by Paul Sewell
God has promised “peace that surpasses all understanding” to those who follow Him, but most of us are not experiencing that peace from day to day.
We feel stressed, hurried, distracted, judged, and anxious.
Do you ever feel this?
Have you noticed that most of us who are following Jesus, the Prince of Peace, do not seem to actually walk in peace?
We are armed with hundreds of Bible verses about peace, yet we are not experiencing that peace. This is no surprise given the world we live in.
We live in a troubled world. Chaos and conflict are around every corner. People are divided and adversarial. The pace of life gets faster and faster and faster. The pressure at work gets greater and greater.
We hurry more and argue more. We distract ourselves with busyness and endless scrolling.
In our best moments, we know Jesus offers us a more peaceful and satisfying life. Yet we are not exactly sure how to experience that peace.
Why are most followers of Jesus not experiencing this peace that Jesus gives?
I think the answer is:
Christians have the promise of peace, but not the practices of peace.
God has provided us simple & beautiful practices in the Bible that will fill our bodies, our minds, and our Spirits with His peace. But most of us have never been taught these practices or found them in the Bible (yet). So of course we can not practice things that we don’t know.
Institutional Christianity has told us to just go to church, read the Bible, and pray. And if that does not work, do it more. Do it better. Try harder. If this does not work for you, well you must be broken.
I can’t stand this message! This is not the way of Jesus.
Of course going to church, reading the Bible, and praying are good things. Yet most of us have done these things and still not achieved peace in our lives.
This is why I created The Practices of Peace course– to share practices of peace that have helped me actually experience peace from day to day.
This course has emerged like a Phoenix out of the fire of my life.
I shook for a month
One cloudy January morning last year, I went to take a shower and instead found a massive water leak in our master bathroom.
I started shaking and I could not stop. My hands shook. My voice shook. My brain seemed to shut down. This shaking lasted for over a month.
The water leak that I found that morning had triggered a trauma response in me.
The leak exactly like the leak we had one year earlier in Atlanta. That water leak never got fixed and turned into toxic mold. We became super sick. My four year old son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. We spent days in the children’s hospital. We lost our home and we lost everything we owned. While we were sick and trying to figure out where to live next, the COVID lockdowns hit and we were homeless during a pandemic.
But God was gracious to us. He brought us through this hardship and brought us to Bentonville, Arkansas. We were in a safe place and out were out of the hard season. I full of hope and had big plans for the year. I was eager to see what God would do.
Then it all changed in an instant.
After the water leak, I was physically shaking all day. Everyday. I could not sleep. I could not focus. I felt disconnected between my mind and my body.
My wife said that I did not smile anymore. I did not laugh. I was a shell of a person. I was sitting there physically, but Paul was not there. I was not present with my family.
I was in turmoil. I had no peace at all. I still believed in Jesus. I read the Bible and prayed, but still I had no peace.
I started going to counseling, and little by little I started getting better.
I learned some new practices that connected me with Jesus. I was reminded of practices that had been beneficial in years past that I was no longer practicing. I restarted these practices. Over time the peace of Jesus flowed back into my life. I became well and whole.
I became Paul again. True Paul. Not the imposter. Not the hollow self.
And true Paul now wants everyone to experience this peace of Jesus.
This is why I created the Practices of Peace course.
I have found some simple and beautiful practices of peace that for sure have helped me. I piloted the course with a cohort. The practices helped them too.
I now want to share them with you. They are simply too good and too helpful to keep them to myself.
These Practices of Peace work. I know this because they worked for me. I was transformed by Jesus through these practices.
These practices also worked for our pilot cohort. 100% of the participants experienced more peace through the course.
Now I have the joy of making these practices available to anyone who is dissatisfied with their current spiritual experience. Anyone who follows Jesus and desires more peace than they have right now is ready for this course.
Here are the 5 Practices that we will cover in this one-month course.
The Practices
Practice 1 — Living as your true self, not the imposter.
Practice 2 — How to un-hurry and live in the present moment.
Practice 3 — Naming your emotions, listening to Jesus, & practicing micro-church.
Practice 4 — How to correct your cognitive distortions and tell yourself a better story.
Practice 5 — How to be a person of peace for life and spread this peace to others.
How the course works.
At the beginning of each week, I will introduce a new Practice of Peace. You have the option to learn the practice “on demand” at your own convenience. Or you join a cohort and learn the practice in a 90 minute meeting on zoom.
