Sue Edwards (MABS, 1989) and Joye Baker (MACE, 1999; DMCE, 2005), who pioneered the women’s program at DTS, which is exactly what Christy is doing now at MBTS. They cheer for Christy, and it is a joy for her to share that pioneering connection with them. Christy shared another challenge of teaching: “When your students hurt, you hurt.” Christy has learned how to bring her students’ burdens to the Lord, leaning into prayers of lament. Unburdening with God, she says, increases her capacity to love even more deeply. That challenge also connects to her dissertation topic: studying a biblical theology of lament through the lens of 2 Corinthians. Christy recognizes that loving people like Jesus means your heart will break. When we listen to the stories of others, we pick up a little bit of their burden, something believers are commanded to do (Gal 6:2). However, God does not call his people to be strong as they bear another’s burdens, but to be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might (Eph 6:10). Over time, Christy came to realize the reality of her limitations. Because she’s finite, the suffering of others impacts her, which necessitates taking the time to unburden. She intercedes for others, giving voice to grief that they may not be able to verbalize. Christy has found that music helps her release her burdens to the Lord. Her practice of lament flows from a conviction that unburdening with God fosters longevity in ministry. The work is hard, the losses are real, and there is no sustainable path forward that skips over mourning.
In connection with Easter, Christy notes that lament helps God’s people long for the resurrection. When we let ourselves face the difficult realities of this life and grieve what is wrong with the world, we start to ache for the New Heavens and New Earth. The sorrow itself becomes a form of longing. She also believes lament is the honest path to joy. We want shortcuts, but the path to resurrection runs through the cross. Psalm 126:5 says those who sow in tears will reap in songs of joy, and Christy takes that seriously. Heartbreak has the potential to enlarge a person’s capacity to love. When Christy teaches others about lament, she often finds that they are afraid to let themselves feel the weight of their grief, afraid that once it’s acknowledged, they’ll never regain control. But Christy knows that the tears will stop because she believes in the resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says that after he asks God to remove his thorn in the flesh three times, Jesus replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Bearing the burdens of others requires God’s people to institute rhythms of lament, unburdening before the Lord and trusting in his strength. Make time for lament this Holy Week. Don’t rush to the resurrection. Rather, prepare for the resurrection.
A prayer based on 2 Corinthians 1:3–7
We confess, O God, that we deny reality. We smother our sufferings, refusing any fellowship with Christ apportioned through pain. We fail to believe your touch will meet us in our pain or sustain us through suffering. We induce forgetfulness, numbing ourselves with distractions. We feebly mask our pain, O God, and deaden our nerves to your comfort. Father of mercies, forgive us for denying our portion in Christ’s sufferings. Forgive us for shoving aside the comfort found in your arms. Mend our expectations—we share in Christ’s sufferings and in his comfort. Teach us to sink into your embrace that we may comfort as we have been comforted by you, the God of all comfort. Let us remember: Christ delivered, Christ delivers, and Christ will deliver again.
Morgan Dau (ThM, 2023) is an administrative assistant for the Alumni and Career Services Office at Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD student and writer. She and her husband, An, along with their black cat, call Dallas home.