New Members- Shawn and Kim Crowdus

Kim Crowdus - I was raised in church and excepted Jesus as my savior at 6yrs old. I was baptized shortly after that.

Even at 6 I understood if you didn’t believe Jesus died for you and took your sins then you would go to hell. In fact, I would tell other kids those exact words!

Of course, at 6 I didn’t fully understand what ALL that meant. NO that would come later, as I grew with God and the experiences I would have later in life.

Shawn Crowdus - 

From the time I first started playing sports, I was told I had GOD given talent – not knowing much about God at the time, I just took it that I was pretty good and left it at that. From K-6th grade, I attended Queen of Peace Catholic Church and learned about the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, I never really put much into prayer, but I did thank God for my talents but never really knew exactly what I was doing or who praying to. As I got older and graduated high school and attended college on baseball scholarship, I lived a pretty lost life – partying, drinking, etc… Living like my actions didn’t matter and that there were no consequences except maybe having to run foul pole to foul pole if my coaches found out I was missing classes. This lifestyle pretty much continued through my twenties, going to bars, partying, etc. I did have some friends that attended Church, and when spoke about it, I pretty much laughed at them.. I remember growing up that we used to hang out in Big Star parking lot, and there was this skinny little feller that would come up to us, hand out bible tracks and other items, and I would refer to him as a Jesus freak and laugh at him…..

When I was 29, I met the love my life, Kim Crowdus… We dated for several months, and I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.. She accepted my proposal for some stupid reason, and boy did I mess things up early on… but, my brother in law and sister told me/us about Great Commission Baptist Church, a small Church that branched off from First Baptist Church in Olive Branch, and none other than that same Jesus Freak that I made fun of years before, was the Pastor of the church, Trevor Davis..

From my first visit, I started filling different – I could feel Jesus working thru Trevor to what seemed to be speaking directly to me – I learned about creation, and that if I believed the very first verse, Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…, that all the rest would be easy.. the more I attended service (actually missing sporting events, hunting and fishing time to attend which blew people away), the more I wanted to know and learn… after I believe about 4 months, and listening to Trevor preach and reading more of God’s word, I felt this tugging sensation that I needed to do something to make it real – to make a change that mattered – and one Sunday in 2002, when Trevor asked if anyone had recited the sinners prayer with him, I raised my hand – at the end of service, I went into the room with him, he confirmed what had happened, and told me that I was now saved and that we needed to set up Baptism as my public confession of my faith, which happened several weeks later.. I am a big ol feller, and I was never one to show much emotions, but almost instantaneously, tears developed in my eyes, and started crying, something my wife had never seen me do up this point – and I felt like I could literally fly, that I had lost like 200 lbs and walking on air… and it was explained that all of my burdens, all my pains and fears, all of my sins were forgiven, that our Savior had taken all that from me and placed on Himself – That Jesus was now the bearer of my sins and had forgiven me for them. It was extremely difficult to comprehend this, but learning more and more about faith, the belief in knowing and having a relationship with someone that you cannot see, touch, hear – but know that He is there with me, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week….and so on..

Fast forward about 10 years later, and I once again failed miserably – failing my wife, my kinds, my friends, my family, and my Savior Jesus Christ – and that really hurt the most. He has never forsaken me, never made me feel guilty, never gave up on me – and either did my wife, family or true friends – some gave me extremely tough love, and others love thru just being there and listening and not judging – whereas some just played it off that it happens to everyone and that it will all workout and its ok – but that was not OK with me , and that’s when I realized that is was by being associated with those type of

people is what I did not need, that I needed to be associated with true believers that held me accountable.

At that time, my wife and I had made a decision that hurt us both deeply – mentally, physically and spiritually – we left Great Commission and became members of another local church.. though the teaching we received was direct from Gods word and taught chronologically each year, it just was not the same as GCC and we just never felt like we were where God truly wanted us.. long story shortened, we made a decision after being gone more than 8 years to return back to where I truly started my Christian walk – Great Commission Church.. Kim and I both felt that GCC is our home, and we wanted to be back with our family.

Jesus has been there for me, even when I did not know him personally, and has got me thru sooo many rough times, brought me so many good times, has made me want to be more of a servant to others than one wanting to be served – blessed me with so much more than I deserve – Jesus was, is, and always will be the perfect role model for all – I know I have a long ways to go, but I feel like each day I make strides to make Him more proud of me, and when I do things that I know I should not, they bother me more than ever before, and I ask forgiveness for them – I just hope that the latter happens less often and that the narrow path is where I travel..

In summary, I want to be called the same name that I used to call our pastor so many years ago – Jesus Freak