NATCHEZ — If someone told Rev. LeRoy White he would be celebrating 30 years in the ministry 20 years ago, he wouldn’t have believed them.

When he came to Natchez in 1998, he said he was coming to retire, but July 27 he will be celebrating in a church he helped create with people gathered together.

White was born in Natchez and moved to California after he retired as a Major in the Air Force.

He worked in construction for several years, then White said he had the call to join the ministry in 1984, preaching at Kyles Temple African American Episcopal Church in Sacramento before serving at more churches.

In 1998, White came back to Natchez to spend time with his father.

“When I got back, I didn’t intend to pastor again, I was planning on coming here and retiring,” White said. “But it didn’t happen that way. I opened my mouth.

“I started telling people about the Lord, I started preaching everywhere and I had several churches asking me to become pastor.”

By 2005, he was preaching every weekend around the Miss-Lou in five different churches.

White said in 2006 he had a vision of putting all of his churches together.

“The spirit spoke to me and said ‘Well, put them all together,’ and that’s what we did,” White said. “That’s why the church is called New Beginnings, because it’s a new beginning for all of us.”

New Beginnings is not the first thing White oversaw the creation of in Natchez.

After White’s attempt at retiring he helped establish the Boys and Girls Club in Miss-Lou, he was chairman of the board of directors of the Natchez Museum of African American Preservation, the Economic Development Board and the Saddie V. Thompson Era Foundation.

“I should have kept my mouth shut,” White said, jokingly.

White said that he could not be a pastor without a passion for his work, and also compassion.

“You have to have love for people,” White said. “You have to have compassion.

“You have to remember not everyone will be with you, everyone is not going to love you, everyone is not going to think you are doing the right thing, but despite all that you still have to love people.”

White said he still plans on retiring from being a pastor. He said he wants to put all his things on a trailer and see the parts of the country he was not seen yet.

But even after he stops being a pastor, White said he would never stop preaching.

The service will be at 11 a.m. Two churches will be represented, New Beginnings Missionary Baptist Church and Zion Hill Baptist Church in Ferriday.

Rev. C. Edwards Rhodes will be the minister over the service, and Katie Moore will be the Mistress of Service.