trust – John Markum

What I’m Currently Learning

Posted on June 7, 2013 by johnmarkum

The current season of my life is one of flux and transition. I’m preparing for the biggest step of faith in my life: starting a church and relocating my family to a new area thousands of miles away. I’ve been busy traveling, honing and sharing our vision, preparing my family for the move, raising funds, building our Launch Team, and working hard to finish strong with my sending church. Getting stretched in such definitive ways has been an incredible education! Here are a few of the things that God has been teaching me lately:

You can never out-give God. Ever. God has never once asked for more from me than He planned on giving back. We measure our generosity to God in hand-fulls – God measures His generosity to us in ocean-fulls.He’s proven that to me repeatedly over the last year.
Trials are opportunities to see God show up. There has never been a trial I’ve experienced that God has not come through for me faithfully as always. But I also get to know Him in more intimate ways than before as I endure hardship and lean into His grace.
My wife is the epitome of grace under pressure. Her confidence in me and God’s calling on my life is both inspiring, and gut-check. She honestly has more faith than me sometimes, and I genuinely look up to her more often than she can know. I’m so blessed!
I have the best friends in the world. Anything that creates high tension in a persons’ life reveals who their truest friends are. This is true of a death in the family, job loss, or other major life change. And I’ve come to realize that I have been greatly blessed with friends who are willing to stand with us. I’m grateful beyond words for each of you. You know who you are.
When you trust God, He blesses in secondary ways. The benefits to submitting to God are seen in the obedience itself. However, God also seems to consistently bless my life in peripheral areas to my obedience to Him.
Be confident. The most repeated command in all of Scripture is “fear not.” I constantly remind myself of the promises I alone have heard from God.
Stay teachable. I’ve discovered a tension between presenting myself as “I’m confident and thorough,” and “I’m arrogant and full of myself – you couldn’t possibly teach me anything.” But the truth is, I am acutely aware of my deficiencies and want to learn everything I can from those whom I can learn from. I’ve read more in the last six months than the previous two years. I’ve joined a coaching network. I’ve been to multiple conferences. And I regularly connect with other leaders who know me and have access to speak over my life and ministry.

That’s a little of what God is teaching me very directly right now. There’s nothing like learning on the job!

Blessings,
Pastor John

GIVING.

Posted on March 3, 2013 by johnmarkum

As we’re preparing to launch our church plant, we have described our partnership commitments to LifeCity Church in three words:
FAST.
GIVE.
JOIN.

Before you get all weird on me about making a case for you to give money to our church plant, I want you to know two things:

If you’re not a follower of Jesus Christ, I’m not asking you for anything. It is the responsibility of Christ-followers to finance God’s work.
If you are not trusting God with your money by tithing to your church home, you should start there first.

Now that we’ve got that established let me tell you why you should give to LifeCity Church, and give generously:

Because you give sacrificially to LifeCity Church, the people of the South Bay will fully experience life in Christ.
God will reward you for investing in His Kingdom. He always blesses generosity.
God will bless and even extend your remaining resources.
You’re not just helping us start a church. Your participating in building a church planting movement.
Your consistent giving will make it possible for us to control our budget, predict expenses, and pay for our church’s needs.
By helping us secure the finances to do this work, you enable us to spend more time focused on reaching the people of the South Bay, and less time raising funds.

God is going to call different people to do different things with their finances when it comes to partnering with LifeCity Church. Some people are going to give their tax refund. Others will begin tithing to LifeCity in addition to their church home. Some will be moved to give $25 a month, and other will sense God leading them to give $1000 or more monthly. God calls for equal sacrifice, not necessarily equal giving.

We are specifically challenging people to give on one of two levels:

$100/monthly: We’ve set a goal of seeing 100 people commit to giving at this level. We’re calling these people our “100 x 100” givers. Some have already started doing this.
$250/monthly: Each person doing this for three years will raise 1% of our total giving goal. If 20 people committed to doing this, they would raise 20% of our giving needs alone. To make that number real, it could pay for our meeting space to hold services.

We’re asking for people to consider committing to three years (36 months) so that we have the time to make disciples who begin to tithe to LifeCity Church and own the responsibility of furthering the work of the ministry in their lives.

I know hundreds of reasons why people might not give. I believe God receives greater glory when we trust Him with our resources despite our circumstances. Feel free to email us at: [email protected] if you have more questions about giving to LifeCity Church.

If you’re ready to give now at our secure online giving, click here.

For those of you who do give, I’m very grateful for your sacrifice. We promise to honor your generosity by keeping you informed with how your giving is impacting lives through this step of faith. Thank you!

Blessings,
Pastor John

Teach Us to Pray

Posted on August 22, 2012 by johnmarkum

Matthew 6:5-13

6 things to include every time you pray, based on the model prayer that Jesus gives here in Matthew 6:

Praise: “Hallowed be Your name.” The Bible tells us in Psalms that God “inhabits” the praises of His people. Always take the opportunity to thank God for who He is and what He’s done.
Submission: “Your will be done.” This is not the last time we hear Christ praying this to the Father. God does His greatest, most intimate work through those who are broken before Him.
Needs: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Interestingly, Christ does not encourage us to pray for material abundance, but rather only for our “daily” needs. In other words, living paycheck-to-paycheck is a gift from God and something to be desired!
Forgiveness/Repentance: “Forgive us…” Demonstrates humility and a desire to remove all things that impair our fellowship with our Heavenly Father.
Others: “as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” It’s good to pray for yourself, but there is more power when we pray for each other.
Submission: Christ ends His model prayer much as He began it, in acknowledging and anticipating God’s will, and praising Him. “Amen” literally means “so be it” or, “let it be so.”

I’ve also recently heard from one of my leaders that he grew up learning the acronym PRAY: Praise, Repentance, Ask for others, Yourself. I thought that was pretty good also!

Blessings,

John