Someone You Should Know: Paul Peterson

In our Someone You Should Know series, we interview Faith members to help us get to know them, see how God is working in their lives, and make new connections within our community. In this episode we get to know Paul Peterson.

• Automated Transcription

• Seth Weber 0:00
  Today on faith matters another in our someone you should know series this week, Paul Peterson
  
  Seth Weber 0:12
  I'm Seth Weber and you're listening to faith matters, a podcast designed to help you think biblically in matters of the Christian faith and keep you updated on matters of faith Bible Church.
  
  Seth Weber 0:39
  Today we have with us Paul Peterson, it's good to have you. Thank you
  
  Seth Weber 0:51
  tell me about where you grew up your hometown, your history.
  
  Paul Peterson 0:55
  I was actually born in Mississippi. My dad was a park ranger there. And when I was about two, we moved up to the upper peninsula of Michigan. And I went through all of my schooling there, went to college there I got an engineering degree well and graduated college. I went in the Navy and spent four years in San Diego in the Navy and decided I wanted to be a fireman instead. So I started looking for firefighter jobs. My brother had flown tankers here at Fairchild. So I saw that Spokane was hiring. Okay, came up here to test got a job. Wow. Moved up here in February of 99, and started my career with Spokane Fire Department in March of 99.
  
  Seth Weber 1:39
  Wow. So we'll jump back to your growing up a little bit. But didn't were you married by the time you moved up here to Spokane? No, I
  
  Paul Peterson 1:46
  was single. Okay, so you met crystal here in Spokane met her actually through the church. Okay. Yep. We met in spring of oh one and married in December of oh one. Okay.
  
  Seth Weber 1:56
  We'll come back to that. Let's jump back to your growing up years. Do you have any fun stories of when you're growing up as a kid or your time in the Navy? My
  
  Paul Peterson 2:04
  growing up? My dad was a park ranger. There's a small park in my hometown called Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, okay, and fabulous beaches right on Lake Superior. And we grew up about 100 yards from incredible beach. So in the summer, we lived at the beach and we swam in Lake Superior pretty much every single day. Sounds cool. And I would put those beaches up against any Caribbean beach or Florida Panhandle. Any of the any of those, and I've seen some of those. And I think our Michigan beaches are wonderful. Nice. Is the water fairly warm? No, no water's cold all the time. It gets to be bearable. Maybe by the middle of August or so. But yeah, is there's always a chill in the water. But it's clean, clean and clear. Nice. Yeah. Great place to grow up.
  
  Seth Weber 2:51
  Very fun. All right, so jumping back forward to family. Can you tell us about how you met crystal and who's in your family now?
  
  Paul Peterson 3:01
  So Crystal and I met at the young adults, maybe unofficial singles group. It was through down and not really a tree who used to attend here, okay. And they actually ended up doing our premarital counseling, but they hosted a young adults group and they were great mentors to a lot of the the folks in that age group. So we we met through them and to this day, have a dear friendship with them. I think that was April, March or April of Owen. And we were engaged I think July married in December. And then we have three kids. Will is 20. Mia is 18 and Sawyer is 17. So Will's a sophomore at Whitworth. Mia is working at TJ Maxx and Sawyer is a junior at multiple candidates. Okay.
  
  Seth Weber 3:51
  So were you guys at Faith Bible Church the entire time since you moved up here and met Krystal up until now?
  
  Paul Peterson 4:00
  We were Yeah, okay. I started just a few months after I moved to Spokane, okay, coming to faith, there was a co worker of mine at the fire department that had lived here prior and he and I were talking he found out that I was looking for a church and he said we should try a faith he attended here. Okay. Crystals, parents were coming here. And then when she moved here from Billings, she kind of came here by default, because her parents were here. So we, we've been here through that entire time. Interestingly, we pretty early on, when we were married, we we had both been to faith, individually, but we hadn't really church shopped. I guess maybe that's not the right word for it as a couple so we did visit a few other churches and it was pretty clear early on that faith was where we wanted to be nice. Bible believing church Bible preaching church. I grew up in a really small town with I'm not really much of a youth group and Krystal grew up in churches that had a very active youth group. And so that was wanting something that we wanted for our kids to grow up in a church that really put a lot of time and energy into the youth. And we've seen our kids flourish in that here. So those youth leaders, yes. And it's been a great fit for us. Nice.
  
