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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on Facebook then available in video on our website <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">http://www.thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Alistair Begg: Honesty, Humor and Hope
We speak to Alistair Begg about pastors, suffering, humility and surviving long term in ministry.
Alistair Begg is in Australia speaking at the Church Missionary Society conference in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
Alistair has served the people of Cleveland Ohio for 42 years at Parkside Church and has a global impact through the influential Truth for Life Ministry.
We go backstage with Alistair to discuss:
- His teaching on 1 Peter, focusing on suffering, perseverance, trials, humility and standing firm in God’s grace.
- Reflections on 40+ years of pastoral ministry and lessons learned along the way.
- Insights into global mission and the long-term commitment of missionaries.
- His upcoming transition after more than four decades of leadership.
- The impact of Australia on his ministry in the US, including his close friendship with former Moore College Principal John Woodhouse.
- Insights into preparing for life after pastoral leadership as he approaches his final months as senior pastor.
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It is the pastor's heart, and Dominic Steele and Alistair Begg is with us from Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio. We're on location in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, to the west of Sydney, where the Church Missionary Society Summer School is taking place and Alistair is the keynote speaker for this week-long convention. We're in the Convention Centre Bookshop in a break between sessions. There's about 3,000 delegates here thinking and praying about global mission and Alistair is teaching on 1 Peter. 3,000, that's actually the same size as Alistair's regular Sunday church attendance. In the 40 years that he's been senior pastor. Parkside Church has grown from around 300 to now around 3,000. Alistair, thanks for coming and talking to us. You're teaching on 1 Peter and I'm just thinking the pastor's heart and even the missionary's heart, of suffering grief in all sorts of trials, being strangers and aliens in the world, and specifically suffering for being Christian. What's been your heart for the people of this missionary society as you've come to prepare these talks? Because you've been thinking freshly about 1 Peter for this conference.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, coming here is an experience in itself, because I only knew of it by report, and I would say that actually, just since I got here on Friday, I've had a far greater appreciation of what is going on, who is here, what they represent, and it has helped me, since the first address, at least begin to moderate my points of application. The principles of 1 Peter, though, in terms of, as you say, suffering or a cross that leads to a crown Peter dealing with an environment that is essentially a pre-Christian environment, where there is a great pushback against the claims of Jesus. We're living in essentially a post-Christian environment. Many of these people definitely are in a pluralistic context, and so part of what Peter is helping us to do and this is why I began at the end, in the 12th verse of chapter 5, where he actually tells us what he was doing in his letter I've written to you to make sure you know that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.
Speaker 2:And I found increasingly that the role that one is given in pastoral ministry, or even in a, for those who had recently professed faith in Christ, and that Peter was laying down certain truths, and if that's the case, then it's a wonderful opportunity for people who are not just new to the thing to be reminded of the basics. Opportunity for people who are not just new to the thing to be reminded of the basics, and it's one of my mantras now. I think over the years in pastoral ministry that you know what we want to do is try and do the basics well. Most of the time which is true with a golf swing and basically true with most things, or true with staying married for a long time Do the basics.
Speaker 1:Well yeah, what's jumped out to you in the three, four days you've been here, as you've interacted with missionaries and leaders here in Australia?
Speaker 2:I think, first of all, I was really unaware of the ethos of the thing. I mean, I had to look up CMS to find out what it was, and even when I was told what it was, I didn't really get it. I'm a bit slow, but since I got here, and first of all in the dining room, I saw the pictures of these families and as I began to walk along I said, oh, these people are everywhere in the world and some of them have come here and the rest are going about their business, and these folks have committed to a lifetime in relationship to this. That is the first thing that has struck me, that this is a long-haul journey.
Speaker 2:American missionaries it seems to me in a way today that was not true in an earlier day, partly, I think, because of resources are able to come and go from places on the mission field with not constant regularity, but in a way that I'm not sure is particularly conducive to the task.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I came from as a missionary, from Scotland to America, from Scotland to America I determined that I would not go home for at least three years for that very reason, so that I could try, as it were, to get my feet under the table to get a sense of where I was and make my early mistakes and be punished for them without saying, well, I'm just going to go home and I'm gonna leave this all behind.
