“I’ve been in the business of preaching a long time,” said Mary Mays, pastor of United Vision Church of Faith in Calhoun City. “I raised up a house full of kids, and I started preaching after I had my first child.”
Mays and her late husband, William Mays Jr., had 13 children. Today she has 49 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren and 22 great-great-grandchildren.
“I read in the Bible to train a child in the way that I would have them to go, that was talking about God, not me. When I had my first child, I started teaching him about Jesus and the Bible, just like my Mama did me.”
Her husband founded the church, and after he died they feared the church would go down.
“I said we can’t do that,” Mays said. “I asked everyone to follow me and I’m going to follow Jesus. I’ve been preaching here ever since.”
United Vision is in its third location now on Hwy. 9 directly across the street from the Calhoun City Post Office. It’s been there for a decade.
Pastor Mays is 88 years old.
“I’m not going to stop preaching until I get to 100,” she said. “When I get 100, I’m going to let them (her children and grandchildren) take the church over, but I’m still going to sit right there (in the front pew).”
Two of her sons are deacons in the church – Richard and Jerry Mays – and her daughter Martha Harper preaches there as well.
“I call her a co-pastor. She preaches really good,” Mays said. “We also have some younger understudy ministers, too.”
The church averages around 30 people.
“We don’t have a lot of people, but they’re here most of the time,” Mays said.
Mays enjoys seeing the younger people in the church preach, but when she “gets a notion” to preach, she gets in the pulpit.
“I just sit everybody down when I get ready to preach,” she said.
Mays pulls her messages mostly from the New Testament.
“After Jesus came on the scene, I’m a Jesus person,” Mays said. “He’s the one that died for my sins. Those old folks (in the Old Testament), they’re alright, but they live by law. Now, we live by Spirit and in truth – that’s what Jesus is. I think everybody needs to preach about Jesus.”
She particularly loves to preach from the Gospels and Romans.
“I love Romans 9-10,” she said. “Right now I’m in Revelation and it’s really scary.”
Mays said the first time she preached to a large crowd was at a Methodist convention.
“The Bishop got up and said ‘We’re going to hear from Minister Mays.’ I about fell out that seat,” she said. “I hadn’t been studying on nothing to preach that day. I got up there and preached on John, out of the second chapter, without ever looking at anything.”
“I’ve been a pretty good preacher all my days because I love God and I love God’s people. That’s what it takes,” she said. “You love Him first and then you love his people. It’s hard some times to love people. You have to really have a love for Jesus in your heart.”
Mays said she loves her church and believes in keeping busy and always moving.
“We can make it if we try. I’m not a quitter,” she said. “They tell me sometimes I need to sit down. I tell them I sit down when I take a notion, but God don’t sit down. God is always busy. I like to stay busy, too.”