July 30,2010

Meet Our Pastor - Timothy Hitchcock


I have a long and very unique experience with God that began when I was only four years old. A five-year-old friend invited me to go to a little Sunday school a short distance from our house. I heard the good news about Jesus Christ that He died for my sins and was saved. After encouraging my parents to come for two years, they finally moved to another town where they began attending church. My dad soon received Christ as his Savior and immediately became a right hand man to the pastor. As a result, I grew up in a Christian home. In high school, an evangelist challenged me to read my Bible. By the time I graduated, I had read it through about five or six times. After high school I attended Ohio State University with the idea of being a rocket scientist. I did not bother to ask God what He thought about this. In 1969, we landed on the moon and men with PhD's pumped gasoline to make a living. At that point I knew that I needed a career change but was still not prepared to seek God. This led to more grief and trouble and a stint on active duty in the Marine Corps ready reserve. By that time I was very far away from God and knew that I needed to do something. My wife and I began attending church again and God began to woo me back to Himself. Through a series of problems in our church, He brought me to a consecration experience where I finally yielded control of my life to Him. After this, the Bible took on new meaning and I began to study it about an hour a day. Soon the Lord led us to Calvary Baptist in Lancaster, Ohio where another evangelist shared Joshua 1:8. This led to even more diligence to God's Word. I began to study three hours a day. At the age of thirty, I did a thorough examination of my life and renewed my commitment to God by telling Him that I would do whatever He wanted me to do including going back to school to prepare for ministry. He arranged His own school of the wilderness to try me and teach me. Two years later He called us to missions. About this time our pastor told me that the church was going to license me to preach. When I opened my mouth he told me to shut up. He said it was none of my business what the church did. It was their responsibility to recognize what God was doing. He said they were doing that by licensing me to preach. I could not argue and it soon became evident that this was of the Lord. After serving in missions for a number of years the Lord took us through a Job event that tested us as never before. We left missions at that time and began a cabinet making business. In 2002 He made it clear that He was calling us to begin a new church in Canal Winchester, Ohio. We had two years to prepare. Then in May 2004 began Canal Community Baptist Church. In July of 2008 the church purchased 11 acres of property on Hayes Road and officially changed the name to Hayes Road Baptist Church to reflect this new address.