A system for managing a JMS message store in a clustered network includes an object acting as a message store for Java Message Service (JMS). A lead server is selected from several clustered servers. The lead server uses a distributed consensus algorithm to select a host server, utilizing multicast messaging while executing rounds of the algorithm. The selected host server hosts the JMS message store, providing sole access to JMS. The other servers are notified of the new host by multicast messaging. All servers in the cluster can use JMS, but they must send messages to the message store on the host and pick up any messages from the message store.