On the May 17th edition of HUR@HOME Inspiration we were joined by the dynamic Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant and Gospel singer Mike McClure, Jr. better known as Pastor Mike, Jr. Both Pastor’s urged us to pray for God’s Will in our lives.
Pastor Jamal Bryant is Senior Pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia. He is a powerful speaker and a social justice activist who earned his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse and Master of Divinity from Duke University. Before New Birth, he was the pastor of Empowerment Temple AME in Baltimore.
Dr. Bryant talked about New Birth’s efforts to serve its community by providing free COVID-19 testing to 2,000 people in one day in the church parking lot. Pastor Bryant and church members also provided groceries for 1,000 people last week. New Birth is helping smaller churches and Dr. Bryant stressed the importance of churches learning to grow technologically and strategically through the challenges presented by the pandemic. He launched a livestream series today titled, “Prospering through the pandemic.”
Dr. Bryant also let us know that he had every intention of joining hundreds of Georgians at a rally yesterday who demanded justice in the wake of the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. However, the NAACP urged him to not come in person because of safety issues, but to protest online, which he did.
Mike McClure, Jr, better known as Pastor Mike, Jr. is Pastor of the Rock City Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and a five-time Stellar Award nominee. He talked about the origins of his hit song, “Big” which started as a sermon that got a million views online. He was urged by a record executive to record it as a song and it went big.
Pastor Mike talked about overcoming the challenges of releasing new music during the pandemic and gave a delightful account of marrying his childhood sweetheart. They have five children. Pastor Mike started his church with he was 25 years old and the church now draws 3,500 worshippers a week. Like Dr. Bryant, Pastor Mike is helping churches in his area that lack technological capacity make it through the pandemic.