Both approaches work. Choose which ever works best for you.
After the workshop and teaching where you learn the practice, you will practice that “practice of peace” each day for one week.
Most practices can be done in 4 to 15 minutes per day. This is not a high time commitment course. It is a high rewards course though! The time commitment is not high, but the amount of life change can be tremendous.
God works powerfully through these simple (and sometimes unusual) practices He has designed for us. His peace will fill us and flow through us to others as we practice the Practices of Peace.
After practicing for as many days as possible in those seven days, you will have a chance to reflect on what you learned from that practice. You will notice how differently you feel after practicing.
Peer-to-peer interaction and coaching each other is available in the cohort if that sounds helpful to you. There are no peace gurus here. Just apprentices of Jesus helping each other in their journey of learning from the Master. (Ok, so actually there is one peace guru present–Jesus.)
We will practice one practice at a time for a week at a time. We will not “stack” the practices by adding one more, then one more, then one more until you crack under the pressure. This is not that kind of course. We are trying to have a peaceful journey, not an aggressive or exhausting journey.
Our care for each other on the journey will be full of grace and encouragement, not high pressure accountability or tough love. Our concern is not how many days did you practice? But rather, what was it like when you did practice? What did you learn? What did you feel? What do you want to carry out of this course and into your long term life?
Who this course is for
This course is for people who already follow Jesus and desire more peace from Him in their lives. People that are willing to spend a few minutes each day trying some simple (and sometimes unusual) practices from the Bible.
This course is open for men and women in any stage of life. This course is open to both alumni from the Enjoying Jesus Course and people that are brand new to Paul’s teaching.
This course is not for people that just want to show up for a meeting, then do nothing during the week. This course is for people willing to try new things and experiment and see what works best for them. This is the path to experiencing more peace with Jesus.
Couples can take the course together. This is a journey you will want to go on together. To encourage this, married couples can register two people for the price of one. Simply put both names in the registration box.
The Next Session
The Summer Session Starts in June 2022.
Paul Sewell will be coaching a cohort on Zoom.
The exact meeting dates and times will be set by Paul and the people who enroll early in the course. So if you are interested, go ahead and register now and Paul will work with you to pick meeting times that work with your schedule.
Custom Cohorts will be coached by various alumni of the course.
These custom cohorts will meet at whatever day and time works for your cohort. They can be in person groups or online. They can start in June or anytime after that.
Self-Study is all the course content but without the weekly meeting.
This journey is for people who want to pursue peace, but don’t have availability for a weekly meeting. You will learn the practice for each week through a professional video from Paul instead of a meeting. Then you practice on your own just like everyone who takes the course in a cohort. The course covers the exact same content as the cohorts. It is just a more flexible and personal option. The Self-study journey Summer Session is open for registration now and the course will go live for you to start in June.
Enrollment is OPEN NOW for the Summer Session.
The cost of the Practices of Peace Course is $97.
The price of the Summer session is discounted to $67. The cost will go up to $97 for the Fall Session and all future sessions.
For this price, you experience one month of greater peace with Jesus. The course starts working immediately from the first time you practice on the first day. You will become a more peaceful person, and you will gain tools that you will use for the rest of your life. As you grow in peace, you will spread peace to those around you.
This course can provide you a life-time of peace. We spend far more than $97 pursuing peace in ways that don’t last… We pursue people through spa-days, outdoor adventure trips, shopping-therapy, too many drinks, the latest gadget and more. Some of these help in the short-term, but the peace never lasts.
Instead of short-lived attempts at peace, you can invest a little money and one month of learning in this course and be changed for life.
Registering for this course gets you access to an experienced coach, a generous cohort to spur you on, and the option to build alumni practice groups after the course. You get life-time access to the course and you can go through the material or the actual course as many times as you like in the future at no additional cost.
You can register here and receive more peace from Jesus in your life.
If you are alumni of the Enjoying Jesus course, use the “login before purchasing” option at the top of the payment screen if you want to use your same email address as before.
*We offer a full money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with the course, we will issue you a full refund. If this course turns out to not be for you, then you have lost nothing for trying. You can buy with confidence.
For Small Groups, you can register your whole small group with one button and get a significant discount.
For Church Leaders, you can get unlimited registrations for your church with a church membership.
To learn more, go to: Small Groups & Churches.
If you would like to be notified of future sessions, please click: Notify Me.
If you have any questions, please click: Ask a Question.