This portion of our web site will introduce you to the people who bring to life, with the help of the Spirit of God, the ministry of Spiritwatch Ministries, formerly called the TVBSA. We are a group of Christian believers concerned with the advance of spiritual and philosophical deception in the regions we live in.
Although we reside across the Southeast, and come together from diverse Christian spiritual traditions, we are united in accomplishing our central objective of countering the influences of these deceptive movements. We have actively worked with many other believers in the area who have the same passion, and have seen the Lord do great things as we have sought his grace to not only preach but defend His Gospel and Kingdom from the perversions of false religion and philosophy that opposes Christian truth.
So who are we? We'd like to introduce ourselves.
Michael Spencer is a Church of God (Cleveland) layman, a former Floridian from West Palm Beach, and has lived in Cleveland for the past 20 years. A longtime personal interest in spiritual deception has led to his involvement with the Spiritwatch outreach as an associate. Mike has been a faithful director of the prayer walking ministry of the Westmore Church of God, where he is a member.
He is a magna cum laude graduate of Lee University (B.A. in Biblical Education) is employed with T & D Christian Sales and is single, loves jazz, is an avid chess and tennis player. Mike would love to meet a Christian woman with the same interests and is a very available bachelor. He's currently learning how to play guitar and devours many a book in his never ending pursuit of knowledge. Mike can be contacted at sixthwarloan@netzero.net.
Randy Rogers is an avid student and reader of Christian apologetic literature and counter-cult information. His particular area of interest lies in Mormonism because of a relative who is an LDS apologist, and has enjoyed instruction from some of the most widely respected ministers in the Christian apologetic/counter-cult movement today. He has been married to his wife Susan for 4 years and they have two children, John Thomas and Andrew. He is presently employed by Delta Air Lines in the Technical Operations Center. Randy's adventurous and pioneering personal evangelism to Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as his enthusiastic support to the joint efforts of our team have been a great blessing.
Susan Rogers has been a Christian for 18 years, raised in a Methodist minister's home. She also has been to Watchman Fellowship conferences in counter-cult ministry training, and has worked with Randy in ministry to cult members. Her main area of ministry is musical, having been a soloist at many revivals, a choir member and worship team member and has led a children's church choir. Before becoming a full time mother to John Thomas and Andrew, Susan worked in the Whitfield County, Georgia school system for 7 years in special education.The Rogers attend the Douglasville Church of God in Douglasville, Georgia.
Bryan and Cheryl McConnell reside in Orlando, Florida and also have a great passion for countercult apologetics, having actively engaged in dialogue with Jehovah's Witnesses there and conducted discernment classes at their home church, the New Life Church of God. Bryan was instrumental in helping to organize a 1999 TVBSA discernment conference at NLCOG, and here, they are intently reviewing feedback forms received there. Bryan's future plans are to pursue a degree in apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary by distance learning. Bryan and Cheryl also have two children, and he keeps pretty busy with his own job in electronic control systems.
Bryan is working on an article regarding a popular evangelical teaching ministry currently sweeping many churches today that will document profound concerns about its orthodoxy.
Lance King is a 1994 graduate of Lee University, holding a B.A. in Bible and Theology. He has been involved in Christian countercult ministry since high school, and has a special burden for Jehovah's Witnesses and adherents of "neopagan" spiritualities. He feels a strong commitment to sharing the truth in love, and strives to accurately represent the same views he critiques. Lance is currently employed as a computer technician, and is pursuing a career in network administration.
Heather King graduated from Maryville College in 1995 with a B.A.degree in Sign Language Interpreting and a minor in Spanish. She grew up in a musical family in the Southern Baptist Church and has been involved in many different choirs and singing groups, both playing the piano and singing. On June 5, 1999, she married Lance. Together they reside in Knoxville, Tennessee, and happily oversee a household of two cats and two dogs which makes things quite interesting at times for them. They attend Fellowship Church there, an Evangelical Free Church congregation.
Steve and Kathy Hogel are residents of the Memphis, Tennessee area. Steve has a special burden for those caught up in religious abuse, and also recently became the co-moderator of the AR-Talk apologetics list owned by Apologia Report, a signal honor .. and enormous task as well. They both hail from the Chicago region and have four children. Here, they display their little "footballs" (Steve's endearing term) in a recent family portrait. Steve is employed with General Electric and Kathy keeps the homefires stoked, being a full time mother and organizer of an apologist's life.
Steve and Kathy are currently working on an expose of an abusive church located in the Chicago region and Steve is slated to deliver a talk at the 2005 EMNR conference based on this expose. And Kathy has just completed, with the help of Steve, their fourth child!
The Hogels attend a Baptist church where both are active in teaching ministry.
Joy Martinez is a fulltime university student in Cleveland and co-director of Spiritwatch Ministries. She was a crisis phone counselor for the Cleveland chapter of the Tampa-based Christian Helplines International (where she met Rafael!), and has also engaged in extensive countercult training under Watchman Fellowship, as well as in other countercult and apologetic teaching venues over the past several years.She is a 2004 graduate from Lee University in Cleveland with a B.A. degree in Psychology, and will pursue her master's degree in counselling psychology there, hoping to intern at the Wellspring Rehabilitation Center in Ohio.
She is also the mother of two hopelessly spoiled cats, Squeak and Solomon.
Rafael Martinez is a bivocational licensed minister with the Church of God (Cleveland) and is the other co-director of Spiritwatch Ministries. His areas of expertise includes aberrant churches, several cultic movements, spiritual abuse and mind control. Currently, he has been engaged in the resistance against the Remnant Fellowship cult of Franklin, Tennessee. He is a 1991 graduate of Lee University (B.S. in Pastoral Studies with a double major in Christian education) is employed by the Maytag Corporation and is married to Joy, his wife of twelve years.
They both attend the South Cleveland Church of God, where Rafael is in the process of becoming an elder there under the ministry of Pastor Chris Moody.
In 1993, the outreach began as the Tennessee Valley Bible Students Association under the auspices of the Westmore Church of God, of Cleveland, Tennessee and was under the oversight of Westmore's outreach leadership until the summer of 2002, when the TVBSA withdrew from Westmore's active ministry. In 2003, the TVBSA changed its name to Spiritwatch Ministries.
Are you a mature Christian of good testimony with a concern and passion for helping counter the spread of false teaching and cultic movements in the Tennessee Valley, East Tennessee and beyond? We'd love to hear from you! Together, we can defend the faith by speaking the truth in love!
E-mail us to explore the vision of Spiritwatch Ministries at revrafael@bellsouth.net!