4. Foundation of Good News Mission (1)

1) Foundations of Evangelical Churches that God Had Strongly Used

Human history is largely divided into two periods centered on Jesus Christ: BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, After Christ), and God has worked in each periods through His servants that He raised every time. There were Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, Elijah, Elisha, and Samuel etc… before Christ, and after Christ there were Peter, Paul, Polycarp, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Knox, John Bunyan, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, D.L Moody, and Charles Studd. Especially, servants that were raised after revival of Jesus Christ were always used as instruments to preach gospel. God chose and trained His servants who had an especially strong mind towards gospel and He used them to strongly preach gospel to people. In each period, as His servants were raised and they preached gospel powerfully, people who received salvation through them naturally gathered to form evangelical churches. For examples, there are Lutheran Church by Martin Luther (Germany), Methodist Church by John Wesley (England), Presbyterian Church by John Calvin (France), Baptist Church by John Smith (England), Salvation Army by William Booth (England), and WEC by Charles Studd. In other words, they are the founders of early evangelical churches. So, all the evangelical churches have their basis on His servants who founded them, and their spiritual states are also connected to that of the founders. As commonly known, Martin Luther and John Wesley, the founders of Lutheran Church and Methodist Church, were all definitely born-again servants who mainly concentrated on preaching gospel. Therefore, Lutheran Church and Methodist Church founded by those two servants were also largely used by Him in preaching gospel. Yet, the point we have to give attention to is that evangelical churches in an early stage and today’s Korean churches are very different from each other. That is, when we compare the spiritual aspects of early evangelical churches and Korean Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches in present, they are remarkably distinctive from each other. We will deal with the reasons more in detail on history of Korean Church, but as a representative example, John Wesley, the founder of Methodist church, was originally a pastor of Anglican Church and ministered for ten years regardless of gospel. Then, through Moravian Church, evangelical church at that time, he found out that he was not born again, and in a small chapel on Aldersgate Street, London, he experienced being born again on May 24th, 1738. Because Presbyterian Church was formed as Wesley preached a true gospel that led him to salvation, believers of Korean Presbyterian Church still annually commemorate that day. But the problem is that most of Presbyterian followers do not have experiences of being born again unlike Wesley, besides, they are ignorant and even deny about being born again. Likewise, many Korean believers in present live religious lives perfunctorily, without any passions towards being born again and gospel that early believers of evangelical churches had before. The biggest reason is because faith and spiritual senses that His servants who are the fundamentals of the evangelical churches had are not connected to Korean churches in present. If the faith and spiritual senses that the servants of God had are connected, Korean churches are also able to change the world with gospel just like the early evangelical churches had done. Unfortunately, Korean churches in today are not able to perform their functions as ‘the light and the salt of the world,’ which can drive out the darkness and corruptions from the world. Recently, ‘church hereditary’ and ‘financial troubles’ that could never be seen with the early evangelical churches are spread among Korean churches. For that reason, although many churches in Korea externally seem to continue genealogy of the early churches, back sides of their spiritual aspects are distinctively different. Consequently, this problem conceived corruptions of Korean churches, which surfaced as serious problems in Korean society.

