Despite detours, God’s guidance leads Tittsworth to Southwestern, pastorate

John Mark Tittsworth felt a call to ministry before he graduated from high school, but at times he faced delays and redirection as he pursued his theological education and place of ministry.

The youngest of three children, Tittsworth grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, attending First Baptist Wichita Falls with his family. After a conversation with his mom one Sunday afternoon when he was seven, he had “a strong conviction of my need to be forgiven” and knew he wanted to follow Jesus.

He recalled an impactful moment his junior year of high school when a Sunday school teacher, who was not his regular teacher, asked the young men in his class a profound question: “If you knew God was in it, what would your vision be for life?”

“The other guys said things like, ‘have a successful life, get married, have kids, do this kind of work or that kind of work,’” he said. “And when it was my turn, I said, and I kind of don’t know where it came from, but I said, ‘I would help the church be what she’s supposed to be.’”

Tittsworth said the teacher stared at him for a moment and then said, “‘That’s too big for you, which means it’s probably from the Lord.’”

Later, while researching careers, he thought about being an architect because he was good at math, but he instead began to feel that God was pulling him toward ministry.

“All of a sudden, because of that sense of I might be called to something else, my interest in math dropped, and I started falling asleep in class, actually,” he said. “So, I kind of hung on to that and didn’t really talk about it. But a couple months later at summer camp, I told my youth pastor that I thought I might be called.”

He spoke with his youth pastor and his senior pastor and began considering universities where he could study theology. When he selected one in Texas that would provide a scholarship, his pastor cautioned him that theological studies there would lean more liberal, something Tittsworth found to be true.

“They would present these questions as ‘You need to wrestle with these if you’re going to be called into ministry and have intellectual integrity, because these are real questions people ask,’” Tittsworth said. “I felt like they kind of shoved me out into the cold and I didn’t really come away with the resources to answer these hard questions.”

As he was finishing his undergraduate degree, he went on a two-month mission trip to Kenya that opened his eyes to the need of theological training in other countries.

“While I was there, I was heart-broken over the poor training church leaders there had,” Tittsworth said, adding he recognized the disparity between what was available to him in contrast with churches around the world. “… I saw this and I thought, ‘I have such access to good resources, I could help this.’ So, I became pretty convinced I needed to learn some biblical languages, particularly Greek, if I were going to be helpful to people like that.”

He moved to Kentucky in 2003 to pursue a Master of Divinity (MDiv) with an emphasis in biblical languages at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Tittsworth and his wife, Laura, were married after his first semester, having met in college. His wife pursued her master’s at the University of Kentucky while Tittsworth worked on his MDiv.

During their studies, they lived in the country between Lexington and Louisville, where he pastored a small church. After completing his studies and continuing to pastor for almost seven years, Tittsworth began to feel a pull to continue his education with doctoral studies.

In 2009, he applied to the PhD program of five large universities with prestigious programs in Hebrew and Semitics. But he was not accepted into those programs, with one explaining they did not believe his language studies for his MDiv was enough to be successful in their program.

“It was very humbling, and I almost just gave up the searching,” he said.

But a few months later, God’s guidance and timing became evident when Tittsworth’s family was passing through the same city as George Klein, then head of Southwestern’s PhD program, and he agreed to meet.

“We sat down for a couple of hours and I told him my sob story about being rejected and trying to figure out what my calling was,” he said.

Klein questioned him on his study habits and field of study.

“And he said, ‘You sound like the kind of person that would be a good fit for our program,’” he said, adding Klein told him to send his writing samples.

Klein suggested he pick either semitics or New Testament for his focus in his PhD, leading him to change his focus to New Testament.

Tittsworth began his PhD at Southwestern Seminary in 2010, saying he enjoyed his reading seminars in Old Testament with Joshua Williams, professor of Old Testment and his minor supervisor, and New Testament with Paul Hoskins, former professor of New Testament.

“Those readings were great. I learned a ton and got to know them well,” he said. “I miss the camaraderie. I love the academic setting of chewing on ideas, like a lab, a theological lab.”

In reminiscing about his courses, he said even the ones that were not his first choice became invaluable, such as a seminar on Psalms with Klein that forever gave him a love for the book, often encouraging him during his dissertation writing while also being a father.

Another meaningful course was on the legal portions of the Pentateuch with Helmuth Pehlke, senior research professor of Old Testament at Bibelseminar Bonn, the partner seminary of Southwestern in Germany, who passed away in 2023. Pehlke’s seminar impacted Tittsworth’s research immensely since he used topics presented in Pehlke’s class, such as comands relating to parents and children, specifically the fifth commandment..

His dissertation included the Exodus 20:12 passage, “Honor your father and mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you,” and how it is inverted and reflected at the end of Malachi, which says, “And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.” While one passage commands children to honor parents for a long life in the land, the other gives a warning that the land will be cursed if parents do not train their children.

In December 2017, Tittsworth completed his PhD and spent a couple years teaching as an adjunct professor at two of Southwestern’s extension centers. Shortly after, Covid hit the country, putting his job search on hold. But God’s guidance continued as he joined Giant Worldwide, an organization that trains consultants for organizational health and leadership development.

“It filled a gap that I didn’t know I had on dealing with people and teams,” he said. “I was getting educated to be a professor and I would say God was preparing me to be a pastor again.”

When Tittsworth and his family moved back to Texas in 2010, they joined Alsbury Baptist Church in Burleson. The first night he visited happened to be when the pastor, along with a group of church members, had just returned from a mission trip to Tanzania. Seeing their passion for missions led Tittsworth’s family to return to the church and eventually join.

Just after Tittsworth finished his seminars and comprehensive exams, tragedy struck the church and community when their youth pastor was killed by a drunk driver.

“The very next week, I started teaching the youth Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings for eight months,” he said. “It seemed like the right thing to do then would be for me to step in and help with the youth. I already was leading a Sunday night Bible study for them, a very informal one, and so I had some good relations with the students.”

A few years later, the founding pastor of Alsbury announced he would be retiring after 2020, and the church asked Tittsworth to submit his resume, which he did, explaining he had begun to have a desire to return to pastoring and felt this was an opportunity God had ordained. He has served as the senior pastor at Alsbury since 2021 and recognizes that his time at Southwestern prepared him for this role, especially his seminars on Old and New Testament Scriptures and the original biblical languages to more completely understand God’s Word.

Tittsworth said his studies in the biblical languages allows him to be more efficient in his sermon preparation and gives him confidence in teaching. “Just paying attention to words has changed my views on a number of things.”

While Tittsworth’s call to ministry as a high school student led him to different institutions for his theological education, God eventually brought him to Southwestern and to Alsbury Baptist Church, where he was available to serve when God provided the opportunity for him to return to the pastorate.