  Seth Weber 5:24
  Okay, jumping back again. Can you tell us how you came to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior,
  
  Paul Peterson 5:29
  my parents were saved when I was a baby or a toddler. It was right before we moved to Michigan, okay. And so I was raised in a church, small church, I don't know that I really had much of a personal relationship with Christ early on, I was baptized in Lake Superior, when I was probably in junior high, okay. But when I got away to college, and got to a little bit of a bigger town, got to choose the church that I wanted to go to and got more involved there and actually lived in a house with a bunch of Christian guys, I think that was where I kind of started to flourish a little bit more. And then that continued, when I was in the Navy, I, I went to a Calvary Chapel down in North San Diego County, and was was quite involved and really saw the other young men and women there that were pursuing Christ on their own kind of apart from any family environment that they had grown up in. So I'd say I started in college continued in the Navy, and then has continued up here as well.
  
  Seth Weber 6:37
  Gotcha. One of those gradual, gradual process kind of things. Yep, for sure. So now that you're here at Faith, tell me about how you've been involved over the years and what you're doing now. Crystal
  
  Paul Peterson 6:50
  and I taught Sunday school for several years, we taught fours and fives. And then we spent probably about eight years working with Denny and Annie Meyer's teaching the marriage class, okay. And got to know a lot of the couples, some engaged couples, but a lot of couples that came through and some that had kids our age than we've seen their kids grow up through that age group. So we talked with them for several years. And we are currently helping the rainbows with the finance ministry. We just had our first finance class in March. And I am the deacon, working with the care funds. I work with Mark Frankian, and Toby, on the care fund administration as well. Nice.
  
  Seth Weber 7:36
  So if someone has a request, you're part of helping decide whether that's like something that the church will be able to help with or something that correct. Okay.
  
  Paul Peterson 7:47
  Yes. Okay. And Crystal just got accepted into the aspiring women programs. So she's going to be starting in just a couple of weeks. Awesome.
  
  Seth Weber 7:55
  Very cool. What has God been teaching you lately?
  
  Paul Peterson 7:58
  I think something that is ongoing with, with crystal and is just working on me being the leader in that marriage relationship, and focusing on time together, I was actually at the elders meeting last night, and I was talking to another one of the deacons there and, and he was saying that things are great with his marriage, and things are great with his personal walk with God. And I think it's no coincidence that those two fall right in place together, because they're very dependent on each other. And so really focusing on being consistent, being strong with my, my devotional time and with my own personal walk, and then how that translates into my marriage. We do some mentoring with other couples and so seeing how we can really be unified as a couple and then hopefully pass on some little tidbits other folks as well. Nice.
  
  Seth Weber 8:57
  How can how can the church be praying for unit right now?
  
  Paul Peterson 9:00
  We see a lot of care fund requests come in. So I think just wisdom and how, how we utilize that money that people are generously giving have we have needs within the church and other people outside the church refugees and there's I mean, there's a lot of need, and wanting to be wise with the money that comes into the care funds. So I think as we look at each one of those those requests on a case by case basis, just that we would be diligent and looking into those and praying and discussing on how to how to distribute the careful money. Very
  
  Seth Weber 9:37
  good. All right, now we're going to jump into the speed round speed round.
  
  Seth Weber 9:49
  Cats or Dogs, dogs, pineapple on pizza. Yes,
  
  Paul Peterson 9:51
  pets. We have one but we probably won't have another one. After she dies. We got the perfect dog. So I don't think we can top her. Okay, hey, You're banned. I like a lot of YouTube stuff. Oh yeah, YouTube's good. And
  
  Seth Weber 10:03
  maybe you too. Nice, best surprise gift you've ever gotten
  
  Paul Peterson 10:05
  for a birthday several years ago crystal, and it was kind of expensive. So I think she pulled money from a bunch of different people but they got me an afternoon of racecar driving out of the speedway at Post Falls was on who was super fun. That's awesome. I think we're all a closet racecar driver.
  
  Seth Weber 10:23
  Yes, for sure. Yes. If you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?
  
  Paul Peterson 10:27
  I like just being outside pedaling around. I like spending time in the shop. I like building stuff. I like being active with my hands. Okay, favorite place to eat out in Spokane wild sage. I'd say we've never had a bad meal there.
  
  Seth Weber 10:39
  That's good stuff. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Paul. You're welcome. Thanks.

Seth Weber

Seth is the Communications Director at Faith Bible Church and loves anything to do with design, video, audio and tech. He and his wife Kaitlyn have four children.

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