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Mission Hits #73 (July 2026)

  • Writer: From Every Nation (Chris Howles)
    From Every Nation (Chris Howles)
  • 13 hours ago
  • 8 min read

Welcome to Mission Hits, a monthly blog highlighting stimulating and significant recent resources related to world mission and world Christianity.


Welcome to Mission Hits #73 (July 2026)

 

Another month, another (wonderfully!) overwhelming number of top resources released on world mission/world Christianity. Mission Hits exists to do the sifting for you, picking out some of the very best and putting them in one place for busy people.

 

This month's edition ranges from missionary biographies to missionary burnout, from the population future of Africa to the theology of Revelation, from home assignments to artificial intelligence.

 

If you find Mission Hits this valuable, I'd love your help in growing the community by recommending it to others who share a heart for God's global mission.


See you again soon for the next edition,


Chris (Howles)

Director of Cross-Cultural Training, Oak Hill College (UK)

Doctorate in Intercultural Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary (US)


ESSENTIALS (if you only have time for one...)


Essential for Missionaries


"For years, I thought mission was primarily about what God wanted to do through me. I now see that my spiritual formation was never secondary." Bradley Bell (Upstream Collective) offers a wise, powerful and personal reminder to missionaries that one of the great threats to long-term fruitfulness is neglecting the missionary behind the mission.


Essential for Church Leaders


"As unreasonable as it may seem, I felt a sense of rejection and of being unneeded by my daughter and her family. Your parents may feel the same way, and conveying their continued importance in your life will go a long way toward healing the hurts." Ann Bowman offers wise and compassionate advice for navigating one of the less discussed aspects of missionary sending: helping parents and adult children say goodbye well. Church leaders involved in missionary sending would do well to read this.

Essential for Christians Partnering as Senders


Few articles capture the experience of furlough as well as this: the joys, stresses, strains and conundrums that many mission partners experience when organising and undertaking a home assignment. Those who send and support missionaries worldwide would do very well to read and remember this to better help those going through it. By Rachel Hughes for the 'A Life Overseas' blog.

GENERAL (well worth your time)


Best current data show that 70-80% of single missionaries are female. Emma Bell is one of them. Here she gives one of the most honest and helpful reflections I've read on the hidden griefs of singleness in cross-cultural ministry.

 

A wonderfully clear introduction to reading Revelation through the lens of God's missional purpose in the world: "Revelation is not a chart of our escape. It is the marching orders for our engagement." If this whets your appetite then this book released 8 months ago is the one you want!

 

"God showed me some of what I couldn’t see at the time. He showed me that love is never wasted. I play only a small part in the much bigger work that God is doing, and I can entrust the results to him." This is a beautiful story from Carmen Joy Imes, associate professor of Old Testament at Talbot School of Theology, about her return earlier this year to the Philippines, 21 years after living there. Deep encouragement for anyone who feels their missionary story is still somehow 'unfinished'.

AUDIO/VISUAL (podcasts & videos)


Brooks Buser (Radius International) on his 10 favourite missionary biographies. Ten-minute podcast (transcript available too).

 

These are hard topics to discuss on a podcast, but as ever Ed handles them here with his usual wisdom and generosity, and although by no means the last word, this is an excellent place to start for a Christian thinking through these crucial questions. 33-min episode of the Global Missions Podcast.

 

Dave Jacob (Gospel Mobilization) is a guest on the new Joshua Project podcast explaining how 'The call to missions isn't a departure from the Old Testament story…it's a fulfillment of it'.

DIGGING DEEPER (challenging but rewarding)


This detailed report outlines the main talking points from the recent World Evangelical Alliance Mission Committee online forum on AI in church and missions. Theological wisdom and sensible advice ('pray before prompting') on everything AI and mission, including translation, orality, digital evangelism, and ministry among the unreached, all while constantly maintaining that technology must always remain subordinate to faithful, relational mission.

 

Ted Esler looks back at some of the main trends of the American missionary movement over 250 years. From David Brainerd and the Haystack Prayer Meeting to unreached people groups and digital mission, it's a fascinating whistle-stop tour through 250 years of missionary history, featuring many remarkable contributions and significant blind spots.

 

The Lausanne Movement, in between their giant global congresses, continue to do brilliant work in so many different areas. This recent conference, which they facilitated in Kenya and which explored an African theology of generosity and fundraising, sounds outstanding. This report feels like a must-read for anyone engaged in and with African Christianity and global partnerships.

BOOKS (recent releases)

Links are to Amazon for best info/reviews. Other outlets are available...