2) Servants of God Who Were Raised in History of Reformation

When we divide history of gospel into two parts in overall, the early stage was a period of persecution where they protected gospel from Satan who persecuted gospel mercilessly through Roman Empire. After Edict of Milan where Roman emperor Constantine the Great officially accepted Christianity in AD 313, the second part was a history of reformation on corrupted existing churches and false churches founded by Satan. So, before the Edict of Milan in AD 313, many servants protected their faith by death and preached gospel in Satan’s persecutions, but the servants after the Edict of Milan have preached gospel demanding for reformations on corrupted and false churches that Satan rose. John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, John Knox, John Bunyan, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, and D.L Moody are those. “Forgiveness of sins can be only done by God through Jesus Christ. So, a behavior of bargaining holy things like indulgences is treason against God. I will appeal to the only judge, Jesus Christ who is not only omnipotent but also perfectly just. I put my disposition on His hands. ‘Lord Jesus, I carry out this brutal death without any discontents because of You. Please have mercy on my enemies.’” (Jan Hus) “A lay believer armed with the Bible is more trustworthy than the Pope or the Councils. Because of the Bible, we have to refuse the Pope and the Councils. Did not God talk through even a donkey? I will speak the word exactly as I received from God. I am a theologian on Christianity. Only the Cross is the true divinity. I have decided to defense the truth I believe in until my bleeding death. I will confess only truth that God has given. (Martin Luther) “I was born again at about 8:45pm on May 24th, 1738. Before then, I thought I was standing on God’s side, but I did not even know which side I was on because I was a spiritual blind. Right after I was born again, I started to preach about ‘salvation without any price’. Once I stood on God’s side and begun attacking Satan’s kingdom, Satan did not stay quite. I was imposed as a pastor from England State Religion long time ago, but as soon as I started to preach gospel of salvation, all the churches shut down the doors towards me. My companion George Whitefield who was preaching gospel before me faced same situation. In the other word, we were just driven as ‘heresy.’” (John Wesley) As seen above, all the servants who were largely used by God in evangelizing were at the front in reformation of false and corrupted churches preaching gospel strongly. Also, when we look at the history of Christianity, we can discover that God has always raised new servants and new history of gospel whenever the existing churches got corrupted.

3) A Foundation of Good News Mission, Pastor Ock Soo Park

“Pastor Ock Soo Park of Good News Mission, Grand Prize of New Korean in 2005” (2005. 12. 21) – Korea Times “Proud Korean who plants faith and hope on all over the world” (2004. 9. 23) ? Herald Business “A frontier of religious reformation, Pastor Ock Soo Park from Good News Mission” (2004. 6. 11) ? Daily Kyunghyang Recently, Good News Mission and Pastor Ock Soo Park are being noticed as representative frontiers of reformation focused only on gospel. Good News Mission, with Pastor Ock Soo Park as its main speaker, continually preaches gospel at large gymnasiums and halls, like ‘Olympic Gymnastics Hall,’ in each city, and also holds bible seminars all over the world such as ‘Madison Square Garden.’ Besides, sermons of Pastor Ock Soo Park are serialized on Los Angeles Times from last year, New York Times, the best daily in the world, from this year, and on 3 top daily papers in Korea: Chosun, Joongang, and Dong-A. In addition to, Pastor Park’s words of gospel and reformation on false and conventional churches are being conveyed through writing, broadcasting, and internet to over 80 countries. So, countless people in an out of the country gained faith of salvation through the gospel preached in Good News Mission and are living a born-again lives in happiness including people who were agonizing because of sins, people who were tired of conventional churches, and people who were wandering due to various problems in their lives. In this reason, Good News Mission and Pastor Ock Soo Park are spotlighted by major media with a modification of ‘A Frontier of Religious Reformation’ and ‘A New Leader of Christianity in 21st century.’ A fundamental of this Good News Mission is faith and spiritual sense of Pastor Ock Soo Park. Thus, in order to know Good News Mission in a right way, understanding of his faith and spiritual sense should be preceded. 1944. June. 2nd (of lunar calendar) ? Birth in Suhn San, Gyeong Buk 1962. Oct. 7th ? Born again (19 years old) 1962. Nov. ? Entered a missionary school of ‘Shield of Faith Mission’ (19 years old) 1963. June ? Started preaching gospel in Apgok Dong, Hapchun, Gyeong Nam (20 years old) 1964. May ? Charge of Jangpalli Church in Guh Chang, Gyeong Nam (21 years old) 1965. Oct. 30th ? Entered army and evangelized the army (22 years old) 1968. June 8th ? Discharged from army and started children missionary (25 years old) 1969. May ? Charge of Kim Cheon Church in Gyeong Buk (26 years old) 1971. July ? Pastoral imposition by Missionary Dick York (28 years old) 1973. Jan. 26th ? Charge of Daegu Central Church (30 years old) 1976. July 12th ? Started Good News Mission missionary school (33 years old) Information above is a brief history of Pastor Park before he started Good News Mission, and Good News Mission is actually started when Pastor Park opened a missionary school in 1976 instead of missionaries like Dick York and Kays Glass who went back to their home countries. Before that, it was a period where Pastor Park graduated from missionary school founded by several missionaries and preached gospel privately with guide of God, and we will look at this period focusing on his faith and spiritual sense.