Core Team Intro: Brian + Lisa

Brian and Lisa Hovis’ Salvation Testimonies & Introductions

Brian’s Testimony:   

When I was a young child my mom met and married a man by the name of Oliver Hovis, and he adopted me and my brother. He was a very good man, and he raised me and my brother in a home with Christian values. At the age of six, I made a decision to accept Christ. I walked the aisle of the church, said the sinner’s prayer, and never remembered what the preacher said to me at the time or realized what it meant. For many years, I considered this my salvation experience. Afterwards, I never experienced any type of change in my life, and I certainly never considered what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  At the age of seventeen, I went to work at a chemical drum factory in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Shortly after, I met a young man who had just started working there and who had recently trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. From the very moment I met him,  I could see and sense that his sole desire in life was to live surrendered to Jesus. This young man was previously a heroin addict and God had redeemed his heart and life and miraculously changed it. Through him, the Holy Spirit began to show me what was missing in my own life. For years, I had based my salvation on an experience that I could not even remember. So, at the age of eighteen years old, on July 31, 1980, during a break at work, I committed my life to trust and live for Jesus Christ. Since that day, through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in me, I have sought to continually love and serve Him and He continues to change my heart and life. Today, I am fifty-eight years old and I have been married for thirty-two years; God has given me a beautiful family and it continues to grow. During the past thirty-two years I have had the greatest privilege of leading my wife and both of my children to faith in Jesus Christ. I surrendered to full-time ministry over twenty years ago. Since that time, I have pastored five different churches and during the last four years I have managed two phases of a drug and alcohol abuse program in Columbia, SC. I have witnessed many people come to know Jesus as their Savior through obedience in the area of ministry that God has entrusted me with at Oliver Gospel, and it has dramatically convicted and challenged my own heart and changed my life as a result. I have experienced many ups and downs as a follower of Christ, but I wouldn’t change it for anything in this world. My hope and prayer, through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in and through me, is to continue to equip others in a transformational life process for many years to come, that builds and strengthens the Kingdom of God. 

Lisa’s Testimony:

My name is Lisa Hovis. Brian and I have been married for almost thirty-three years, and we have two children and three grandchildren (one more on the way.) Brian and I both grew up in Rock Hill, S.C. and attended church together at Calvary Baptist Church. I grew up attending church faithfully and hearing the Gospel taught on a weekly basis. My life was seemingly normal, very mundane for the most part until December, 1997. I was seventeen years old when my Dad abandoned our family on Christmas Day, and left me and my two younger siblings with my Mom who was physically and emotionally unable to care for us. The only foundation that we had ever known literally crumbled beneath our feet in an instant. I had attended church my entire life, believed that I was a Christian, and felt that I understood what Biblical Salvation meant. Over the course of the next ten years, Brian and I married, had a family, and he began serving in full-time ministry. Throughout that time, I constantly questioned if I truly understood what it meant to know Jesus in a personal and intimate relationship. On September 27, 1998 I finally surrendered my heart and life to Him and He began the process of stripping away religion and nurturing intimacy and relationship with Him. Brian and I faced many challenges over the course of the first twenty years of our marriage, and God used some of those challenges to lead me to surrender to Him, to further my education, and to begin full-time service to others. I earned a bachelor’s degree in 2017 in Urban Ministry and Counseling. I have worked in the Non-profit sector for the last six years in a Crisis Pregnancy Center and an Anti-Human Trafficking Agency. Currently, Brian and I both work for Oliver Gospel in Columbia, S.C. and I serve women and children in a residential facility setting, as the Case Management/Programming Coordinator. I have the unique privilege of journeying along-side women that have experienced abuse, neglect, abandonment, addiction, domestic violence, homelessness, and even human-trafficking as they begin the healing process in their hearts and lives, and ultimately, hopefully and prayerfully see them surrender their heart and life to Jesus Christ. On the hardest days, I am grateful and humbled for this privilege to serve Him and others in this capacity. It is my desire to see Christ break the bondage of sin in the lives of others and journey with them as they experience God’s redeeming and transforming truth and grace at work in their hearts and lives, exchanging the old life for one that is new through salvation alone in Jesus Christ. 

Are you excited to be a part of this church plant?

Yes! We believe in the Biblical mandate of the local church, and we are excited to commit and participate in the work that God is already doing and will continue to do through Pioneer Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina.