Category Archives: Mission & Service

Planning is an integral and essential component for any new project or service to proceed with success and ease. As servants we are sometimes overly excited by our ideas and dream about the end product which we envisage as being successful without actually sitting down and paying attention to the details of our plan including its feasibility, implementation and financial liabilities.

Christ himself alludes to this when he states;

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it– lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

Luke 14:28-30

I am no expert when it comes to service Read the rest of this entry »

From Servant to Servant

How often it is as servants that we become all zealous to start a service without sitting down and counting the cost involved.

So often I see servants who perhaps hear a wonderful sermon or a wonderful idea and rush out to begin work on beginning this service and within a few weeks the service dies out as they lose their motivation for continuing it.

To begin a service you must have two key ingredients for its success. These ingredients are prayer and commitment. Without these two essential ingredients every single service will fail and the servant will be a fool in the eyes of those he serves. Read the rest of this entry »

Why Jesus? Look throughout the major world religions and you’ll find that Buddha, Muhammad, Confucius and Moses all identified themselves as teachers or prophets. None of them ever claimed to be equal to God. Surprisingly, Jesus did. That is what sets Jesus apart from all the others. He said God exists and you’re looking at him. Though he talked about his Father in heaven, it was not from the position of separation, but of very close union, unique to all humankind. Jesus said that anyone who had seen Him had seen the Father, anyone who believed in him, believed in the Father. Read the rest of this entry »

Being an Ambassador for Christ

The following is a transcript of a sermon given by His Grace, Bishop Antonious Markos, on Sunday the 2^nd of November 2008 at the Parish of St Mercurious, Sydney.

While an attempt has been made to convey the sermon as faithfully as possible, the writer’s intention is to impart the profound spirit of the sermon and humbly apologises for any deficiencies or omissions herein.

Moses did not part the Red Sea alone

I thank Father Matthew for his gracious introduction but wish to make a correction.

No one man can be credited for the work of mission that has taken place in Africa over the past thirty years.

No one person can honestly say “it was me who did this” or “it was me who did that”. But we say, and I am sure of this, that it is a Divine Power that has worked and continues to work in the African nations.   Read the rest of this entry »

One would think that the Coptic Church would have flourished in Africa, however this could not be further from the truth. It was not till the works of a great man in spreading the faith to the people of Africa that the fullness and richness of the Coptic Church reached its four corners.

This man is none other than the Veteran Missionary HG Bishop Antonios Morkos, Below is a small biography on this man, who changed the way Africans worship!
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As a child HG Bishop Antonios Morkos was brought up in a God fearing family.  So much is his family dedicated to God that two of his brother’s became Priests and his cousin a Bishop.

When he was a young man he served a small rural village outside of Cairo.  Here the seed of Mission was planted in his heart.  He wanted to spread the word of God to all people near and far.  He often thought of the people who were outside of Egypt, people who had not heard of the true Christian faith of the Coptic Orthodox Church.  The desire to preach the Word of God in Africa was in his heart.

In December 1959 he finished medical school and his heart was occupied with how to serve those who have no one.

“AND HOW SHALL THEY BELIEVE IN WHOM THEY HAVE NOT HEARD, AND HOW SHALL THEY HEAR WITHOUT A PREACHER? AND HOW SHALL THEY PREACH UNLESS SOMEONE SENDS SUCH PREACHER”(Rom 10:14-15).

On May 26 1966 he departed Cairo Airport for Ethiopia.  He was blessed and directed by the reposed His Holiness Pope Kyrellos VI and guided by his spiritual father Bishop Shenouda (Currently His Holiness Pope Shenouda III).

This began his life in Mission.  He was a “tentmaker” missionary.  Using his medical career to support his missionary work.  For the next ten years he would serve the people of Ethiopia spiritually, medically and socially.

In 1975 after the assassination of Emperor Haile Sellasie and a reveloution in Ethiopia, the doctor decided to return back to Egypt.  Once in Egypt he decided it was time to fulfill his vows and entered the monastery of The Baramos in Wadi Natrun.  He became a monk under the name Father Antonious The Baramos.

In early 1976 His Holiness Pope Shenouda III blessed and sent the monk, Father Antonious, to start full time missionary work in Kenya.  Latter that year returned to Egypt for a period of rest.  To his surprise on The Feast of Pentecost, June 12 1976, at the hands of His Holiness Pope Shenouda III he was ordained Bishop Antonious Markos, Bishop of African Affairs.

From that time His Grace Bishop Antonious Markos has established over 35 churches in 10 African countries.  The full details of this glorious mission can be read in his books,

Come Across and Help Us and Theology of Mission – Click HERE.

These books are available online for download and printing.

His Grace has traveled the globe giving seminars on Mission.  He is spends almost two months each year serving the Coptic Youth worldwide at regional youth conventions.

May the work of this Great Man continue for many years to Come

God Bless