WORLD UPDATE ON THE GOD'S STORY PROJECT
Spring 1998 Vol I Premier Edition

Response to the Gospel in Russia— "The children and non-criminals respond from 90-95% after seeing this video."

One dynamic video of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation—In this issue find out how, God's Story came to be.

You will discover how God called: a retired Disney illustrator, a Christian film company and actor Dean Jones to produce a video that is impacting the world.

Following God's Pattern

While the confused disciples on the road to Emmaus puzzled about Jesus' death on the cross, the risen Savior himself, Jesus Christ, came alongside scolding, "O slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" Then, starting in Genesis, Jesus used the Old Testament Scripture to "explain things concerning himself."

Today, missionaries world-wide are rediscovering the effectiveness of sharing the Gospel by utilizing the same chronological presentation used by Jesus.

New Tribes Missions moved from the traditional missionary approach of topical teaching to chronological. They now deliver the Gospel beginning with the foundational stories that present: The Creator God, humankind's creation and fall, and people's need to trust God's provision of a substitutionary sacrifice.

Teachers begin in the Old Testament using Bible stories that point to the lost condition of all people, and of  God's promise that one day, a Savior would come to provide salvation for all humankind.  

After several months, the teaching of the New Testament stories of Jesus begin. At that point, even previously unreached people-groups easily recognize Jesus as the promised Savior.

Missionaries who use this chronological teaching report that instead of waiting 20 years for their first convert, they now see an 80% conversion rate in only a few months—with evidence of changed lives!

The Story Behind God's Story

As those missionaries were discovering the effectiveness of chronological teaching, the Lord was also prompting an artist, a film-maker and a writer to produce a video using this same presentation of the Gospel.

The artist, Norm McGary, lead illustrator for Disney and Hanna Barbera Inc., had turned his time and talents over to Christian projects after finding the Lord.

Covers and art by McGary are seen world-wide on work done for J. Vernon McGee, Hal Lindsey, Institution of Creation Research, ACTS Tracts and Rock of Israel.

In 1995, Bible teacher Chuck Missler urged McGary to show his portfolio of inspired *paintings, which depicted Jesus Christ throughout the Bible, to Pat Matrisciana of Jeremiah Films.

Matrisciana felt that these paintings could be added to and expanded into a full-length film, and commissioned Dorothy A. Miller to head the project.  

Miller possessed writing expertise and twenty-five years experience in chronological Bible teaching.  She led the Jeremiah team as they produced the 80-minute video, God's Story: From Creation to Eternity.  

This panorama of Bible stories on video are proving to be powerful tools both for discipleship and evangelism.  

The Lord provided the perfect narrator for the English version in the person of Dean Jones, renowned actor and dedicated Christian. Jones' multiple voice-characterizations set a splendid standard for the many narrators who would be recording God's Story in other languages.

*View original paintings on webservants.com/exdis

Vision of World Translation

From the beginning, the Lord destined God's Story to be translated into multiple languages. The unique design of this video makes it wonderfully cost-effective and practical to translate.  

One track shows the visuals and has the sound effects and music, while the other carries the story-telling style narration.

Because of the ease of producing God's Story in new languages, and because of its powerful Gospel impact, Wycliffe (translators to unreached language groups) has begun to utilize it.  

Astounding Results

Translation work began in earnest when the Lord brought Good Shepherd Ministries into partnership with The God's Story Project of Jeremiah Films. Full work started in January of 1997 and by the end of that year, God's Story became available in eight languages.

To show just how God is blessing the use of these languages, here are some excerpts from a letter sent by a medical missionary using the Russian version inside prisons and orphanages in Russia. (She began with 100 copies in the fall of 1997, which were soon used in more than 1000 showings. After sending this letter, she contacted us saying she needed thousands more videos to place in the hands of guards, and of prisoners returning to their homes!)

"...I want to relate to you the great success we are having with the video, "God's Story." After watching the English version twice, I watched the Russian version and was impressed by its equally outstanding quality. "The Russians, who are very artistically inclined, were very impressed by the video portion, the music, and of course the outstanding presentation of the Gospel. They referred to it as being very "precious," and teachers, guards, doctors, and nurses all asked if they could have copies for their families too.  "Even three priests of the Russian Orthodox Church were asking for copies for their Sunday schools and congregations."Not only is the music and artistry the best I have seen, but the power is so great because it is purely the Gospel and Scripture. I saw it reaching both the intellectuals and children.

"In Russia, a video is a very special and precious commodity, so I just cannot express how many people these videos are going to reach. They will be shown whenever people visit, and shared with family and friends.

"At Prison #6, they do wood burning carving of furniture, etc., and the director told me that they reward the men by showing them videos. He volunteered that when they showed it [God's Story], over 50% of the men showed evidence of a changed life. He was very impressed by that fact as these were very serious criminals.

"....I would be willing to be a donor to it [to any other languages] and a distributor to India, Romania, Honduras, and other Spanish countries.

"I have the opportunity to reach hundreds of prisons and am good friends with the highest officers in command. I can now see a way to get the Gospel to more prisons than I can reach as these officers drive daily to oversee and evaluate these prisons and are willing to take the video and booklets to them.

"The children and non-criminals respond from 90-95% and up. I have seen whole rooms stand to pray for salvation.  

In Christ's Love,

Patricia M. Lindsay, M.D.

P.S. We already have an invitation for all of 1998 from the government officials."

Language Progress

Arabic, English, German, Greek,Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Indonesian, Mandarin, Quechua and Russian are finished!

Soon to be completed are French and Romanian  In progress are 15 more languages including *Albanian and *Mongolian.
*These need partial funding for completion.

These are some of the more that 50 language-group requests still waiting for translation funding:

Albanian, Armenian, Belgian, Bengali, Brazilian-Portuguese, Bulgarian, Cakchiquel, Cambodian, Cantonese, Cebuano, Creole, Danish, Dari, Farsi, Uzbek, Hungarian, Jula, Mam, Kannadu, Laotian, Lugandan, Makayakan, Mandinka, Marathi, Melanesi, Pashto, Pidgin, Polish, Romanian, Samogho, Senefou, Siamou, Slovanian, Swahili, Tagalog, Tamil, Talke Telke, Telgu, Urdu, North & South Vietnamese, Yanamamo, Yoruba & Zulu.

Come Stand With Us

A sponsorship of $2,500 enables us to produce and distribute a foreign-language master tape of God's Story.

Every sponsorship provides a master tape for the mission field.

*Unlimited numbers of videos may then be duplicated—to use and distribute as desired! *A few languages have restrictions.

Your sponsorship can provide a master tape to the ministry group or missionary of your choice.

Once a master tape gets inside a country, even if the doors close to missionaries, the message of the Gospel in God's Story can still be duplicated and given out!

(Funds given to purchase masters of already completed languages cover the hard cost of master duplication and distribution. Any balance becomes seed money for languages not yet funded.)

Individual donations of any size go towards the cost of producing masters and getting them out to the language groups.