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 General Electric 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.
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. They 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.
Steve and Kathy Hogel are residents of the Memphis, Tennessee area. Steve has a special burden for those caught up in religious abuse, and is a co-moderator of the AR-Talk apologetics list owned by Apologia Report, and was recently appointed to the position of Assistant Executive Director for the Evangelical Ministries to New Religions coaltion. 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. Kathy is an active and vital member of their home church's educational ministries program.
The Hogels attend a Baptist church in Memphis where both are active in teaching and disciple ministry there.
Joy Martinez assists in the administration work 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 also is 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 Whirlpool Corporation and is married to Joy, his wife of sixteen years.
They both attend the South Cleveland Church of God, where Rafael has served as an elder there under the ministry of Pastor Chris Moody and is now actively seeking preaching appointments within the larger fellowship of the Church of God (Cleveland).
Our fellow ministry laborers and friends Randy and Susan Rogers and Lance and Heather King, due to other personal commitments, have had to withdraw from active ministry with us and their ministry and time with us will not be forgotten. We love and pray that God's best be theirs!
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 rafael@spiritwatch.org!