One Soul At A Time: Pastor Celebrates 25 Years at Peaksville Christian Church

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 By Emily Bontrager 

Pastor Shawn McAfee has been a pastor at Peaksville Christian Church since 1998. He is celebrating his 25th year at the church this month. Over the years, Pastor Shawn has baptized over 300 people, officiated over 125 weddings, and officiated over 500 funerals. 

Shawn McAfee grew up in Antioch, Missouri. He graduated from Clark County High School in 1985 and continued his education at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri. In 1988, he graduated with a Business Administration and an Accounting degree. 

In 1990, Shawn and his wife, Roberta, bought his great great grandfather’s house north of Peaksville, Missouri. 

The two were looking for a church to attend and they decided to go to Peaksville Christian Church, which is located in the small town of Peaksville, Missouri. At the time, Shawn’s aunt, Olive Evans, attended church there. 

Shawn not only had family attending the church, but he also had a connection to when the church was first established. 

Peaksville Christian Church was first founded in 1856 in the home of James and Hannah Christy, which were Shawn’s great great great grandfather and grandmother. 

When Shawn and Roberta first started going to Peaksville, the church was considered a Sunday School church. There was only a preacher there twice a month and Sunday School was held every Sunday. It had been a Sunday School church for more than 40 years. 

At the time, Reverend Paul and Betty Rathbun were the preachers to the average congregation of 19 people. 

In 1993, Shawn and a few others decided to start filling in the weeks the pastors were not preaching at the church. The other men who preached besides Shawn were Herb Doty, Shawn Doty, and Nathan Schreiber. By the end of the year, Herb Doty and Shawn McAfee switched on and off from preaching. 

In 1998, Reverend Paul and Betty Rathbun retired and started traveling the country. 

“The church board called Herb and I to be co-pastors of the church in June of 1998,” Pastor Shawn said. 

Around this time, Shawn took some courses on Saturdays from the Missouri School of Religion in Jefferson City, Missouri. 

A few years later, the Wyaconda Christian Church approached Shawn and Herb and asked if they would be willing to preach at the Wyaconda church as well. Pastor Herb and Pastor Shawn said yes, and they rotated weekly preaching at Peaksville and Wyaconda. The pastors preached at both locations until 2006, when Pastor Herb had open heart surgery. 

After Pastor Herb’s surgery, he stepped down from preaching and helped with pastoring the sick. Pastor Shawn became the Senior Pastor at Peaksville and resigned at Wyaconda Christian Church. 

Pastor Shawn has enjoyed his time at Peaksville and is still impacted when someone gives their life to the Lord to this day. 

“I still have the hair on the back of my neck stand up anytime somebody comes forward to give their life to Christ,” Pastor Shawn said. 

Over the years, Shawn has looked up to a few mentors, these men were the late Reverend Paul Rathbun and Reverend Dr. Walter Reed out of Hannibal Christian Church. Pastor Shawn has seen many changes since he began preaching, but there are some things that have stayed the same. 

“The way people look at church has changed. People are not as committed as they were. The world is so cluttered with so much other stuff today that it is not uncommon to brush God aside and think it is not that important. And yet, nothing has changed in the aspect that the plan of salvation is still the same basic plan of salvation in the Old Testament times. You have to have a relationship with God,” Pastor Shawn said. 

Another change that has happened is expanding the church and the congregation size. 

Peaksville Christian Church built a new fellowship hall in 2016, which includes Sunday School classrooms, a big kitchen, bathrooms, and a baptistry. The church has grown into two services and the attendance averages from 85 to 120 people each Sunday. 

The one thing that Pastor Shawn hopes he can do is make a difference and to help others be led to Christ. 

“I don’t know how long I will continue to be pastor or preach, but as long as I do and as long as I’m helping people connect to the kingdom, that’s really all that is called upon me,” Pastor Shawn explained. 

“It’s like the gentleman that picked up the starfish at the beach. A young man came by and said, ‘What are you doing, old man?’ ‘I’m throwing these starfish back in.’ The young man said, ‘You can’t make a difference.’ The old man picked up one more and threw it in and said, ‘I made a difference in that one,’” Pastor Shawn said. 

“One soul at a time. One person. A difference at a time.”