“Let no one despise your youth; instead, you should be an example to the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity…” (I Timothy 4:12)
People love to give advice to young adults just entering the ministry. I’m sure they think they’re helping.
I was a senior in college when the Lord fingered me for the ministry. When my coal miner Dad got the news, even though his experience with church leadership was minimal, he had advice for his number three son. “Start off pastoring small churches. That way you learn how to do it before moving on to the bigger places.”
As if I had a choice.
Unity Baptist in Kimberly, Alabama, ran 35 on a good Sunday. I pastored it in the slivers of time available when not working at a cast iron pipe plant and trying to be husband and father. They paid me $10 a week; my tithe was $12. I stayed 14 months. I did them no harm and they did me a lot of good.
When in seminary, the Paradis Baptist Church of the bayou community of Paradis, Louisiana, checked me out as a possible pastor, the fact that I had (ahem) pastoral experience tilting the scales. That church ran 40, but we lived in the apartment in the back of the educational building and more or less pastored full-time, if you don’t count the four days a week spent at seminary, 25 miles to the east.
My third church ran 140 in attendance when we arrived, and the fourth one over 500. I was off and running. (smiley-face here)
Not all advice young ministers get is as basic and solid as what my dad offered. Some of what follows I heard personally, and some was volunteered by friends. And all of what follows, I repeat, is terrible advice.