People often ask me, “How can I get started in ministry?”

The answer is pretty simple.

You start with the cheese.

I’ll explain.

Do you remember when God raised up David to defeat Goliath? That was certainly one of history’s most impressive examples of being used by God in ministry, right? But do you know what David was doing before facing the giant?

He was delivering cheese.

Here is the passage from 1 Samuel 17.

Then Jesse said to his son David, “Take now for your brothers an ephah of this dried grain and these ten loaves, and run to your brothers at the camp. And carry these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers fare, and bring back news of them.” Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the Valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper, and took the things and went as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle (1 Sam 17:17-20).

David’s ministry started by delivering cheese (and bread and grain).

In other words, he was obedient in doing menial and common acts of service. He was faithful in what was put before him and then one thing led to another, and he ended up facing off against Goliath.

The same principle applies in ministry. Don’t start with fighting Goliath. Start by serving the cheese. That is, be faithful in, and actively look to serve in, the relatively small acts of service that every Christian community needs to get done in order to function well. As you faithfully do the ministry before you, opportunities will arise to do other acts of service—the kind of ministry you might desire or dream about doing. That will often involve stepping up and volunteering to do the jobs no one else wants to do—as David did with Goliath.

The Free Grace movement is small, but growing, and there is virtually no limit on the areas of ministry that need workers, or the amount of ministry that needs to be done.