Briana Reeves

INTERVIEWER: Ever wondered what other people of faith believe? What their faith means to them—how they live it? That’s what this podcast is about. It’s called “All Faith Counts” because, well, all faith does counts. The more each of us knows about other people’s faith the more we understand, accept, and respect them for their belief. Hopefully this is a reminder of all the good faith brings to our world.

Today we’re hearing from an amazing Christian couple who live in Baltimore, Maryland. Teddy Reeves is a Curatorial Specialist of Religion for the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institute. He is married to Briana Gibson Reeves, a talented artist and actress.

They are embarked together on a fascinating journey of faith.

TEDDY REEVES: From a faith standpoint, I am a young African-American male. Grew up at St. Stephens Missionary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina—a good Baptist church.

BRIANA REEVES: I was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I am actually the daughter of a pastor. So as people say, “I am a PK”—a preacher’s kid and grew up in the church. My father is actually still pastoring—the very same church that I grew up in.

TEDDY REEVES: Went off to Hampton University, where again, I stayed connected to a Pentecostal church—left there enrolled in seminary about two years later after leaving there, went to Princeton Seminary, which is a Presbyterian seminary, but still for me connected to a non-denominational community at that time.

BRIANA REEVES: Church was a part of my life—has always been a part of my life. Growing up, you know, I didn’t have a choice. But when I got to college, I got to start making decisions for myself and deciding what I wanted my personal faith journey to look like.

TEDDY REEVES: Currently an ordained Baptist minister. Again, my faith taking me in kind of a different direction. I work at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, as a religion specialist, so I do faith in looking at African-American religion.

BRIANA REEVES: I’m a follower of Christ. I have no loyal ties to any specific denomination, although I frequently, you know, choose to practice my faith in community with others. But simply put, follower of Christ, Christian, period.

INTERVIEW: The rich history of the Black church has provided an amazing structure for Teddy’s faith journey.

TEDDY REEVES: The Black church is a beautiful institution of resilience, of struggle, of perseverance, of a people who came to this country forcefully and have endured the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and so this institution has been the one resilient thing.

INTERVIEWER: Like other Christians, Teddy’s belief centers on the founder of his faith: Jesus Christ. TEDDY REEVES: As a Christian, for me is the belief in Christ is to believe that Christ came to die to reconcile us back to God. That Christ died that we may have grace and that we may be able to live out this life and this journey that we’ve been given to extend God’s grace to others.

INTERVIEWER: All faith requires action to build stronger communities. Acting on his faith isn’t optional for Teddy.

TEDDY REEVES: It’s our commission, right? It’s what Christ told us. When have you seen me, when have you helped me, his disciple asked, and he said “when you fed my sheep, when you cared for the widow, when you went and saw those that are incarcerated, when you cared for the least of these, the marginalized and the oppressed.” And so for me, that’s a commission.

That means that, that’s my job, as a believer, and as a authentic believer is to go out and to care for God’s creation, and to ensure that the widow is taken care of, to ensure that my brothers and sisters—they may find themselves incarcerated whether by mistakes that they may have made, whether it was related to systems or structures that were created to incarcerate them, is to tell them that they’re still loved, and to ensure that they see the love of God through my actions. Christ died, Christ came, Christ understands, and understood the human condition and the human struggles. And the human will. And how do I, when I meet folks, extend the love that Christ gave to all, and so I try to do that in everything that I do.

INTERVIEWER: Briana brings her own complementary beliefs that round out this remarkable couple.

BRIANA REEVES: Teddy spoke a lot about, sort of like, organized religion and how you interact with organized faith traditions, which is why I simply say I’m a Christian period—no attachment to all of the traditional things, and practices that we often put in place. So when it comes down to me, it’s a personal relationship that I have with God. And my relationship with God, just like any other relationship it varies from moment to moment, because I’m human. God doesn’t change, but me and my ways and my attitudes, they change from moment to moment. And it changes—it varies from person to person, year to year. So what that relationship for me looked like 10 years ago, is not what it looks like today. And it won’t, hopefully, it won’t look the same 10 years from now. So it’s an ever-evolving relationship.

INTERVIEWER: Teddy and Briana do agree on an aspect of their faith they feel offers them assurance and confidence from a higher source.

TEDDY REEVES: I have a ethic that people are made in the image and likeness of God.

