John Markum

Edgewood 2011

 

This past week, in each of our weekend worship services at Edgewood, we unleashed 7 Challenges for every person that calls Edgewood their church home. I wanted to take the time to reiterate these 7 Challenges this week here on the blog, and so I will deal with each one in a separate post this week. In case you didn’t get the bookmark we handed out this week, here are the 7 Challenges.

  1. Read through the Bible in one year.
  2. Pray for the Church one hour a week.
  3. Share Christ: Lead one person to the Lord.
  4. Increase giving by 1%.
  5. Give time to serving in one ministry.
  6. Find one thing to be thankful for daily.
  7. Bring a Bible to church.

Again, these are for people who call Edgewood their church home. We are not asking, nor do we even want any of our guests to give financially to the ministry of Edgewood. But for those who call yourselves members of Edgewood, or consider Edgewood your church home, this is the year to step up to the plate in all 7 Challenges. I truly believe that as we do this together, God is going to show Himself mightily in our lives, and in the life of our church. We are the people of God! Not even the gates of Hell have power against us! Let’s turn the Quad Cities upside down with the Gospel and see God impact our world through our church like never before. Read more about Challenge #1 real soon…

Blessings,

John

“Come to The Awakening!”

We wanted to share the following video with all of the friends of our Saturday night worship experience, The Awakening. We’re asking all of you to watch the video, and pass it on. Even invite someone to come to church this Saturday with you. We are encouraging all of you who are close enough to attend, to see for yourself what The Awakening is all about. We understand that many people have their own hang-ups to coming to church. Maybe you did go to church at one point and you’ve stopped. Maybe someone in a church hurt you. Maybe life has simply been painful and you feel like God wouldn’t want you anyway.

Whatever your story is, we have a place for you at Edgewood on Saturday nights. Come as you are – hurts, successes, failures, baggage, doubts, insecurities, hopes, and dreams – and find that you’re not alone, and we’re all in this thing called “life” together. It doesn’t matter if you’ve struggled with addictions, had an abortion, grew up in church, or have been running from God. This is a place of hope and healing. This is a place to start again. This is a place to belong.

We hope to see you this week!

John

 

New Series: Relationships

My leadership team and I wanted to take the month of February and deal with relationships. We wanted to broaden it past the typical series on dating or marriage though. We wanted to deal with all relationships, and communicate that somehow. So tonight, we began a new series called, “Relationships: Mothers, Brothers, and Others”. Above is a video to let you know about it. We hope through this series that people will feel empowered to see their relationships healed in the name of Jesus, and establish healthier ones. If you happen to be around the Quad Cities, we would love to have you as our guest. If you’re not in the area, you are welcome to see the message online later this week (www.qcawakening.com). And if you’re a preacher and want to take our series idea, graphic, and/or video to use at your church… be our guest! Email me or leave a comment if you want something specific.

See you all this week!

John

The phrase no pain, no gain has been a mantra for athletes and fitness junkies for years. And what they understand about physical pain needs to be broadened to a much more general use in all of our lives. Pain hurts. That's the whole problem. No one enjoys it, and if someone does, we rightfully

The Premium of Pain