Few ministers ever reach the pinnacle of success as David Padgett. Most labor in obscurity unknown outside their small church or circle of friends. Yet for all his world wide fame David felt as if he were standing on the edge of a chasm. One step in the wrong direction and he would plunge into a darkness so deep he could never recover.

Sighing he rose from his antique desk and coincided his office. The opulent Oak paneling gleamed reflecting the rich leather couch and chairs. At 15 x 25 the office was as big as his first church. Pictures of David with presidents, celebrities and two popes lined one wall. Edged in between were honorary doctorates from 3 colleges and commendations from 5 world leaders. A built in bookcase graced the other wall

Most labor in obscurity unknown outside their small church or circle of friends. Yet for all his world wide fame David felt as if he were standing on the edge of a chasm.
Between these two sentences, there is an abrupt change from present tense to past tense. That is jarring.

...David felt as if he were standing on the edge of a chasm. One step in the wrong direction and he would plunge into a darkness so deep he could never recover.
You never tell us why he feels that way, or what is causing it, even though he knows. By not telling us, you are hiding information from the reader. That's cheating. It's also teasing, since you won't tell us the one thing we want to know.

Sighing he rose from his antique desk and coincided his office.
I don't understand the bolded part. Are you sure 'coincide' is the verb you want?

The opulent Oak paneling gleamed reflecting the rich leather couch and chairs. At 15 x 25 the office was as big as his first church. Pictures of David with presidents, celebrities and two popes lined one wall. Edged in between were honorary doctorates from 3 colleges and commendations from 5 world leaders. A built in bookcase graced the other wall housing over a thousand books, many of it volumes signed by the author.
Inventories aren't interesting. At this point, I don't want an inventory of his office, I want to know what he's upset about.

“Even without the conference table my office cost more than the first church,” David said to himself.
My question: so what? You haven't given me any context for this remark. Is he a greedy man who is gleeful over how great his office is? Is he remorseful that he has let himself accept such oppulence? Is he proud that he was able to pay such an affordable price for his first church?

He turned to gaze out the full glass wall. His third story office afforded him a view of Grace Tabernacle’s 150 acre estate, the small village of Grafton and beyond.
More inventory.

Two things to work on:

1) We don't need a line-item inventory of his surroundings. Ask yourself if a particular detail is relevant to the story. Is it important that his office is 15 x 25, or will 'large' suffice? Does it really matter that his office is on the 3rd floor? Is there significance to the fact that the bookcase is built-in? Or that he owns signed volumes? You get the idea.

2) You offer us no clue about David's emotions or motivations. He turns to a window. He says something unrevealing to himself. Yes, he may plunge into darkness, but I don't know what that means to him. Is he afraid of that? Or perhaps weary and welcoming it? Is he angry? Lustful? Bottom line: what's going on inside him?

My dad's a clergyman, so the idea of a minister with that kind of success is interesting to me. I wonder how he (your character) will deal with it. I hope you'll continue to work on this story.

Hope this helps.

Few ministers ever reach the pinnacle of success as David Padgett. – I agree, you have this phrased wrong. This sounds like it should be a thesis statement. More like – Few ministers ever reach anywhere near the success of David Padgett.

Then…what you need are some sort of supporting statements. Three, probably. Either describing David’s success, or intimating his success by listing ways that most ministers are not.

Most ministers find no one outside their church or circle of friends knows about them
Their charitable works are limited by contributions in the offering plate every Sunday.
Their Sunday broadcast is carried only by the local 50 kilowatt radio station.

Then maybe a way to segue into David’s musing like – Few of them have an antique desk in a private office that cost more some churches.

Then go on with the pictures of him with presidents and celebrities etc. and finally home in on his musing about something more critical to the story…I assume his dissatisfaction with his life or what he’s accomplished or something. That one step from the chasm bit.

Of course you could do it by listing the opposite, how he has bodyguards and pr people with him when he goes anywhere, he announces a cause and millions of the faithful send checks, 500 tv stations carry his Sunday message in prime time.

Your text is somewhere between smooth and clumsy, sometimes a little of each. The cure... time and effort. Most of us don't have Ray Bradbury's gift and need to edit - a lot.

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Inventories aren't interesting. At this point, I don't want an inventory of his office, I want to know what he's upset about.

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...and then you get Arriki:

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More like – Few ministers ever reach anywhere near the success of David Padgett.

Then…what you need are some sort of supporting statements. Three, probably. Either describing David’s success, or intimating his success by listing ways that most ministers are not.

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Personally, I disagree a little bit with Sojoyful: inventory can be interesting if it shows us something about the character. In this case, it shows us how Padgett defines "success": he's clearly focused on the wealth around him, and since he's feeling agitated, we get the vague sense that he's agitated about that. (It's only a vague sense, though, so you might want to come right out and say it.) So Sojoyful seems to say that you should cut out the description, but Arriki seems to say that you need more description (of a different type), while I disagree with both and think you're effectively characterizing your MC through the description that you have.

However, you're not home free. I think you have to strike a balance here. You have a _lot_ of description of Padgett's wealth, and not enough of why he's troubled. When I format this in Word, 1" margins and Courier New 12 point font, I see your last line as:

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leaders. A built in bookcase graced the other wall housing over

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That means that of your 136 words on page 1, only 40 of them (less than 30%) give us a sense that he's agitated, and none of them tell us why. The remaining 70% is _all_ description -- and not of a setting that is really unique, so it doesn't help draw us in. You can probably get about the same level of characterization in 1/4 to 1/2 the number of words.

Which brings me to a recommendation: cut your description to a few key details*. Even if you only cut the total description word count in half, you've still freed up about 50 words. Then use that extra space to tell us why he's agitated, and what the story's about.

* These details might include "15x25" rather than the more generic "large". I respectfully disagree with Sojoyful on this point, because I think specificity is crucial; built-in bookshelves holding leather-bound books say some specific things about the MC. I'm not saying that you should become generic; but you should (I think) remain specific about fewer things.

Hoping this helps,
Oliver

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Personally, I disagree a little bit with Sojoyful: inventory can be interesting if it shows us something about the character.

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