Ed Waken Interviewed

Ed Waken, Grace Brethren church planter in Pheonix, Ariz. and staff member for Church Multiplication Associates, is interviewed on a blog for the Dunwoody Baptist Core Groups. He will be serving as facilitator for their Align Groups Conference in early October. In the first part of the interview, he shares about his family and how he came to Christ:

I came to know Jesus in April, 1976 on my way to a skiing weekend. I woke up that morning, went to a local store and stole a case of beer and headed to the mountains with a friend. On the way to the resort, we hit some black ice and skidded around a bit. My friend asked me what I thought would happen to us if we had died. My reply was “Well, if God wakes up on the right side of the bed, I might have a good chance to get into heaven.” At that point, my friend quoted to me 1 John 5:11-13. My whole Catholic teaching came into play. I believed in the Trinity, that Jesus was God, became man, died on the cross for my sins and resurrected on the third day - I had always believed these things. 1 John 5:13 says that you can KNOW that you have eternal life. On that road to a skiing resort I took my knowledge of Jesus and received Him in my heart and my life changed. I got to the resort, took the case of beer and threw it away. No one asked me to, it was just instinctive to me. I woke up a thief and went to bed a saint!

From there I worked for my families cabinet manufacturing business while I raised a family, became a youth pastor and went to Bible College at night. I crammed a five year degree into thirteen years. I was a youth/associate pastor at one church in Long Beach for almost 8 years and then became the associate pastor at another church in the area for another 8 years before moving to Phoenix to start churches. Since coming to Christ, I have been involved with the Grace Brethren family of churches.

To read the complete interview, click here.