Speaker 2:And I think that is the thing that has come out most forcibly that the idea of this is a long-term commitment in order to understand where we are, the language in what we're doing, and so on, which, of course, is a different strategy from what is taking place in some parts of the world where resourceful churches in the West or even in parts of the world where resourceful churches in the West or even in parts of the East, are seeking to go into those places, find indigenous people and train those indigenous people, give them everything that we can give them to enable them to function without having to do all this cross-cultural work for them.
Speaker 2:You know, somebody who lives in Indonesia and has grown up there understands the language, understands those things, and I'm sure that the position of these folks who are there for the long haul, obviously must mean that they are there to work themselves out of a job.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But they can't work themselves out until they've worked themselves in yeah. And so I'm very challenged by that.
Speaker 1:Is it right? Your initial contact with Sydney was through John Woodhouse.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think so. I mean, I've been in Sydney before, but never to do ministry in Sydney before, but never to do ministry. I had been in Melbourne maybe 35 years ago to speak at the Belgrave Heights Convention, and I had been up in Brisbane with Gary Miller a few years ago along with Christopher Ashe. But what happened was one of my colleagues said why don't you try and do first Samuel? And I said, well, I, I don't want to do for Samuel because I can't work out the chronology. Yeah, and they said, well, I'm sure you will if you start. And so, nudged by that, I, I was, uh, I, I began, and I was actually talking to Christopher Ash on the phone and he said to me do you have Woodhouse on 1 Samuel? And I said no. He said then get it. So I got it, and then I was, and you knew what to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then I knew what to do and I made contact with John and I told him what I was doing and then he and Moya in COVID, you see then began to listen to the live stream of our service when I was speaking to an empty auditorium.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then he would send me a note and say last Sunday was, you know, particularly helpful? And I would send a note back and say, well, of course it was. It was largely your material. So he, yeah, I mean that kind of you know as a pastor when you are attempting something of that magnitude. And I kept going, went right through second Samuel as well, and the joke is that he held my hand through it all and then that was when I had invited him to come so that my people could see the person behind the person that you kept quoting for two years.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, Exactly and of course I mean.
Speaker 1:I watched those talks that he gave at the pastor's conference in Cleveland and they were masterful.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, they were spellbinding.
Speaker 1:On two kings yes on second kings.
Speaker 2:God has really given him a particular ability with that Old Testament. I mean, he's just a very, very good communicator, but with that Old Testament narrative and the way he sees it, standing far enough back from it to get the broad parameters and the elements in it, is really quite good.
Speaker 1:Now I was chatting with John and he told me, dominic, you must go and listen to one of Alistair's presentations Hanging On when you Feel Like Giving Up, and I mean actually that was on 1 Peter 5. And I found it super helpful. I mean, you were actually it was a conference for pastors and you were super vulnerable about actually there have been times over the 40 years when I felt like running away. Tell us some of that and what you did to keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I remember correctly as well, that was one of those occasions when the conference assigns you a subject you know, and so then I have to say to myself, well, what am I going to do with that? And in a context like that, if you're going to take it seriously, as one must, then it forces you to think a number of those things out that you might not have actually.
Speaker 1:you might have intuitively had in the back of your mind, but not force it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then they come to the fore, and then you find yourself saying, well, what did I do in that context? And I think just the shepherdology of 1 Peter, especially the vulnerability of Peter himself, who knows that he's put his foot in his mouth and taken it out and put another foot back in.
Speaker 2:And he's volunteered to walk on the water, nearly drowned himself. He was supposed to watch and pray. He didn't pray, he didn't watch, he was rather boastful about things, and so in the experience of all of that in the life of Peter, he entered into dimensions, I think, of spiritual grace that would not have been his to enjoy were it not for the fact that he was the person that he was, if you like. You know he brought a lot of that on himself and I think I can identify with that. You know, when I began in America, I was 31.
Speaker 2:And you know, you're young and you tend to think that you can accomplish more in a year than you actually can. You don't realize that you can accomplish far more in five years if you'll just be steady. And that sort of impatience can lead to all kinds of things. That, I think, is where not only the exhortation of Scripture but the example and pattern of other people has been wonderfully helpful. And I've realized over time, when you stay on the horse long enough, that people will expect you to know some of those answers to the questions and the idea of dealing with the things in 1 Peter 5, of course, the reality of facing up to anxiety. Don't be anxious about anything, we were told. And then Peter says that you should cast your anxiety upon the Lord.
