Personal Testimony of Mike Hogg
I was saved and committed my life to Christ in the summer of 1961 at a tent revival on Canal street in East Houston. Magnolia Park Baptist Church sponsored this revival and I was Scripturally Baptized in the sanctuary located on Canal Street sometime after my salvation.
I attended church regularly from that time on. My family moved to Sheldon Texas in 1965, and we began attending First Baptist Church of Sheldon. I firmly believe that God called me to full time Ministry at age (16) sixteen, when he called me to be the Music Minister at this Church under Reverend Bob Shotwell. Reverend Shotwell was a great man of God and very good mentor, but I avoided the call of God at that time in order to pursue the career of "my" dreams, being a Police Officer. I served as part time Music Minister for First Baptist Sheldon until I entered the Police Academy on February 2, 1970. The Houston Police Department prohibited me from holding a second job while in the academy. In order to pursue "my" dream, I resigned as music minister.
My first (7) years as a Police Officer, I was assigned to the night shift with either Tuesday & Wednesday or Monday & Tuesday off. I used my assignment as an excuse for my sporadic church attendance, but I had no excuse for my failure to represent my Lord in a fashion pleasing to Him.
In 1978 I moved my family to Pearland and we began to attend Shadycrest Baptist Church. It was not long before God tried once more to call me to His service. I was called to be the Part time Music Minister at Shadycrest. I served there until 1981, when I again allowed my profession to dictate a change and I chose to resign this position.
In 1982 I moved to Channelview Texas and began attending First Baptist Channelview. The Pastor was Charles Echols. It was just a short time, and Pastor Echols asked me if I would consider a call as part time Music Minister for the Church. Here again, God was reaching out to me, only this time I felt His urging more deeply than I ever had to truly serve Him. My wife, Cyndi had professed to be a Christian, and like me, she was raised in church. She even played the piano for her church.
It was while I was serving under Pastor Echols, that my wife realized she had never truly invited Christ into her heart. Pastor Echols led her Christ and we both became much more committed.
It was during this time of service, that I experienced my first dose of distasteful "Church Politics". Pastor Echols was trying to move an older congregation forward to a more contemporary approach to worship, and the resistance and unchristian acts to subvert his leadership, led to Pastor Echols accepting a call to another congregation.
At about this same time a group came to our Church to sing. They were called, "The Peacemakers." This was a group of Houston Police Officers who traveled all over, singing and witnessing for the Lord. I had heard of them, but had never witnessed their ministry. They had such a sweet spirit and effective Ministry I began to pray about how I could help them. At the urging of God, I called the leader of the group and told them that I would do anything to help them in their Ministry. I was told they needed a "roady". This was someone to help carry equipment in and out and run the sound system. While I thought God would call me to sing, I knew He wanted me to help them, so I said yes and showed up at their next Church meeting and set up equipment, worked sound, and prayed for them while they were ministering.
The very next day, I received a call from the leader of the group. He asked if I could sing lead in the quartet. I said yes of coarse and he explained that the lead singer was transferred to narcotics and could no longer sing in uniform. The only catch was I had to learn the music in four days before their next date. With God's help, I learned the needed songs and went on to travel the country with "The Peacemakers". My wife was the back up pianist and worked sound for us. It was such a blessing to feel that I was finally in God's will, and doing it inside the profession that I loved.
While traveling with the group, I experienced a variety of worship styles and heard numerous preachers from a number of different denominations. God began to show that there was a whole lot more to worship than the mere act of singing the 1st, 2nd, and last stanzas of two old hymns and sitting down so the Pastor could be through by noon. When we weren't ministering with the group, Cyndi and I decided to visit some other denominations.
On Easter Sunday morning, 1986, we visited an Assembly of God church, Cathedral Of Praise. The Pastor was Gene Summers. I experienced worship on a new level, as if I had actually been into the throne room and touched the hem of His garment.
I must admit, that being a lifelong Baptist this freedom in Worship was not what I was used to. But God had prepared me through the itinerate ministry with the Peacemakers to be accepting of other "styles" of worship. Cyndi and I agreed to continue attendance and eventually, after resolving doctrinal differences in our hearts, joined the Church. Cyndi began to play the piano with the praise band and I would play guitar or keyboard and sing backup when I wasn''t with the Peacemakers.
