the legendary Dr. Prince Emmanuel Yelder<\/a>, who served as music minister at New Hope from 2001-2017.<\/p>\n\u201cI learned a lot, just already being in the House, just being a musician,\u201d Mays said. \u201c\u2026 [Yelder] showed me a lot of ways how to do music ministry and handle a whole mass choir. And to be able to come back and actually be the minister of music, I already knew how this House worked, I already knew how Pastor Clarke worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yelder said Mays was always a quick study and energetic.\u00a0\u201cHe brought his excitement to the worship experience, often dancing and engaging the congregation in popular tunes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yelder remembers when Mays\u2019s mom would bring her son to rehearsals when she was a member of Birmingham Mass Choir, which Yelder directed. \u201cMike, as we call him, would be at the rehearsal and finally got up the nerve to ask me if he could play the drums in our rehearsals.\u00a0 I told him \u2018yes\u2019 and he began to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cA few years later, I was doing a recording with the Jacksonville State University Gospel Choir as their producer and there was Mike singing with that choir as he had started attending school there.\u00a0 He had begun to play keyboard instruments and direct.\u00a0 I saw growth and potential in him.\u00a0 I pulled him aside and offered him a position as musician at New Hope.\u201d<\/p>\nMichael Mays, Minister of Music at New Hope Baptist Church during worship services in Birmingham. (Reginald Allen, For The Birmingham Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cMagnetic\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nDr. Gregory L. Clarke has served as the pastor of New Hope Baptist Church since 1986 and in 2022 selected Mays for the role of Minister of Music, making Mays just the third person to hold the position under Clarke.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver 39 years I\u2019ve only had three ministers of music,\u201d Clarke said. \u201cSo, I have had stability when it comes to the choir. Mike is an extraordinary musician, but he also brings passion with whatever he does. His passion and his gifts are contagious. That is what spreads across to all the members of the church and in the congregation, whether it is this congregation or we are in front of another.\u201d<\/p>\nPastor Gregory Clarke, left, and Michael Mays, Minister of Music at New Hope Baptist Church in Birmingham. (Reginald Allen, For The Birmingham Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nClarke describes Mays as \u201cmagnetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a special type of anointing to do the quality of music that we are talking about,\u201d said the pastor. \u201cAs the minister of music, he is not only over the mass choir, but also over our praise group, \u2018Spirit of Levi.\u2019 He also has a male chorus, and he also has all of our dance teams that includes mimes, youth, and adult praise teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, August 3, Mays celebrated his third anniversary as the Minister of Music.\u00a0\u201cAnd it has been a blessing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe went from about 15 to about 40 choir members. We have a full band. It is exciting to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Natural Born Musician <\/strong><\/p>\nAs a Birmingham-native, Mays, 36, said his passion for music began at an early age.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I I was born to do music,\u201d he said. \u201cEven when I was two years old, I would just pick up anything just to make a beat, and then it just started going from there. I wanted to learn how to play the piano, so I started taking piano lessons and it just [grew] from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He attended Huffman High School where he led the band as drum major in 2006 and a member of the drumline in 2007.<\/p>\n
Mays not only lends his gifts to New Hope Baptist Church but always to several high school marching bands.\u00a0\u201cI work out with Birmingham City School Marching bands. I have worked out with Ramsay High School, Clay Chalkville, and I have worked out with Minor High School,\u201d said Mays.<\/p>\n
Every first and third Sunday, the mass choir performs at New Hope Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually, we meet on Tuesdays at 7 o\u2019clock,\u201d said Mays. \u201cWhen we are getting ready for a concert, like one that we usually do in October called, Music and Cultural Arts Ministry (MACAM) concert. Usually when we are getting ready for that, you can catch us rehearing every week as we are preparing for that. \u201c<\/p>\n
MACAM is New Hope\u2019s annual concert that celebrates the whole music culture arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year we\u2019re doing the fourth Sunday in October. So we\u2019re going to close out here in Birmingham, of course, we do the [Magic City] Classic weekend, which is that Saturday. We\u2019re going to close it out that Sunday by doing our concert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mays said his main goal overall is to continue the legacy set before him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully I can keep the mantle going so I can pass it down to the next person, and the legacy keeps going about the New Hope Choir,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For more New Hope Baptist Church, visit the group on Facebook at: https:\/\/thehopebham.com\/media\/<\/em><\/p>\nMichael Mays, Minister of Music at New Hope Baptist Church during worship services in Birmingham. (Reginald Allen, For The Birmingham Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
Like this:<\/h3>\n Like<\/span><\/span> Loading…<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.birminghamtimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Mays, Minister of Music at New Hope Baptist Church during worship services in Birmingham. (Reginald Allen, For The Birmingham Times) By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times For Michael Mays, Minister of Music at New Hope Baptist Church in West End, inheriting a music department with a long and stellar history in the state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1966300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1966299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Minister-of-Music-Michael-Mays-Builds-on-the-Legacy-New.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1966300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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