John Markum

Category: Ministry

Year of the Bible

Posted on by johnmarkum

This past Sunday at Life Valley Community Church, I shared a vision of what 2024 will look like for our church – preaching, small groups, and more. I’m calling this our “Year of the Bible”, and here’s how it’s a going to look for us…

Our preaching calendar across the year will walk through the entire story of Scripture, in 52 Sundays, from Genesis to Revelation. Now it’s not realistic to do justice to every single book, chapter, and verse of Scripture in just 52 weekly sermons, even if I covered an entire book every week. So the preaching calendar I have planned out isn’t attempting to do that. Instead, we’ll focus on the overarching “meta-narrative” of Scripture, with the goal of helping our people deeply grasp the overall layout, themes, and purpose of the Bible as one cohesive story. Of course, I will take special dedication in specific points to appreciate the deeper nuances of specific books and segments of the Bible. For example, we’re starting the year with a full 5 week series in Genesis, but we’ll also cover all of the Old Testament History of Israel in a 5 week series as well.

To fill in many of the gaps I couldn’t possibly preach over in a single year, we’ll also be leading our church through a One Year Bible Reading Plan, beginning January 1, 2024. If you want to join us and follow along, follow our church on the YouVersion Bible app. I love this plan because of how it systematically walks through Scripture, while breaking up Psalms and the Gospels across the year.

But we don’t want to just read the Word, we want it to take root in our hearts. So we’re also preparing a Scripture memory list, and challenging one another to learn dozens of verses to memory over the new year.

Additionally, we’re going to lead our small groups to dig deeper into the Word, especially in studies that we’ll touch on in the preaching, but not have the time to dig into more of the details for. It’s my hope to continue creating more Bible studies to engage our church – and other ministries – deeper into the Scripture.

The heart behind this is to sincerely know the “Word of Truth”. I have committed my life to learning, studying, and teaching the Bible. And it continues to open up to me in new, powerful ways. And this is what has compelled me to lead our church in this direction. Of course, we always teach and preach the Bible, but I want the Word of God to mean more to us than a long menu of seemingly disjointed stories and instructions. It is truly much more than that. And the magnificence and beauty of the Bible continues to blow my mind, even after 20 years of pastoral ministry.

I can’t wait to unpack the entire story of the Bible in a meaningful way this next year! You can catch our services and sermons here on Youtube.

Blessings,
Pastor John

Nothing Worthwhile…

Posted on by johnmarkum

As long as I’ve been a pastor, and well before that, I’ve held this statement as a core conviction:

Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

It’s nothing original, to be sure. But it has guided me through a lot of life’s difficulties. I assume a few things to be generally true about everyone:

  • We all want to matter, to someone and something.
  • We all want to enjoy success.
  • We all want deep, meaningful relationships.
  • We all want some degree of peace, happiness, and pleasure.

The struggles of life often leave us pushing against our aspirations. “Mattering” to anyone or anything is largely out of our direct control. Success is like dopamine – it feels good, we crave more, and only end up chasing the next “hit” that satisfies for a moment, only to leave us with more craving. People and relationships are definitely the best part of life… but unfortunately, they’re also the worst! Nothing can hurt us like other humans. All of the things promising happiness, peace, pleasure all tend to over-sell and under-deliver.

So where does that leave us…

Everything comes at a price. As my Dad would emphatically remind me growing up, there’s no such thing as free. Even the “free” gift of God – salvation to all the human race who believe on the name of Jesus, isn’t truly free – just free to us! Our salvation cost Christ His very life, and the weight of the sin of humanity. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

That tells me that – to God – we were worthwhile. We were worth redeeming. You are worthwhile. The pain you’re going through in life right now, is evidence that there is a battle to be fought and won in your life. I know it’s hard! It’s not suppose to be easy. Not if it matters.

All the struggles I described earlier are not wrong, inherently. You should seek to matter. You should try to make a difference. Success in life, work, school, health, finances is a good thing. Relationships are certainly worthwhile! But they all cost something. They cost time, focus, thought, energy, money, friendships, “other” opportunities, and the list goes on.

And then it gets more difficult! Because you and I are finite human beings. So if I pursue financial or professional success at all cost, I may one day realize that it cost me my marriage. If I pursue building a ministry while neglecting my own spiritual, mental, and emotional health – it may cost me a dark bout with depression. It’s like we only get a certain budget of energy, time, focus, and talent. And once we’ve spent our budget, whatever is left on our list of goals ambitions gets the scraps.

Which leads me to a few questions:

  1. What is the difficult, worthwhile thing you’ve been avoiding doing?
  2. If people are the most worthwhile/difficult thing in life, what relationships do you need to invest more into?
  3. What do you need to let go of that is necessary but still difficult?
  4. Are you willing to pay the price for what you’re seeking to achieve this year?
  5. How would you prioritize your “budget”? Consider marriage, education, friendships, faith, physical health, finances, kids, etc.
  6. How do you keep the harmony between all of these things?

25 Years of Preaching

Posted on by johnmarkum

It occurred to me just this week, that I’ve officially been preaching for 25 years! I preached my first sermon at age 15 with my youth group, back when our family was stationed in Hawaii. I preached through the entire book of Revelation in about 15 minutes… and no, it wasn’t “good”. But someone gave their life to Christ in that service, and God did something inside of me through that. As I grew through high school and college, I was given dozens of opportunities to preach in chapels, give devotions, and many other opportunities few people my age were given.

I’ve now written and preached thousands of sermons, seen hundreds come to faith in Christ, baptized many of them, performed counseling, officiated weddings, buried loved ones, started churches, merged churches, served on staff under four other senior pastors, and ordained a small handful. I’ve been on over a dozen missions trips, watched young adults grow in their faith, start families, and add value to the Kingdom.

I’ve also seen terrible divorces, suicides, and breakdowns. Ministry has caused me an immense amount of stress, forcing me to wrestle with my own battle of anxiety and depression. I’ve been lied about, slandered, shamed for not supporting specific politicians. I’ve been betrayed, hurt, and marginalized at times.

I’ve failed – often and repeatedly. I’ve wrestled with guilt, short comings, and inadequacies. There’s a bizarre pressure in the ministry, because we are acutely aware of the gravity of our responsibilities, and the simultaneously the utter weaknesses we manage at times as well. We have to be bold and confident, full of faith. But we can’t get arrogant or narcissistic. I hold this office in the highest human regard… and yet I hold myself – the person in this office – in the utterly lowest regard. The imposter’s syndrome for us pastors is real!

But I’m writing this today, to say that I haven’t regretted a single day of following Jesus into the ministry. The pain, pressure, and politics could never outweigh the joy, security, and satisfaction that has come from the ministry. It is not for the faint hearted, but we need more people to answer the call of ministry, now more than ever. It will cost you everything… and it is absolutely worth it.

Thank you to all of you who have walked with me, served with me, listened to me, put up with me, and grew with me at so many important places along the way. Thank you, for letting me be your pastor. It has sincerely been my most humble honor and privilege.

Onward to 25 more years!

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