Speaker 2:But he was there when Jesus told him, said why are you worrying? And the rest of the guys, about food and clothes? Don't you realize that your heavenly father, you know, provides in every way? That was a lesson he had to learn, which he then was able to pass on. And the idea of adversity, you know be careful, be alert, there's a lion around. That must have cost Peter to write about as well, because again he thought no, he would be able to handle it, even if the rest couldn't handle it. And of course he came down like a pack of cards, and I think the very fact of that restoration and the usefulness that God still had in store for him is just wonderfully helpful. I think personality comes into it a lot as well. Some people are fairly melancholic by way of personality, the way they're configured. I'm not. My danger would be in insensitivity rather than oversensitivity.
Speaker 1:I think Really.
Speaker 2:I think so that I could be dismissive of things that I ought to be paying more attention to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean just digging into some of these things in one Peter dismissive of things that I ought to be paying more attention to. Yeah, yeah, I mean just digging into some of these things in one. Peter, how's God taught you humility?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, he hasn't, but he still is, and I could try and answer that in a number of ways. First of all, I'm born in Scotland. You know, Scottish boys and girls in my era were never being pumped up. They never. You know, your father never told you you're the finest boy in town, or your mother told you this or that they didn't come to all of your football matches and things like that.
Speaker 2:It was a very different world and in that world I lived and I recounted just the other day a story that I've often mentioned, where, as a small boy with my father, I go into a store to get sweets because he's taking me to an event with a choir and he said that I could have sweets to eat and in the shop there must have been people waiting to be served adults and I went in as a small boy, maybe eight or nine, I don't know. The people in there must have said something like, well, you're a fine looking wee boy, or, you know, your bro cream is nice on your head. Who knows what they said, but they must have said something, because the lady behind the counter and it's the days when they weighed out the stuff and put it in a bag and twisted it, and when she handed it over the counter to me she said Sonny, flattery is like perfume Sniff it, Don't swallow it. And I've never forgotten that it was such a strange encounter. And she didn't say it to me because I was precocious or anything.
Speaker 1:You hadn't done anything, I hadn't done anything. You hadn't said a word.
Speaker 2:Nothing, nothing. But she had observed it and she gave me a word. Yeah, she gave me a word that has followed me all the way through my life.
Speaker 1:And then you know the gift of…. Don't believe your own publicity, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And just don't take yourself too seriously. There's a wonderful encounter in the Reagan Library. Did I mention that in the talk? Yeah, I went to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. I had an afternoon free and I went and I was listening on the earphones to the. You know, you go around the library and in the makeup of the Oval Office, it's Reagan who's speaking in the earphones and he's describing the library. And in the makeup of the Oval Office, it's Reagan who's speaking in the earphones and he's describing the office. And he says a number of things. And at one point he says I never regarded this as my office, I regarded it as the office of the people, so much so. He said that when I was working in this office I never removed my suit coat, I never removed my jacket. And then there's a pause and he says you see, you can take the job seriously without taking yourself too seriously. And I said oh, that's on the test right there. That's on the test Because in pastoral ministry you start to take yourself too seriously rather than the awesomeness of the task that you've been entrusted with.
Speaker 2:There's danger written all over that. Hopefully, I've been helped first by my wife, then by my children, and feeling very much the weight of the people around me who have invested so much into my life. And feeling very much the weight of the people around me who have invested so much into my life and being aware, for example, of the end for Uzziah, who began so wonderfully well. He was a whiz kid and he met regularly with Zechariah who was schooling him in the things of the Lord. But somewhere along the line he must have decided I don't need Zachariah anymore. And then, of course, the chronicler says he was gloriously helped until he became strong. And when he became strong he grew proud to his own destruction.
Speaker 2:And in watching my peers you look at the pastors of big churches in the States and we think, wow, yeah, and that's what I was about to say that in watching my peers over the 40 years in the States, I would say that every major pastoral collapse can be traced to one thing, and that is just to pride, Pride. The rules no longer apply. I have transcended this or whatever that's. I have a Vespa, I have Vespa scooter and because I like those Italian scooters and when the sun shines like this, if it was here I could ride it up the hill.