BRIANA REEVES: I think if you believe that you are created in the likeness and the image of God and that everything that He created is good, then all parts of yourself are good.

TEDDY REEVES: And it’s good, right? And that people—though our life’s journeys may be different, and though we wrestle with many different things, and we may be dealing with many different things at the end of the day, we’re all God’s creation.

BRIANA REEVES: Believing that, I get to authentically share my whole self with the world, and I know that some people are not ready for all parts of Briana Gibson Reeves, because she is a lot, and I know I am a lot but you know what, I don’t have to apologize for who I am. I am created in God’s image and God’s likeness, and I get to celebrate—really celebrate all of me.

INTERVIEWER: What does an ideal faith setting look like to an ordained minister like Teddy Reeves? We asked him about this.

TEDDY REEVES: I would want to create a community, where people would feel welcome to come in to lay witness and lay bare their issues. And try to create a community where shame—it’s not ruled by shame—but a community that’s ruled by love and an ethic of love and a community where people can feel that they can bring all of themselves into that worship space. Those are things that we would work out as a community.

It’s being a Black Millennial, and being a Millennial, in general, we are fighting against some of these traditional structures in religious spaces and finding them—and sometimes finding them oppressive, sometimes finding that they no longer serve us. And so how do we create communities where not only Millennials—we have to start thinking about Gen Z—and generations that will come behind where they can feel that they’re coming into a space that’s authentic, a space that’s loving, a space that’s not judgmental, a space that’s not filled by ritual and tradition but that is a space where Christ’s love can abound in a space that they can meet Christ through the interactions with the other persons in that space and through the love that we shared not only in that space, but kind of facing outward.

INTERVIEWER: Like faith, marriage is also a journey. Teddy and Briana have found unity in placing their combined faith at the center of their marriage.

BRIANA REEVES: If faith is going to be such a driving component of our everyday lives, you know, if—because of our faith that in fact some days we are able to wake up in the morning and put two feet on the ground, then going through life with a partner who shares those same faith experiences as you is—I think that’s an experience that I particularly cherish about our relationship and about our marriage. It’s beautiful.

TEDDY REEVES: For me personally, it has been a blessing to ask questions together, and so to have evolved and to continue to evolve in our faith together. Whether it was me going to seminary, her doing the MFA, her acting, me working in a museum, whatever it is, it’s consistently being pushed and prodded and refined. To know that I have a spouse that’s praying for me that’s encouraging me, that for me is the greatest gift that God could have given me.

INTERVIEWER: Teddy and Briana’s faith gives them purpose as individuals, as husband and wife and as social leaders. The strength they bring to their community is real. This remarkable and captivating couple took the opportunity to share some final thoughts about this journey of faith they have chosen to share together.

TEDDY REEVES: My faith belief is my ethic. Right? It’s the core of who I am.

BRIANA REEVES: If faith is this operating system, there’s no other operating systems that I know in the world that we don’t constantly reevaluate.

TEDDY REEVES: My relationship with God is essential to who I am as a person.

BRIANA REEVES: My faith is constantly being reevaluated by myself. It’s ever-evolving and that’s okay.

TEDDY REEVES: It will trickle down into my marriage. It will trickle down into my—my relationships with friends and with family and how I do my job, how I interact with anyone that I may encounter. And so my faith is that source, it is the outlet. It is what keeps me energized and keeps me going.

BRIANA REEVES: But faith is a journey. When we think of journeys, they are not always long walks on a beach where everything is nice and dandy. There will be bumps, there will be turns, and that is okay because we get to constantly reevaluate, constantly question and constantly come back to the table and declare what we believe.

TEDDY REEVES: For me, I want people to know that my faith is my ethic. It is my grounding point. It’s always showing the love of God and the extending the grace and the compassion, and the love and the overwhelming sense of gratitude that Christ has towards us. If that’s not what I’m doing, I welcome folks to check me at any point.

BRIANA REEVES: It’s a beautiful—it’s an absolutely, absolutely beautiful journey.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you, Teddy and Briana, for sharing with us how your faith builds your character and brings good into your life.

And thanks to you, our audience, for listening. We invite you to visit FaithCounts.com to learn and be inspired by different faiths or join the conversation at #MyFaith, because our world is a better place when, “All Faith Counts.”