Pull content from a Page into a Template?

I’m trying to take content I have in a page and simply output it somewhere else, like in a sidebar, but I’m having trouble figuring out how to do that.

I tried using the get_posts function with a specific page ID, but I fail to get anything.

Here’s the code I’m trying:

<?php
global $post;
$myposts = get_posts('include=648');
foreach($myposts as $post) :
?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Is there a function like get_posts that works with pages?

The end result I’m trying to achieve is to have my writers be able to edit blocks of content (stored on a page) that we can reuse in various places on our site (like on a sidebar or in the footer). I’d use the Widgets feature, but that doesn’t allow for a visual text editor and these content blocks need to be formatted.

I was using the Miniblog plug-in to do this, but it is no longer in development and no longer works.

Thanks!