Pastor Sammy Hooker and wife Debbie

On January 14, 1953, a pre-mature baby was born who would eventually change the world, or at least our part of the world. As they were in the hospital waiting for him to get well enough to take home, still unnamed, an old preacher came to visit. He asked mommy and daddy if they had named him yet and they said no. He said his name would be Samuel Raymond Hooker. Named after his father Raymond, the preacher gave him a first name that means, “called of God”…oh how right he would be.

Although he had professed to be a Christian at a young age, Sammy lived his young life for himself and sin, but the Lord was always there to take care of him and restrain the demonic forces from claiming him. Finally after many years and many more prayers, on a Saturday night at 240 Sharon Drive in Cleveland, TN, Sammy knelt down by the couch in the living room and at 18 years of age accepted Jesus into his heart as his Lord and Savior.

Instantaneously changed and cleansed, Sammy began his life for truly the first time. The Lord saw fit to allow Mr. and Miss Bradley Central High School (Sammy Hooker and Debbie Day) of 1971 to become sweethearts and eventually get married on August 31st, 1973. Sammy started full-time work at Bowater right after the honeymoon and they became members as a family of Clingan Ridge Baptist Church where Debbie had been a member all of her life. Sammy worked swing shift at Bowater and began to get out of church because of the long hours, but Debbie stayed faithful to church and eventually, Sammy made the decision to become just as faithful to the Lord.

The Lord began to deal with Sammy about becoming a preacher and so he agreed to become a teacher as a compromise…but there is no compromising with Almighty God! Although Sammy became a dynamite teacher, the Lord still wanted him to be a preacher of His Word. Sammy finally stopped wrestling with the Lord and accepted the call to preach. He eventually became the youth pastor and then the assistant pastor of Clingan Ridge Baptist Church. Finally, the Lord began to deal with Sammy about becoming a pastor for a flock of his own. Sammy was called by several churches to come and preach and he remained patient and waited on the Lord. In October of 1988, Philippi Baptist Church called Sammy to be their pastor.

Sammy is considered to be a bi-vocational pastor, but in all truth, he works sometimes 80-hour weeks at Bowater full-time and still is a full-time pastor for Philippi. Sammy puts more in to the Lord’s work at Philippi than most, if not all, full-time pastors do at other churches. He is constantly working for the Lord and visiting and helping most of the time when people don’t even know he’s doing these things!

Sammy does everything to the glory of the Father. He fulfills the requirements of a pastor completely…not because of himself, but because daily, he gives control of his life to God. He strives to daily live a life “blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;” (Phil. 2:15) and that shows in his shepherding of Philippi. Just as Paul said, he follows Christ, so that we can follow him as an example.

Sammy’s messages week in and week out always completely present the perfect, Holy Word of God. Sammy preaches only the gospel and only what God leads him to preach. He doesn’t “tickle” people’s ears, he just allows God to speak through him to pierce people’s hearts...and God always delivers. Sammy has always remained humble and like John, allows himself to be decreased so Christ can increase and because of that example, Philippi remains a church where Christ is first and foremost!

We are blessed at Philippi to have Sammy Hooker as our pastor and continue to pray that God will lead and guide him so he can lead and guide us to do God’s perfect will. As can be evidenced each service by the lives that have been changed inside the family and as we add to the family at Philippi, Sammy is impacting our world for God and we are grateful for it!!