Speaker 1:But when I I was talking to William Taylor a couple of weeks ago we were walking back to the car and he said you know, the privilege I have as the rector of St Helens, london is I have a drainpipe. And I said what he said. You know, I ride my pushbike across London and it's kind of known amongst the St Helens community that William padlocks his pushbike to that drain.
Speaker 2:That helps with humility as well. It does, doesn't it? That helps with humility. Yeah, I don't have a parking spot.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I don't have a place. I've got to find a place for myself. But when I ride the scooter now, at the age of 72, I speak out loud to myself, especially when going around tight bends. I say don't be a smart-aleck bag, you can fall off this thing, and it's like let him who thinks he stands.
Speaker 1:Be careful that you don't fall. Yeah, be careful that you don't fall.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a horrible thought. I mean we could start listing names right now, We'd both burst into tears and also the prayers of people, prayers of people, the unknown people who have prayed to guard this kid and preserve him, keep him whatever. We'll never know, really until eternity that how much we were just dependent on folks who entered into the throne of grace on our behalf.
Speaker 1:As you pastor people, do you ever get compassion fatigue?
Speaker 2:Well, that comes back to my point, you know, because I'm not particularly compassionate. I mean, I am compassionate enough, I am compassionate enough, but I'm not. I'm not. I'm very good at counselling over a very short period of time, and maybe that's the answer to the question that I get fatigued very quickly and pass people off to others who have more of that capacity.
Speaker 1:And Mook. I mean I find I talk to somebody and I'm quite good at triaging Right, but then I'm not good for the long haul and I'm not called to be good for the long haul. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good. That's a better answer than mine. So I'm not sure I get fatigued, but I'm not sure I've ever thought about being fatigued by compassion. I mean, I know we all know in ministry what it's like to get the phone call and to discover that the boy has just overdosed and his parents are devastated.
Speaker 2:and then you enter into that whole world and by the time you finally come out post-funeral, yeah, you're probably fatigued then, and often in pastoral ministry then, and often in pastoral ministry, in fact, in pastoral ministry in a way that wouldn't be true to hardly anything else. You live in a world that takes you into the depths of despair and up into the heights of enjoyment with the arrival of children, the sharing in marriages, the seeing people going, it is an immense privilege.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fantastic. I mean you get a ringside seat at these major events in people's lives. It's fabulous.
Speaker 1:You're stepping down. After 40 years It'll be 42. 42 years in nine months or so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said that I would keep going till the second sunday in september. I chose that because it it is uh the the sunday, uh after second sunday, after labor day, weekend. There's a reason for it because I began, I began on that sunday in and so just my sense of a desire for symmetry, I picked that, but it was arbitrary. But yeah, it's coming.
Speaker 1:What are your? I mean there's an anxiety of transition. Help take us into that world.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I'm just beginning to. I've only been there for 22 years and I've got anxiety about that. Sure yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'm only beginning to enter into that dimension of it, because the announcing of it was hard to say I'm going to do this. But once I said it, then I said okay, so I said it. But then within about four or five weeks I began to say yeah, but what are the implications of what you've just said and what is that actually going to mean? Now? And the the um, the unnerving aspect of it is that I don't know anything else other than what I've been doing for all these years, that my life has been completely regulated by the privileged responsibility of Sunday by Sunday, bible teaching and the fact that our radio program and everything that goes along with that continues, apart from the church. That's still not the same, and so I'm up for all kinds of suggestions and advice, and I've been asking people who have done this, and some of my friends have written quite helpfully regarding it.
Speaker 1:What sort of advice have you got?
Speaker 2:Give yourself an emotional buffer from that day to whenever it is you think you're, you know. Don't try and bridge this gap in the immediacy of things. Give yourself a time to let the dust settle, both for you and for your wife, and for your church congregation and so on. Because it raises the question what are you going to do the following Sunday? I mean, are you just going to go back and sit in the pew? Are you going to go to one of the church plants, so that you don't have to answer all the questions? I don't know the answers to those questions yet, but the kind of advice that I've been given is just along those lines Don't try and launch into some idea that has been whirling around. Just hold your fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as you speak to young men starting out in the ministry. What are the things you want to say to them?
