Alistair Begg’s Call to Pastoral Ministry

Alistair Begg has been the senior pastor of Cleveland’s Parkside Church since 1983. He is also the voice behind Truth For Life, a Christian radio ministry that broadcasts his sermons to over 1,800 stations across North America, and the author of about a dozen books.

Given his extensive work as a pastor and theologian, it might come as a surprise that Begg went back to his room and wept when a lecturer at the London School of Theology suggested God had given him a pastor’s heart.

“That’s not who I am,” Begg thought to himself. “That’s not what I can do.”

Planting the seed

Begg said that pastoral ministry was never anything he aspired to when he was a young boy growing up in Scotland. His parents and grandmother prayed for him, and the family often welcomed pastors into their home. Their example influenced and intrigued him.

“In almost a subliminal way, something was sketched into my psyche,” Begg said.

 But still, even after studying theology, he was convinced that whatever he did to serve God wouldn’t involve pastoral ministry.

“I worked with friends for Campus Crusade for Christ,” Begg said. “I was involved in music ministry and sports. But I would think about (pastoral ministry) in terms of, ‘What if I met my friends from grammar school, and I had to tell them I was a pastor?’”

As Begg studied at LST, worked with young people on weekends. They would go to the southern coast of England, sing songs, do some talks. It was fun for him. He enjoyed the freedom of leaving London on a Friday and returning by the end of the weekend.

Life turned upside down

But then, in 1975, he was getting close to graduation and getting married. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do. One day, at lunch, he told a colleague he didn’t like these weekend activities anymore.

That’s when Begg felt his life turn upside down.

“One of the lecturers … was sitting at the table,” Begg said. “He had thick, Coca-Cola-kind of glasses. He would squeeze his eyes together as he spoke. He reached forward and said in his English accent, ‘And I can tell exactly why that is. That is because God has given you a pastor’s heart. If he gave you the heart of an evangelist, it wouldn’t be a concern to you. You would be able to go, leave, and then go to another place … God has put in your heart to stay somewhere.’

“That was like a huge motorway opening up in front of me and a death knell sounding simultaneously.”

Begg returned to his room and wept. At first, he dismissed it.

“I’m 23 – so what if he thinks that?” Begg said. “What I wanted to be was a lawyer. I thought I could play a lot of golf and probably have fun. That had been taken away.”

A conscript, not a volunteer

After that, everything began to roll out in a way in which Begg had no control. A pastor named Derek Prime wrote to the principal of the college asking if they had someone suitable to replace his assistant. The principal recommended Begg, and Begg became assistant to the pastor. After 12 months, the elders said they wanted to ordain him to the gospel ministry.

“I went through that ordination process and actually wore a clerical collar on a Sunday morning because, in Scotland, that was still par for the course,” Begg said. “When I put that collar on and stood up there and made those affirmations, there was no way back from that for me. If they had asked me to stand up (for the ordination) stark naked, it wouldn’t have been any more daunting, quite honestly.”

Looking back on his own experience, Begg thinks a true pastoral calling is birthed with interest or desire, then reinforced – often externally – with a period of confirmation.

“There’s a sense in which, for me, that subjective reality only grew when somebody gave me the opportunity to be in that framework,” Begg said. “The idea that the call of God is just a general call to everybody, and therefore you should be (a pastor) – I don’t subscribe to that.

“I think Spurgeon was on to something when he said, ‘If you can stay out, stay out.’ Because the only thing that really keeps you is that sense of having been set to it – that you are a conscript rather than a volunteer. It hasn’t been against your will, but nevertheless, it has been the sublimation of your will to the will of God.”

Are you feeling a call?

Have you ever asked, “Should I be a pastor?” or “How do I know if the Lord has called me to be a pastor?” Check out our video below, “How Do I Know If I Should Be a Pastor?” with Alistair Begg. In it, he gives critical insights on how to know if you are truly called to be a pastor!

“I think the notion of Isaiah 66:2: ‘But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.’ That matters even more than giftedness, because what the congregations need in our life is not ultimately our giftedness, but our godliness.”

Alistair Begg

©2023 Jim Rusnak. Used with permission.