Monday, February 9, 2009

True evangelism, wrought through faithful preaching of Gospel in full

This is an excellent "must see" video clip documentary on how, Mark and Gloria Zook, a New Tribes Mission's missionary couple from the US went to Papua New Guinea to share the Gospel with Papuan natives in a remote village.

These people have previously never seen the world outside of their village. These people have never heard of God of the bible, the missionaries did not want to jump right into sharing who Jesus Christ is without first providing them the full picture on the Gospel story as revealed by the bible. The missionaries started by sharing with these Papuan natives simple information on the location where the natives lived relative to others in PNG and in relation to the community of world nations. The Papuan natives started to have a bigger worldview beyond their remote village. They realized that there is a much bigger world beyond their village. With an enhanced worldview, teaching the bible and its events began to make much better sense.

The missionaries took great pains to faithfully teach and explain the whole counsel of God, starting from the creation of the world, creation of man and how man sinned against God, the basis of Old Testament revelations in the calling of Abraham and the sacrificial offering of Isaac by Abraham and how God finally provided the sacrificial lamb. Old Testament's typology were carefully explained and necessity for a perfect sin bearer to atone the sins of sinners and then pointing to God sending His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was faithfuly expounded and the people began to see their sinfulness to be as vile as that of people of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is evident that God moved amongst these people, by His grace, the glorious Gospel's saving power to shine into their hearts, giving them light and opening the hearts to repentance and faith. The people turned to trust in Jesus Christ and were overjoyed that they have found a Savior in Jesus Christ, they loved Him. This video showed the results of true evangelism, wrought through faithful preaching of Gospel in full and relying on God's mighty power and promise to save through His Gospel.

Mark Zook - Biography

Mark Zook and his wife, Gloria, were born and reared in Belleville, Pennsylvania. While farming, they were involved in their local church and in correspondence courses through Moody Bible Institute.

They completed New Tribes Mission’s training and moved to Papua New Guinea in 1983 to begin working with the Mouk People. After learning the language and culture, Mark began Bible translation, Bible teaching, and church planting work. He has translated the New Testament and portions of the Old Testament, developed an extensive Bible teaching curriculum in the Mouk language, and trained Mouk believers for the ministry which has been documented in the videos EE-TAOW and EE-TAOW, the Next Chapter. More than one hundred Mouk men serve as pastor-elders, deacons, Bible teachers, teacher trainees, and literacy program workers ministering to the eighteen indigenous churches in the Mouk tribal area. During the time the Zooks lived and worked with the Mouk tribe, Mark also served as a consultant for tribal missionaries.

Upon returning to Pennsylvania in 1997, Mark joined the team that developed new curriculum for the New Tribes Missions Institute. For the next four years, he taught and refined church planting courses. He has presented church planting seminars in Ivory Coast, Senegal, Venezuela, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Portugal and the Philippines.

Most recently, Mark co-founded the Worldview Resource Group (WRG), which provides training in cross-cultural church planting methodology with an emphasis on a worldview approach to ministry. Mark’s seminars and workshops are a combination of proven methodology and Biblically-based, practical advice. On December 11, 2004, he received the Honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree from Lancaster Bible College.

Mark and Gloria live in Belleville, PA. They have two children, Rick and Nichole, and two grandchildren. Rick and his family are church planters in Papua New Guinea. Nichole and her family live in Pennsylvania.

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