Rev. Dr. Wayne W. Mays currently serves Presiding Elder for the Houston District in the Eighth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church under the leadership of Senior Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick, III.
Thank you for the opportunity to interview you. We would like to give everyone the opportunity to know a little more about you.
Where were you born?
Atlanta Georgia’s Grady Hospital Hugh Spalding, segregated ward.
Please share with us your educational background. James Madison High School, University of Houston, Bachelor of Science in Technology Interdenominational Theological Center Phillips School of Theology Seminary, Master of Divinity Theta Phi Honor society
I began a DMin program at St. Paul Theological Seminary, and completed an online Doctoral program in the Philosophical Attributes in Leadership in conjunction with work from Asbury seminary and the Army Command and General Staff College.
Can you tell us about your “calling” into ministry? I was really called at age 14 and then again at 19, I asked the Lord to allow me to be a good steward, and then finally succumbed at age 29. I remember Bishop Curry talked to me about it when I was 14, but it was at a time when my parents were getting a divorce so I just said no. I didn’t have my dad to talk to, but Bishop Curry talked to me. What was ironic about it was I asked Bishop Curry what was I going to do about my “calling”, because Bishop Curry was leaving. He said I am going to California to prepare a church for you. Now that was 1974, and it ended up that my first pastoral assignment would be under Bishop E Lynn Brown, to the West Covina Mission, in California. I would pastor in California for nine total years. So, he did prepare! After that time, Bishop Stewart asked me to be a presiding elder, under his leadership, when he went to the Third Episcopal District. I served under Bishop for about 8 years total, as the Presiding Elder of the Kansas District, and pastor of Bowers Memorial, then his as Administrative Assistant, while pastoring the Jamison Memorial Church, in St. Louis. I was also the Rear Detachment Chaplain, while in the Texas National Guard.
Why do you feel called to serve the CME church?
I believe that I am “called” to serve, not only because my parents were CME’s, but really and truly because, while I wrestled against it, on my travels everywhere I went, I met CME’s. And again, because they knew my parents, and it is a connectional church. When I was in Georgia, I joined and was under watch care in Augusta, Georgia CME Church, at Fort Benning Georgia. That is where I earned my Airborne wings, and where I learned that I liked to jump out of planes. I think that is where I met Bishop Thomas Brown. When I was in Germany, I met the late Chaplain Miles. He had known me as a baby, because he knew my parents. He met them, while he was also a student at ITC. He, being a senior officer, gave me an implied directive. You see, I was a lieutenant. He asked me to help him start a chapel service. Although it was not CME, because you couldn’t give denominational names to services back then, we did begin the CME “style” Bible Study, and that was my young adult lay activity. We started that service, and it became one of the predominant gospel services. It lasted until 2012 which is when they started closing down bases over there. Then I started meeting CME’s everywhere! We were in Fort Dix NJ, before deployment, I met the late Pastor Love, who did not know my parents. Now that’s the reason I say it wasn’t just my parents. He did not know my parents, he did not know I was CME. He took me in to be a local preacher in that congregation and that is where I really started learning even though I has had studied and knew of the CME history as a young adult. And that was when I was 29, just before deploying to Dessert Storm and that is when I started really taking is seriously about the local preaching and being a preacher in the CME Church there in a church that had no connection to my parents but was a very loving church and a very nurturing church and we were very active young adults and I would meet the other young adults New York Washington and Pennsylvania conference being part of that group. In fact, even back then Bishop Walker who was a pastor and presiding elder ?? and some other people so that lead to preaching experience.
As a Presiding Elder do you struggle with the most? The most challenging thing.
Well, I have to look at two. One the optics of our churches is not having the numerical growth that some would think should be in place at this time, in comparison to other churches. But I think really the most challenging is the growth inwardly. Not just to expand but to really know what thus sayeth the Lord. To really know deeply our history and how the Lord has been with us since the slavery days. Understanding that John Westley did not set out to start a denomination but to bring people to Holiness. Holiness in a way that is reaffirm in the small group setting, not necessarily small churches but small group settings where we can account ourselves to one another in the word of God, in accordance with the Holy spirit. Then, as prepared disciples, one can go out to attract others that to be disciples (not just members). So that is the most challenging and that is tedious, it takes time to work with people who really want to know that level of knowledge. And not just have the knowledge but also the spiritual where-with-all to be able to say now I can follow within the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. So, whether I am in the rural, I’m in the urban or I’m in an area where I’m dealing with an addictive person or whether I am dealing with person who are wealthy. To be able to say that the gospel can be cultivating and nourishing to all groups if it’s presented by the gifts and skills that the Lord gives to you and that is where your growth should come from. In otherward as you plant the seed and the holy spirit would water, there should be some growth and that growth should be disciples if you planting disciple seed in the gospel of Christ.
Tell us about your leadership philosophy and how it influences the culture of the Pastors under your care and the CME church? The scripture is Ephesians 4: 11-16
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
And the Gospel scripture in that how we worship John 4:24. “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” And so that is what we do. Let the Lord lead you and Zoweh breath upon you and then as He promotes His holy sprit within you and around you, just lead in truth, just be who God has intended for you to be not who you necessarily want to be and somebody else says this is how they want you to be. you can take in to account what they want you to be but you still have to be true to yourself and to who God has made you to be.
Anything Else you would like the readers to know that we might have left off?
I did except Christ at the age of nine at Miles Chapel Houston Texas and I was a proud pastor and treasurer for the East Texas Region 8 years and pastored the post oak CME church. I just want to make sure that they know I was proud to be their pastor for those eight years. Married to my wife of 37 years, with 3 adult children, one son-in-law and one daughter-in-law and seven grandchildren.
