World Missions Advance

09/05/2026

“The promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise to never have a headache or always to feel hungry.” -C. S. Lewis

This past month, August 17th to be exact, Angela and I celebrated 13 years of marriage. I’m so thankful God brought us together. We have three beautiful kids, Penelope 8, Jack (4), and Margot (2). Angela is my biggest cheerleader and we make a great team. She still laughs at my jokes, most of them anyway...a lot of them...some of them. Angela is intelligent, beautiful, and filled with a particular type of regal grace that you would know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever been in a room with her. Marriage is a wonderful thing, I highly recommend it.

We had the above C. S. Lewis quote read at our wedding. I love this quote because it reminds me, it reminds all of us, that life is about commitment, not just feelings. Feelings are wonderful, but it can be dangerous to rely too heavily on them. How many people “feel” something special during a worship service only to think something is wrong with their relationship with the Lord when the next time they’re worshiping they don’t “feel” the same way. It’s dangerous to chase a feeling.

God created feelings, but our faith is rooted in facts and the promises of God. Like C. S. Lewis says elsewhere, if you always felt in love then there would be no need to make a promise. Tim Keller wisely wrote that it is not the strength of our faith that saves us, it is the object of our faith that saves, namely Jesus. Your salvation is not based on how saved you feel, but on the promises of God.

Feelings are great, but they can be subjective. We can misread and misinterpret situations. We get tired, hungry, cranky, angry, and all of the feelings in between. We are all sinners saved by grace pressing on in our individual races that God has called us to.

Be encouraged today, regardless of how you feel. Faith is not feelings. Faith is substance. Faith is based on a promise. Our faith is sure because of His promise.

So, no matter how you’re feeling, remember the promises you’ve made. Remember the promises that He’s made. Rest in that.

08/08/2026

Update from WMA Associate Missionaries Ryan and Melissa Humphrey in El Salvador.

08/04/2026

"If you had the cure for cancer in your pocket, 100% cure… what wouldn’t you do to get it into every hospital… Not everybody has cancer… but I promise you this —everybody has an issue called death. And in Christ… He is the cure for death.” -Trog Trogdon
(see podcast below)

Have you ever been in a great revival service where the evangelist was preaching and sharing stories about personal evangelism and it got you excited about sharing your faith? You were so excited that for the next week, maybe even two, you looked for every opportunity to share your faith with someone else? And then…a couple of weeks went by and you got busy with life? I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but it sure has happened to me.

I recently interviewed Trog Trogdon of Kingdom Focus Coaching. We talk about evangelism and how to share the Gospel, naturally, in our everyday lives. We can all use a refresher on personal evangelism.

I pray that this discussion will encourage you to go out and share your faith with others. Our job is to be obedient to plant the seeds. The results belong to God.

In this conversation you will learn:
• A simple, clear presentation of the Gospel
• Natural bridge statements you can use immediately
• Overcoming fear and the pressure to “close the deal”
• Practical tools, resources, and everyday opportunities
• Why faithfulness matters more than immediate results

World Missions Advance exists to provide administrative and spiritual support to both domestic and international missionaries and Christian organizations. WMA Associate missionaries are planting Gospel seeds all over the world. Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support.

Let’s go out and share the Good News to a dying world!

In this episode, I talk to Trog Trogdon — founder of Kingdom Focus ...

08/03/2026

Our very own WMA Associate Missionary, Pam Berry Anderson has written a book! Check it out below!

"Missionary Shorts is a heartfelt collection of true stories from Pam Berry Anderson’s years of serving the Lord across the globe. With honesty, humor, and deep faith, she recounts unforgettable moments from the mission field — times of joy and hardship, danger and laughter, culture shock and divine provision.

From Africa to the Caribbean and beyond, these short stories reveal the everyday realities of missionary life: trusting God in unfamiliar places, navigating challenges with grace, and discovering His faithfulness in every circumstance. Whether facing language barriers, unexpected adventures, personal loss, or miraculous answers to prayer, Pam’s journey is a testimony to the power of obedience and the goodness of God.

More than a memoir, Missionary Shorts is an invitation to see missions through the eyes of someone who lived it — one story, one lesson, and one act of faith at a time. These pages will encourage believers, stir compassion for the nations, and remind readers that God uses ordinary people who are willing to say yes."

is a heartfelt collection of true stories from Pam Berry Anderson’s years of serving the Lord across the globe. With honesty, humor, and deep faith, she recounts unforgettable moments from the mission field — times of joy and hardship, danger and laughter, culture shock and divine provision. F.....

07/13/2026

What if you made Gospel goals? What if you prayed that God would send at least one person your way this week in order to share the Gospel with them?

If you’d like some practical strategies to share the Gospel with people in your everyday life then check out my conversation with Trog Trogdon below! 👇

In this episode, I talk to Trog Trogdon — founder of Kingdom Focus ...

