A Portage Life in the Spotlight: Doug Sheehy
- By: Timothy Ceravolo
- Last Updated: November 12, 2025
There’s a good feeling you get about being around and talking to certain people. That’s the overwhelming feeling you get when you talk to Doug Sheehy as he’s committed to his work with the church.
Sheehy is a 55-year-old book writing, rock and roll guitar playing, unconventional pastor who has committed his life to spreading the word about the teachings and promises of Jesus Christ.
“I was raised in the church,” Sheehy said. “I stayed the course with God from a pretty young age.”
Sheehy is the campus pastor of Living Hope Church in Portage. It’s the newest of two Living Hope Churches in Northwest Indiana. The first and central campus for the church is in Merrillville. Sheehy notes that the second was the result of a merger with Crossroads Family Church in Portage in 2021, and he was named the campus pastor there in 2022.
He has been with the Living Hope Church for 32 years, starting as a part time youth leader when he was just 23 years old. He took the road less traveled to eventually become a pastor.
“I didn’t have a true ministerial path as you would have back in the ‘90s,” Sheehy said. “I learned on the job, which is much more common today, but back then it was a big risk to take somebody who didn’t go to Bible college. When I got hired, it was just always assumed that it would be a temporary assignment.”
What was thought to be a temporary position has become a lifelong position. Sheehy eventually got his ministerial credentials in 2007, and he also has a business management degree from Purdue University that he earned in 2004. His parents were both teachers, so education was considered highly important. However, Sheehy had so much going on in his life that he didn’t get to it right away. He was actually attending Purdue University Calumet in 1993, which is known today as Purdue University Northwest. He married his wife Cindy that year and decided to take a break. Sheehy says meeting his wife motivated him to get more focused when he was doing a lot of different things, including playing guitar and writing songs for a rock and roll band called Graphic Reality.
“When I met my wife, that’s when I told myself, ‘I got to get my life together,’” he said.
His life has certainly come together. Not only did he get his ministerial credentials and his degree in business management, but Sheehy has also written five books. His first book was called “Arrogance and Ignorance Can Get You Far.” Sheehy says he wrote it as a humorous Christmas gift to his family and he eventually self-published it.
He then wrote four more, including “This was my Graphic Reality,” a book about the band he was in for 10 years.
“I just started telling stories from my life,” Sheehy said. “Some of them were stories and opinions of things that I felt strongly about.”
Sheehy and his wife have also raised two daughters, 28-year-old Kaylor and 25-year-old Karissa. They now have a 9-month-old grandson named Cole.
“Family is so important,” Sheehy said. “I wouldn’t be who I am today without amazing parents, grandparents, and a loving family who really kept me on a good path. I also have an amazing wife who has lived through it all. She didn’t marry a pastor; she married a guy going to school to be in management, who played in a band and played softball and all kinds of goofy things. She stuck with me through it and loved me. She truly is the best thing to happen in my life outside of Jesus. If all I have in my life is my family and Jesus, I know I’ll be okay.”
Sheehy has been the campus pastor for Living Hope Church Portage for more than three years now. He notes that the church is doing well, averaging about 1,000 people a week at the two locations in Portage and Merrillville.
“The more people we have, the more opportunity there is to minister to them,” Sheehy said. “What’s exciting for me is meeting people that are new. Those who are just finding our church are learning about connecting with God in some way.”
Growing closer with the church and God is what makes up Sheehy’s life work. He didn’t get to his current position through a typical plan, but he will be the first to tell you it was God’s plan.