 

Josh Irby (editor)

"Barnabas entered sensitive crosscultural situations and could help without hurting. He taught, developed, and trained others while also encouraging and releasing leaders. He modeled mission partnership that is generous, trustworthy, mutual, and empowering. Discover how The Barnabas Factor offers a fresh approach to global collaboration that fosters healthier and more effective crosscultural mission partnerships." Hear Josh Irby speak about the book on podcasts here and here.

 

Douglas Jacobsen

"Highlighting Christianity's four largest traditions (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Pentecostalism), Global Gospel explains both the shared history and the regional distinctives of Christian faith in Africa, Asia (including the Pacific), Europe, Latin America, and North America. The text is enlivened by an abundance of maps, charts, and illustrative photos and by short primary source readings that illustrate different theological emphases on the five continents."

 

Ryan Robertson and Matt Bennett

"In The Path to Being a Missionary, Ryan Robertson and Matt Bennett lay out practical advice and questions for readers as they consider if missionary work is the right fit for them. Through each concise chapter, readers will consider preparation for a life of service while honestly evaluating their character, convictions, and competencies. Rather than asking, Am I called? Robertson and Bennett urge men and women to ask the more important question: Am I qualified?" Podcast about the book here.


MISCELLANEOUS (varied but valuable)


The Lausanne Movement continue to serve the global church in mission in a myriad of extraordinary ways: Their 'Global Classroom' is a free collection of modular teaching resources on many of the major themes in contemporary global mission, such as proclamation evangelism, creation care, diaspora, media, trauma, orality, and more. Each module has a series of well-produced short videos, along with user guides, discussion questions etc.

 

Rob Bradshaw ('Theology on the Web') has done us all a great service by compiling a brilliant list of non-Western theological journals from the past and present with links to their free articles. A huge amount of global theological wisdom gathered in one place.

 

World Christianity for kids! "Visit 10 Kids and Their Churches All Around the World…Kids will gain enthusiasm for going to church as they discover that they and their local fellowship are part of something much bigger: a family of people worshiping God all around the world!" Christian picture book for Kids Ages 4-8, written by Tim Challies and illustrated by Sian James.


QUOTES (wise one-liners)


(1) "The one who does the work is only surpassed in value by the one who multiplies the doers."

John R. Mott

 

(2) "An easy-going, non-self-denying life will never be one of power. Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing."

Hudson Taylor

 

(3) "Centrifugal energy without a centre becomes dispersal. When we fail to form people deeply in Scripture, doctrine, prayer, holiness, believers do not so much enter the culture on mission as dissolve into it."

Jonny Pollock

GLOBAL INSIGHT (critical news & trends)


Five facts about the changing population in Africa, based on a Pew Research Center analysis of the United Nations’ World Population Prospects. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Africa's future...and the future of Christianity.

 

"In Nigeria’s illicit cybercrime training schools known as hustle kingdoms, there are no locks on the doors. Yet the young men being coerced into a life of online fraud don’t leave. They are held in place by something more durable than a lock and tougher to break than a chain. They are held by juju oaths, a practice tied to traditional West African spirituality."

 

The growth of cities across parts of Asia has been so rapid that questions are arising concerning where to bury the urban dead. In China, high-rise indoor, informal cemeteries have just been outlawed. But the bigger question of whether people can afford a square metre or so of burial space remains.

STATS (noteworthy numbers)


(1) On average, it costs the US church a remarkable half a million US dollars to recruit, prepare, launch, and sustain an overseas mission worker for the first 4 years. SOURCE

 

(2) By 2075, there will be more people identifying as Christians in Africa, Latin America, and Asia than in Europe. Europe will have fallen from being the continent with the most Christians to fourth place in just a century. SOURCE

 

(3) Africans donate 1.6% of their income togood causes, the highest proportion of any continent. Europe is the lowest, with 0.6%. SOURCE

ONLINE EVENTS (Zoom webinars)


The summer always brings a quieter calendar for online mission events, so this section is taking a short break. It'll be back next edition with another selection of webinars, courses, and online gatherings.

HIGHLIGHTS (Most popular from last month's Mission Hits…)

 

 

JUST FOR FUN (unrelated but interesting!)


Cartograms are world maps where countries are resized according to some aspect of data. This website has 1000+ of them! The world map according to earthquake deaths, Nobel prizes, poverty levels, birth rates, and almost anything else you might imagine. I love this.

 

Look through thousands of windows worldwide! WindowSwap lets you watch short, prerecorded videos filmed through windows around the world. It’s strangely absorbing. The world, even when at its most 'mundane', is so fascinating.

 

This Englishman loves football and loved the World Cup, so I very much enjoyed these top 30 photographs (out of half a million that the Guardian newspaper received) from the tournament.


Full searchable archives of all Mission Hits resources from edition #1



Find out more about fromeverynation.net


 
 
 
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