In latter 1986, the Praise & Worship Leader, was transferred out of state by his job. At that time Pastor Gene Summers approached me and asked me to Lead Praise & Worship. I had to admit that I was getting tired of all the travel every weekend and not having time with my family. I shared the request with the group and we began to pray and search for a new lead singer. Wouldn't you know it. He was on the sound board. Once replaced, I accepted the call and assumed the position of Praise & Worship Leader for Cathedral of Praise Assembly of God.
In 1990 God opened the door for me to retire from the Houston Police Department, and become the Chief of Police in Pearland, Texas. Again, my duties required me to give up my position as a Minister of Music, but this time, I am convinced it was God's plan and not "my" dream, because this position allowed me the opportunity to minister to so many different people from so many walks of life. I began a true lay Ministry. I got in a habit, that I still pursue today, of praying each morning before I ever began my day. I was allowed the opportunity to give my testimony, preach and sing in a number of Churches both in Pearland and beyond, because it was a "novelty" to have Christian Police Chief minister in your Church. I had many opportunities to pray with my employees, their families, and others that were hurting. This was all open to me because of my position of coarse, but more, because I was seeking earnestly to do God's will and not my own. He was allowing me to minister.
In 1992, as a result of some political turmoil in our city, I accepted an offer from Pastor Rick Scarborough, for him to become my mentor. When we moved to the Pearland Area in 1995, Cyndi and I left Cathedral of Praise and joined First Baptist Pearland where Rick was Pastor. While I was not the Minister of Music, I did get many opportunities to fill in for the Full Time Pastor in his absence. I also became active in the music ministry teams and began to teach a number of classes. One of the classes I was asked to teach was "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby. I had gone through this coarse with Pastor Scarborough as part of our mentoring sessions and had experienced a greater depth of understanding of how to listen to God.
I taught the class a number of times and each time I learned much more than the students about how to listen to God, to look for where He is working and join Him. It was during one of these classes, which Cyndi and I hosted at our home that I began to truly listen to what God had been saying since I was sixteen years old. I truly felt His calling to the ministry. Up to this time, I had turned down requests to be ordained as a deacon and now I knew why. I shared my thoughts with Pastor Scarborough and asked how to begin the process of becoming a minister of the gospel. He shared with me that licensing was the first step. I was licensed as a minister of the Gospel and preached my first sermon in this new role.
Over the next few months I prayed diligently for God to reveal His will to me and to open the doors for full time service. God answered my prayers in a way that I had not expected. I assumed that since He had given me the talent to sing and my whole Christian life had been centered around music, that He would call me as a Praise and Worship minister. In December of 1998, Pastor Scarborough approached me to consider a call to full time ministry as the Administrative Pastor for First Baptist Pearland. After long prayer, and discussion with my wife, I told him that if the Church called me, I would accept the call.
I soon got my second lesson in Church Politics and how cruel Christian Brothers can be to one another. However this time it was not directed toward the Pastor I loved; it was directed at me. I very soon knew exactly how Charles Echols had felt when he tried to lead people to do the right thing the right way. Like Charles, I knew that taking any action that would hurt the Church body was not pleasing to God, I chose to leave the position quietly and asked God to direct my path.
I must admit that all the time I was hoping He would allow me to go back to where I was comfortable, in law enforcement. I event ran for Sheriff with the calm assurance that God would help me win the race. I now realize in retrospect, that He would not deviate from His plan for me, and that He had me right where I needed to be. Totally dependant on Him.
At this same time, one of my fellow Pastors from First Baptist had received the call to start a mission church in West Pearland. He asked Cyndi and I to join him in starting this new work. We did so and found it exciting to start a new work. After the Sheriff's race was over, Pastor Keith Anderson approached me and asked if I would consider a call to be the part time Praise and Worship Pastor for New Harvest Christian Fellowship, the new work. I prayed about it and discussed it with Cyndi and we were in agreement that God was wanting me back in the ministry. We knew that financially it would be a struggle, but that God was in control and that He had always given us much more that we needed to survive. We accepted the call and began service as the Praise and Worship Pastor in the summer of 2000.
