MIKE MCCOWEN - BASS

I was born and raised in Iowa. When I got married, my wife and I moved to Minnesota. My first gospel music tape was an 8-track of the Blackwood Brothers Quartet that I purchased right after I came to know the Lord in 1971.  Even as a musician, I had never experienced music having such and encouraging effect on me before.  It was as if I was receiving some supernatural nourishment for my heart somehow!  I prayed that God would open up something for me in gospel music.  I was working as a ‘pump jockey’ in a truck stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota when the Chancellors Quartet came through with their bus to pick up a repaired tire. I first tried out for the tenor spot!  I said to myself, "If the Lord wants me to sing with the Chancellors, He'll either change my voice or change the opening!!"  After the tryout, our founder, and then baritone, Harold just said, "Don't call us, we'll call you!!  We already have a baritone!!!"  Six months later the group had an opening for a bass singer and I joined them part time in the fall of 1972!  Then in 1973 the Quartet went full-time and sang about 325 concerts a year from nursing homes to churches to parks to school auditoriums all over the Midwest and Canada. 
 
My wife, Dawn, and I have been married since 1969, have 3 children and 11 grandchildren!!  I worked as an elevator service technician for Schindler Elevator for 29 years and have been retired since the summer of 2013. 
 
One of my favorite scripture passages is Ephesians Chapter 2.  Paul points out that we were without hope and without God.  Then he declares my two favorite words found over twenty times in the Bible, “But God…” where God takes a hopeless situation, does all the work, and gives us mercy & grace and changes our hearts and our lives through faith!!
 
God has been amazingly gracious to us as a family and as a ministry group.  Singing for the glory of God and pointing to the Cross of Christ has been my calling and my joy for the last 45 years!  I can only exclaim with joy and awe, “Great is Thy Faithfulness!”