when Singles Ministry and the song “Amazing” together produced six Stellar Awards. That sense of isolation evaporated for Pastor Mike Jr. In my head, it was still just me and my church.” At that point, it still hadn’t hit me that I had a national career. “I wanted to do a project that would minister to everybody who was home alone. “The worst person to be with sometimes is yourself,” he explained. He returned to his studio and completed I Got It: Singles Ministry Vol. What he was hearing were single persons asking him for prayer because they were anxious about quarantining alone. reflected, “so I didn’t have a chance to hear anybody sing the song.” “The moment ‘Big’ hit number one, the world shut down,” Pastor Mike Jr. All the songs came from Pastor Mike Jr.’s studio computer, all recorded right in his basement. The single “Big” hit radio first, and the album Live Free followed. played “Big” and “I Got It” and Douglas signed him to his Black Smoke Music Worldwide label. When Douglas laid eyes on the recording studio, he was intrigued. When the betrothed couple came to Pastor Mike Jr.’s home for marriage counseling, he escorted them downstairs for the session. Sure enough, things started coming together musically at the ten-year mark, when gospel singer James Fortune appeared at the church’s ten-year anniversary program and unexpectedly brought his business manager, Kerry Douglas of Black Smoke Music Worldwide, into the Rock City galaxy.ĭouglas would meet and propose marriage to one of Pastor Mike Jr.’s best volunteers. The studio was his secret sanctuary, a chance to convert raw, unexpressed emotions into religious music. He never expected anyone would ever hear them. He set up a recording studio in his basement and began writing and recording songs. to channel his anxiety into a purposeful hobby. didn’t pursue music professionally until 2019, with the launch of “Big.” “I heard the Lord say, ‘For ten years love your city, love your church, love your family, and the world will come looking for you.’” In the meantime, the stress of full-time ministry led Pastor Mike Jr. Outside of singing here and there, Pastor Mike Jr. “God just kept blessing us and soon we had 5,000 members.” But because the church’s website was, people started referring to Rock Church as Rock City. On Easter 2009, it had ten members, all from the Miles College youth ministry.īy the following Easter, the congregation had grown to between 500 and 600. He founded Rock Church in Fairfield, just south of Birmingham. When the youth ministry “exploded,” he said, it felt time to start a church. From there, he led a successful youth ministry at Miles College, an HBCU near Birmingham. enrolled in Ashland Theological Seminary and studied at Yale Divinity School. As a youngster, he travelled with his father and sang solos at revival services.Īfter dutifully following his parents’ request that he study business at the University of West Alabama, Pastor Mike Jr. never wanted to do anything else but be a pastor and create music. It’s not surprising, considering this legacy of leadership, which also includes his father, Bishop Michael McClure Sr., pastor of Revelation Church Ministry in Ironwood, Alabama, that Pastor Mike Jr. King organize the March on Washington and stood behind him during his “I Have a Dream” speech. Calvin was the first to be arrested at the sit-in. and his brother, Bishop Calvin, led the 1963 lunch counter sit-in at Woolworth’s in Birmingham. Martin Luther King wouldn’t move in Birmingham without calling my grandfather and my great uncle, Abraham Woods,” said Pastor Mike Jr. His maternal grandfather is Bishop Calvin Woods, retired president of the Birmingham Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. comes from a family with deep roots in the Civil Rights Movement. said, “being able to accomplish all this during a pandemic.”īorn in Tacoma, Washington, in 1983, and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Pastor Mike Jr. “It’s been a surreal journey,” Pastor Mike Jr. It’s a prelude to a full album scheduled to drop in January. He is also the first gospel artist to earn the top Stellar Award, Artist of the Year, two years in a row. 1 (Black Smoke Music Worldwide / Rock City Media Group). or simply PMJ, took home six Stellar Awards at this year’s 37 th annual ceremony, including Album of the Year for I Got It: Singles Ministry Vol. (article taken from Rock City Media Group Press Release)
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