On 9-9-01, two days before 9-11, God saved me miraculously from certain death. I experienced an acute abdominal aneurysm. I had lost so much blood that the medical staff could not get a blood pressure reading. What you may not be aware of is that 92% of people who experience this do not make it to the hospital. Of the 8% who do over 90% of them die. The Church rallied around my wife and they all prayed. God answered and I am here with no ill effects of the aneurysm.
During and after my miraculous recovery, I prayed continually for God to clearly tell me why He had saved me. I knew in my heart that He had a job for me to do and that I could not miss it.
After 9 months of continually seeking Gods face and His presence so that I could hear from Him, He finally granted my request on July 5th, 2002. Following days of laying before the Lord and Worshipping Him with all of my heart, body, mind, and spirit at a worship conference in Dallas, God spoke. He spoke through a broken heart; through tear filled eyes, to a broken man who would not stop seeking. He said clearly and concisely, just as clearly and concisely as if He had written it on this paper,
" Now, Lead My People To Worship Me".
A dead man; a man given a chance to live again and to serve a living and merciful God. This walking and talking dead man has an assignment from God and I have promised Him, I will never do it in a luke-warm fashion. I was almost "spewed out of His mouth". Now Im hot and I cannot cool off again. To lose my passion would be to lose the life He gave me.
What I must do is allow the Holy Spirit to engage this passion in a manner that leads people to the Father and that is not offensive thus having the opposite effect.
God has been preparing me for years for the assignment of the moment. God did not call me to be the Worship Pastor of a huge congregation, with a 200 voice choir and 30 piece orchestra. He has called me to New Harvest to work with the servants He provides. He revealed clearly to me that I have not developed the skills and abilities He had given me to a point where I could be successful in serving Him in that role at this point. He further revealed to me through many tears, that I had not allowed Him to develop my heart as a Pastor to that point where I could effectively deal His people and prepare them for the Kingdom assignments He has for them. I should have been wearing a big sign that said:
Caution, Pastor under Construction.
Preparation for fulfilling the calling God has given is paramount to doing the job. Before you can lead others, you must know where you are going You cannot lead others where you are unwilling to go yourself. You must build a body of knowledge containing what God and His Word says about the Kingdom and all who will enter into it.
I cannot tell you I have learned all there is to know about Worship and leading God's people. What I can tell you, without exception is that every aspect of the Christian Walk is based in and on having a "HEART OF WORSHIP".
The actual first step in preparing for a Worship service is preparing your own heart. If this step is omitted, you are just preparing a song list, an order of service, or a thesis. Not a sermon.
The majority of time I spend in preparing for a worship service is spent in actual worship through prayer to prepare my heart and mind to hear from God, "what He wants to happen and what He wants to say."
Worship is not about me, or my talents, or whether I can sing or preach. Its not about entertaining the people who attend the Worship services, while we must be cognizant of the peoples "comfort zones " with regards to the styles manifested during Worship. It's about preparing the best I know how, both spiritually and physically, then having the wisdom to give it all to God for Him to use through His Holy spirit. I must be an empty vessel through which God works His Power and His Glory.
Having finally submitted totally to God's Will, He called me to SBC in the summer of 2003. Second Baptist Church of Pearland, was an old established work, that was slowly but steadily losing membership. Steeped in "Baptist Tradition", the church had never reached it's potential for God.
The first Sermon Series God gave me, prior to the Church extending the call, was entitled " IS IT BIBLICAL OR TRADITIONAL". I made clear to the Church that I would always Preach "THE WORD" not man's traditions.
My philosophy is, " If the Bible prohibits it, I will preach against it. If the Bible says to do it, I will Preach to follow God's instructions. If the Bible does not address it, that is a matter for the Holy Spirit and God to work with the individual about resolving." I'm not in the conviction business. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
If I can talk you into something, someone more articulate than me can talk you out of it. But if God convinces you to act or not act in a certain way, that is true and lasting change in your life.
I firmly believe that A Great Committment to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, will build a Great Church.
