Journey of Shawn Peoples' Walk in Grace!

As I sit here tonight next to my mom while she preps Thanksgiving dinner for tomorrow, I am very thankful for the hardest 3 years of my life. It has been a joy to walk these three years under duress, stress, uncertainty, being crushed and being healed. One of my best friends and I sat today talking about the journey God has placed us both on. All I could do was be thankful that God still uses me and loves me. I have come to experience the incredible Grace of God while God moved us to Hawaii 3 years ago and then crushed me 2 years ago. The man that God destroyed was a prideful, hurtful, critical pastor who thought he knew everything. I remember thinking that most pastors didn't have  vision or were just wimps that had given up the fight of the Gospel. How wrong I was and how it took My Daddy to change that. I grew up in 2013 and hope that I continue to grow up this next year. Last year at this time, I was hurting incredibly. Michelle was really the only one that knew it. I didn...

This world is hard! Yes, I said it and so have you, "this world is hard". There is so much pulling at us and so much to do. We are overwhelmed with responsibilities and tangible things that pull at us constantly, hoping for our affection and time. As a Father; my family, my house responsibilities and my position within the church can become overwhelming. Where do I find the time to do everything I am responsible for and still find time to follow Christ's call? I think the problem is really the last question! I see a ton of people that live very segmented lives; they have their Christian life (missions, church and bible reading), they have their family life and their work life. Sometimes they even find enough time to have a hobby or 5. I see people so busy with life that they are running non-stop, only to give me that "I don't have time for another church thing" look. You know that look, its the roll of the eyes when someone announces an opportunity to serv...

Last week I had a blast challenging our church to know their primary calling and concentrate on being intimate with God. In God preaching His Word through me, I built a wall on stage to show some of the things Satan uses to keep us from intimacy with God. What I forgot to do was be ready for the attack that came this last week. As some of you know, we are in the midst of getting our house on the market to sell so we can move to the McMurray, PA area soon. There is so much to do to get the house ready to sell, one of them is painting (oh how I hate painting). I am not a patient person when it comes to painting or remodeling. I tend to bite off more than I have time for and then whine through the process as I go. Usually I end up trying to do the job too quick and do a really poor job of remodeling. I am a slow learner when it comes to remodeling or painting. In the beginning of our painting process, I thought I was tackling a ton of it, only to find I had only hit a small portion of t...

If you haven't heard by now, we are moving to PA. Yesterday was my official first day of being the pastor of Faith Community Church Lakeside. How awesome is our God! It felt so good to be back preaching God's Word to people who want to hear it. This church has treated us so well that I had to pinch myself last night as I thought "this might be too good to be true". I know that we will have trouble, but God has given us a great start. Yesterday, 2 or more people stepped from death to life at the end of our service. One, a mother, came up to me after the service telling me she has never been to our church. She told me how she felt pulled to be here this morning and how she couldn't believe how much God loved her. She cried with joy that Christ lived in her and that she could talk to Him at anytime. I met a family right before our service that hadn't been to our gathering in over a year. At the end of the service, their daughter said yes to Jesus. The dad was...

I want to thank all of you for praying and encouraging us during our time back in Ohio. We have seen God do some incredible acts of Grace and Mercy toward our family. He has been so gracious to show me my idolatry and His wonderful kindness. We have learned so much in our time of waiting on God to assign us to the next part of our journey.  Tonight, with great joy, I share that He is leading us to McMurray, PA. It isn't a done deal, however, God has moved some really big obstacles in getting us to our current place. He qualified me when I didn't qualify for the position. He has allowed me to be open and honest without scaring the pastor search team off. He has moved our hearts from Ohio to a people wanting an under-shepherd in Pennsylvania. He has done great things and we believe He is moving us to lead Faith Community Church Lakeside.  I find it very ironic that as we were preparing to church plant in Hawaii, so many years ago, I felt an incredible urge to name our chu...

Last year on this day (Sept. 30th), I preached my last sermon in Hawaii, then we cleaned our rental house one last time as 12 of our friends drove us to the airport and we bid them farewell. The next afternoon we landed in Nashville, TN and began this part of our journey. I had no clue what God was going to do with us this past year. I had a ton of thoughts about what God would do but none of those happened. I really thought I would be pastoring again at this point and that hasn't happened. I thought we might plant another church and that hasn't happened. I thought that I would finish school and that hasn't happened (I know it sounds depressing but just wait). What has happened is God showing us His incredible faithfulness and that He always has a plan He is working us through. When I left Hawaii, it was overwhelmingly obvious that God has changed our course (not His course but where we thought we were headed). I had planned on us being in Hawaii for the rest of our liv...

     It has been a while since I have written. So let me just update you on our lives here in Lebanon, Ohio. On July 9th, I began working for an indirect dealer for Verizon Wireless called The Cellular Connection. They hired me as the store manager here in Lebanon and my assignment is to return the store back to profitability. The transition has been difficult, in that, I have not worked outside of the church full time for quite a while. However, God has given me favor and has blessed our store with some great opportunities. We are seeing God's hand in our sales and within conversations of those outside of the Kingdom of God. I have mostly enjoyed my time there(again, there have been some tough times) and learned much from God while working.      God has made me very aware of the daily struggle many Christians deal with while working full time. I have had to be very intentional with my intimacy with Christ. I also run into many people who do not share my ...