NATCHEZ — Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.

That’s what the Rev. Melvin White, pastor of Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, said he did more than 20 years ago when he left a successful business to go into the ministry.

In 1997, White said he delivered his first sermon. At the time, he owned a successful distributorship for Little Debbie snacks.

“After preaching my first sermon, I enrolled in Monroe Theological Seminary of Monroe, Louisiana,” White said.

While White was studying at the seminary, he said his pastor at Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, the late Rev. Willie Green, asked White to take charge of one service per month at the church.

Later, White said, Green began to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

“He requested I take on duties of the church,” White said. “Then I was ordained by the Antioch Missionary Baptist Association in 1999. Upon being ordained the church decided Green would retire and become pastor emeritus, and the church moved unanimously to make me pastor in 1999.”

White said his wife Tammy was disappointed when he told her he was selling his distributorship and going into pastoring full time.

“When I did that, it didn’t sit well with my wife,” White said. “I was making over six figures. At the time that I sold my distributorship and moved to the church … I was making $500 a month.”

During his first year of being the fulltime pastor of Pilgrim MB Church, however, White said membership grew from 60 members to more than 200 members.

“We couldn’t get everybody in,” White said of the church’s original location on Cemetery Road. “Our services had to move from the old location on Cemetery Road to the Natchez City Auditorium and it was jam-packed with 1,400 people.”

Pilgrim MB Church members built a new building at 117 Pilgrim Blvd. and moved into the new church building 2006, White said.

“We went from that to over 1,000 members,” White said, adding now he averages 700 members on communion Sunday services, which are the first Sunday of every month and an average of 400 members on typical Sundays.

“By the grace of God, He has made it up tremendously,” White said of his career change and his wife has been along with him every step of the way.

White said he feels privileged to pastor the church he was raised in and to pastor many members of his own family.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d pastor my own church,” White said.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, Pilgrim MB Church will hold a special service to honor White for his 20 years of service as pastor.

White said the church will forgo its regular service and that the 2 p.m. special service in the church’s sanctuary will feature special guest the Rev. Robert Scott of Baton Rouge who is pastor McDaniel Baptist in Centreville and Freeman Baptist Church of Ethel, Louisiana.

The service also will feature choirs from both of those churches, White said, and the entire community is invited and welcome to attend the 2 p.m. Sunday service at Pilgrim MB Church at 117 Pilgrim Blvd., Natchez.