Executive Pastor Synetra Leaphart-Mack

Built New Hope From Day One

Executive Pastor Synetra Leaphart-Mack is credited alongside Bishop Dr. Richard Leaphart-Mack in the founding of New Hope Cathedral in July 2001. She is not simply the pastor's wife standing beside him — she is a co-laborer who helped build this church from the ground up, carrying her own calling to lead, disciple, and develop the body of believers that now fills New Hope's pews.

First Lady Synetra was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of the late Bishop John D. Howard and Missionary Johnnie Lee Howard — a home rooted in ministry from her earliest years. She attended D.M. Therrell High School and went on to study accounting at Atlanta Area Technical College, developing a disciplined, detail-oriented mind that has served New Hope's operations and development ever since. In October 1988, she married Bishop Leaphart-Mack, beginning a partnership in life and in ministry that has now spanned more than three decades — thirteen years of marriage before New Hope even existed, and twenty-five years of building it together since.

As Executive Pastor, First Lady Synetra carries direct responsibility for the operational and pastoral health of the church. Her leadership shows up most clearly in the ministries she personally directs: the Daughters of New Hope, where women are discipled and developed into leaders; New Members Services, where every person who walks through New Hope's doors is welcomed, connected, and given a clear next step; and the church's Grief Ministry, which she leads personally — walking alongside members through loss with the kind of pastoral care that only comes from someone who has counted the cost of ministry herself.

Her fingerprints are on the culture of New Hope as much as her husband's — a church that is bold in vision but personal in care, strong in leadership but never distant from its people. That is the standard First Lady Synetra has set, and it is the standard New Hope holds to today.