After completing his study at EKU, Hayden started teaching high school music in Gentry, Arkansas. Four years later, he and his wife, Carol Acker, a 1976 Westminster graduate, applied to teach at the Adventist University of Colombia, now Colombia Adventist University, in Medellin. When they arrived in 1983, following two months of intensive study in Spanish, he proceeded to teach all of his classes in that language, an experience that succeeded, he would later claim, because "the students were very polite."

Although his initial assignment was to teach music theory to a handful of music students, within a year he became chair of a program that would grow to include 60 students when he left four years later, in 1988. During his five years at AUC, the school became the first protestant university to gain accreditation in Colombia.

Hayden proved to be an innovator in many ways, one of these being the introduction of handbells at AUC and the establishing of the first ongoing handbell choir in the country. This popular group gained national attention through performances on national television and in concerts at universities. The Haydens and their four children enjoyed their stay in Colombia and left only after it became increasingly dangerous to stay.

They returned to the States for a six-month leave and again applied for another overseas assignment. They moved to Taipei, Taiwan, to help start a music education program at Taiwan Adventist College. Including a year of intensive study of Chinese, the family spent four years at TAC, before returning to the U.S.

After working in Taiwan, Hayden felt impressed to engage in full-time church music ministry. After a year as interim music director at first Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, he became minister of music at New Hope Baptist Church in Raleigh where he served for eleven years, before moving to his present position. During his years in music education and music ministry, he has been active as a composer and arranger and has over thirty published compositions for choir and handbells.

Carol completed a law degree in 2003. The Haydens have four children and three grandchildren.

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