Speaker 2:Well, I want to say to them what I say to myself continually Isaiah, what is it? 66, 2. This is the one to whom I will look, says the Lord, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and and trembles at my word um, I, I really feel I'm so, I'm so afraid of the, the rising um pride within my own heart that I, I want to guard against that always, and so I I want to try and safeguard younger guys first of all in there Along with that, I want to say to them the same things again that I say to myself You'll think you'll overestimate what you can accomplish in a year and you'll underestimate what you can accomplish in five, because you're young and so you feel a sense of I've got to push on.
Speaker 2:You know, life is going by, which it is going by, but only at the rate of 60 seconds a minute. So just you know, don't get carried away there. I want to say to them make sure that you are doing two things that you are loving the people and that you're teaching the Bible, that the gift that God has given you will be an expression of your love. Don't let the congregation tell you how they want you to love them. In other words, mrs Reynolds would like you to come over for a morning coffee.
Speaker 2:Mr Jenkins thinks that it would be very good if you did a Bible study at his office and somebody else. They would like to have you every Friday night and so on. You're going to have to guard yourself from all that kind of thing. You'll be misunderstood. But if you can show the people that your love language, if you like, for them, is to study the scriptures, to perform the sacraments, to fulfill the role of pastoral ministry and be secured in it by being given enough time to do an adequate job in the Word, then in the long run everybody will be happier than if you were to exceed to many of their earlier requests and at the same time, then, 2 Timothy 4.5, keep your head, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. And if the person says, well, what should I do on Tuesday, I say 2 Timothy 4.5 2.
Speaker 2:Timothy 4.5.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the following Tuesday, and the following Thursday and for the rest of your life, because that was Paul to Timothy right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's wonderful because it's basics. It's basics and young guys are tempted, especially with the world we live in now with social media. This person's got an angle on this and another one has an angle on that and you get your head spun very, very quickly. And if you have absolute confidence in the sufficiency and authority of the scriptures and you give yourself to be a servant of the word and you learn your craft and you learn by example, by following patterns, by choosing the people that you can most identify with because you run down similar lines to them, then all of those things will prove helpful in the end.
Speaker 1:Anxieties and dealing with anxiety in ministry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, again, this again has come back to what I've been saying earlier. I don't want to be unduly self-deprecating, but I don't think I am a particularly anxious person, and so I don't know whether that is just temperamentally or whether I've steeled myself against that, or whether I'm kidding myself, which is also possible. But what do we want to be anxious about in ministry? Anxious about our performance? That's pride. Anxious that we can't meet the needs of the people? Of course we can't meet the needs of the people. Of course we can't meet the needs of the people. Anxious, I don't know, about the budget? Yeah, I guess you see. Again, anxious about the budget? That has never once occurred to me, but that's maybe just because I'm in a privileged position or I should be taking more interest in it yeah, no, I have to be honest in answering the questions.
Speaker 1:You've been here in Australia and you've talked about, if you like, challenges that you've received from even just looking around here and corrections perhaps you'll take back to the States. What corrections have you got for us?
Speaker 2:Well, I'd be very loathe to come up with any kind of corrections yet.
Speaker 1:Maybe by the end of the week, if we talk again.
Speaker 2:No, I think it would be presumptuous of me to come into this context and say I have been all that I've known of evangelical Anglicanism in the Sydney diocese and beyond is fundamentally helpful. I mean at a distance, moore College I mean I hadn't really focused on the fact that Marcus Lone was once the principal of Moore College. I mean I hadn't really focused on the fight. Marcus Lone was once the principal of Moore College. I didn't know that TC Hammond was. He'd read his book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd read his book but I didn't know he was here. It's no surprise to me that he was and was able to stabilize things. Also. The Jensen brothers and Two Ways to Live and all of those things, St Matthias Press, you know an ocean away. The Jensen brothers and two ways to live and all of those things, St Matthias Press, you know an ocean away. I would look to here for help and for counsel and for, especially in evangelism, a freshness of approach that is not American. And so to think of what I might say by way of warning, I guess it'd be the same warning, that's a don't let's get ahead of our skis. You know God is good to us so far. Let's make sure that we leave the same legacy that others have left to us. Thanks very much for left to us.
Speaker 1:Thanks very much for talking to us.
Speaker 2:My privilege.
Speaker 1:Alistair Begg has been my guest. He is the senior pastor for another nine months of Parkside Church in Cleveland, ohio. My name's Dominic Steele and we'll be back with you on the Pastor's Heart next Tuesday afternoon.
