Davion Brown was just a toddler when he earned his nickname, Preacher.

Now the 17-year-old associate minister will be leading revival services at New Hope M.B. Church this week.

“All my life, I’ve felt there was a calling on my life to preach but I was somewhat afraid because I’m young,” he said. “I ran a long time from my calling.”

Brown, the son of Arreika and Fred Thomas and Sherrod Dixon, preached his first public sermon Jan. 15. But he started preaching at the age of 2, when he would come home from services at St. James and jump up and down on the bed, reciting the pastor’s sermon for his mother and grandmother, including the hoop at the end of the message, he said.

He is an associate minister at Mt. Wade M.B. Church, where he’s mentored by Rev. P. Randolph Hamilton Sr., a pastor he calls Daddy. “He’s like another father to me,” he said.

After Brown felt a strong call for the ministry during a revival, it was Hamilton who encouraged the young man to continue to pray for guidance. In October, he joined the church and announced God’s call on his life.

Hamilton began teaching Brown how to prepare sermons. He was impressed with one in particular and asked the boy to preach it. Brown said his church “was packed out” to hear him deliver his first message, “Where do you stand?” from Matthew 25.

The words had come to him years ago when he’d opened his Bible and flipped the pages to the parable about the 10 virgins — five wise and five foolish. — so he turned it into a sermon about being ready.

Today, he’s preaching the 14th sermon of his career, this time at St. James M.B. Church, where Dr. Larry Jointer is pastor. It was Jointer who Brown mimicked as a child. Preaching there brings him back to his first church. “It’s an honor, but I just give God the glory for it,” he said.

While being a pastor is his calling, it’s not his only one.

Brown has worked at Tyler Funeral Home for nearly four years. He plans to get a degree in mortuary science to be a funeral director and wants to eventually own his own funeral home.

He started that job after attending a visitation and expressing an interest to the funeral home owner. He convinced the man to hire him and teach him the trade.

The funeral business is a ministry of sorts, and one that Brown is good at.

“I just like helping people, being there for people,” he said.

It’s all about comforting people in their times of need. “Being a funeral director really has nothing to do with preparing the dead. It’s about helping those people sitting across the desk from you. It’s trying to help encourage those family members who didn’t plan on coming to a funeral home to make funeral arrangements. That’s what i believe the role of a funeral director really is.”

While he studies to be a mortician, Brown also plans to start on his theology degree by attending seminary online.

Brown displays a maturity well beyond his years.

“Not only do people call me Preacher, they call me Old Man, too. They say I have a mature mentality,” he said. “My mind is not on the normal 17-year-old mindset.”

He spent the past few days in Memphis at the Frank Ray Expository Preaching and Teaching Conference in Memphis.

On Saturday, he finished preparing for today’s sermon as well as the youth revival Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Services are 7 p.m. each night.

This will be Brown’s first time to lead a youth revival.

He believes he can offer the youth his unique perspective on issues they’re facing. “They’ll be hearing from someone their own age, someone who can relate to them,” he said. “I know what they’re feeling, what they’re going through, because I’m going through the same stuff.”

Brown said he wants to show them what God’s word says and be an encouragement to them.