As a younger pastor, I tried to do everything. Part of that was due to serving in smaller churches where less of us were available to do more. Part of that, however, was due to my own superman complex. Like a lot of us in ministry, there have been times when I self-medicated through ministry.

I started serving as a pastor when I was 20 years old. Aside from a year serving as a church planter in Burkina Faso, I have been serving as a pastor ever since. I was recently thinking about the ways in which I’ve grown since I first started serving, and I realized that God has blessed me with some really patient churches who have shown me much grace. There are so many ways in which my ministry has changed over the years, and I wish I knew when I started, the things I know now. I wondered, recently, if 35-year-old Micah could talk to 20-year-old Micah, what would he say? Here are a few things that I would want to say.

1. Care personally about the people you serve as much as you do your preaching.

I love the people I’ve served. I’ve never failed to love them, but I have often failed to value enough the personal time I could spend with them. Like many of us in the tribe I’m a part of, I have always valued preaching, but I’ve also placed so much value on preaching that I have often neglected relationships with people to sit in my office and study….

2. Don’t just disciple corporately, disciple personally.

When I began serving as a pastor, I understood my role in discipleship to be that of a leader. I was to develop strategy and deploy that strategy among the corporate body, and God would use it to disciple a whole community of Christ-followers. That changed, however, when a mentor of mine who led a very large church, shared with me that his weekly meeting, discipling 3 men, was the most significant thing he did in ministry….

3. Prioritize community.

The third thing I had to learn was that there was no tool in our church’s disciple making toolbox more effective than the tool of community. It’s bigger than that, though. The more I grew, the more I realized that God grows people through community, and we can build up a thousand different other means, and they may look beautiful, but nothing is as effective as community….

4. Don’t do yourself what you can develop someone else to do (also known as handing off ministry as quickly as possible).

As a younger pastor, I tried to do everything. Part of that was due to serving in smaller churches where less of us were available to do more….

5. Don’t miss your family while caring for your church family.

Finally, and most importantly, I wish I could tell 20-year-old Micah to spend a lot more time with his family. Your wife is the best gift God has ever given you, and your children are never the age they are today, again….

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