07/07/2026

NEW WMA ASSOCIATE MISSIONARY
Issac Sastry Tagaram | INDIA

Issac Sastry Tagaram is from India and has a passion for raising up the next generation of Christ-centered leaders. His ministry focuses on teaching, mentoring, and equipping Bible college students, young pastors, and vulnerable children to become faithful followers of Christ who will positively impact their communities and nation.

After graduating from Christ For The Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas, Isaac had the opportunity to serve at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. It was a season of tremendous learning, growth, and ministry. During that time, however, God began speaking to his heart about returning to India.

As he meditated on Joshua 1, Isaac sensed the Lord asking him a personal question: "What in your life has to die so that you can experience the call of God?" Realizing that he needed to surrender his own plans, comfort, and security, he chose to obey God's call and return home.

Today, Isaac teaches and mentors Bible college students and young pastors, equipping them to become effective leaders who faithfully serve God and their communities. He also has a deep burden for children living in the slums. During prayer, the Lord impressed another question upon his heart: "If the enemy can see the potential in these children, why can't God's people?"

That question became the foundation of a ministry dedicated to rescuing vulnerable children, providing them with a safe and loving environment, supporting their education, discipling them in God's Word, and helping them develop practical life and vocational skills. Isaac's prayer is that each child will grow into a mature follower of Christ who becomes a blessing to both God and the nation.

Looking back, Isaac can clearly see God's hand leading every step of his journey—from India to Dallas, from serving in America to returning home, and from personal calling to investing in the next generation. His life is a testimony that when we surrender everything to God and obey His voice, He is faithful to fulfill His purposes through us. To God alone be all the glory.

If you would like to partner with Issac and his ministry in India, please go to: https://www.worldmissionsadvance.org/sastry

07/01/2026

“More than two hundred years after Washington’s death, his willingness to relinquish power—twice—is the most remarkable thing that we remember about him. These refusals to seize power for himself were the greatest acts of one of history’s greatest men.” -Eric Metaxas, "7 Men and The Secret of Their Greatness"

“Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humiliation of its God.” So begins Bruce and Marshall Shelley’s, “Church History in Plain Language.” Humility. We could all use a bit more of it, couldn’t we? When was the last time you heard a sermon on such a thing?

While I hesitate to compare George Washington with Jesus (of course there is no comparison), if we are to imitate God and “walk in love” (Ephesians 5:1-2a) as Paul exhorts the Ephesians, it can be encouraging for we mere humans to look at the example of other mere humans and how they walked out humility in their own lives. To quote my mom, “George Washington was great because he chose service over power.” Imagine what our lives would be like if history had gone a different direction? America is no perfect place. It’s made up of people after all. But what if things would have been different? What if George Washington would have refused to relinquish power? Could the fledgling, burgeoning, suckling of a unified nation have withstood such an event? Anyway, this is a mission’s newsletter, and I am no American historian. The point is, we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. Those who humbled themselves…sometimes in life… sometimes in death.

Christ, gave us the ultimate example of humility when he took on the “form of a servant” and was “obedient to the point of death” (Philippians 2:7-8). True love serves. We were born to serve. Michael Reeves, in his book, “Delighting in the Trinity,” writes, “Love for the Lord, love for neighbor—that is the heart of holiness and how the triune God’s people get to be like him.”

We never outgrow the Gospel and we never outgrow the need for humility. Many books have been written and will continue to be written about the secret(s) to greatness. I can think of no greater secret, that is no secret at all, than humility.

I’m thankful to be celebrating the 250th Anniversary of my great country, the United States of America. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). May God help us be the latter.

06/24/2026

"the Bible is indeed historically reliable and a worthy investment of [your] time...If the Bible is inspired and inerrant (and it is), then the archaeological record will affirm it. And it does!"

-Dr. Paul Weaver, PhD, "Faith-Affirming Findings: 50 Archaeological Discoveries that Validate the Historicity and Reliability of Scripture"

Check out our interview below 👇

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Paul Weaver, Associate Professor o...

06/23/2026

MISSIONS UPDATE | GREECE | Jona Pettijohn Missions

In May, I was in Thessaloniki, Greece, assisting the leadership of International Christian Center Athens, as well as a team of missionaries from Christ For The Nations Institute with what turned out to be an extraordinary event!

The International Children's Leadership Experience was a day devoted entirely to the education and building up of children's ministry leaders from across the world. We had over 150 attendants from 25 different countries join us. Some of them were pastors, some were sent by their pastors, others were simply believers who operated home churches because they come from cities where they have no church. Some of them were passionate about reaching and ministering to children and others were fairly new to the idea. All of them, however, were deeply impacted by their time at the conference.

The speakers brought a wide range of topics from teaching children the full Gospel, to pre-teen ministry, and ministering to children with special needs. One moment that really struck me was a conversation I had with a Greek woman who attended a session how identify and handle issues of child sexual abuse. "This is historic for Greece," she said to me. It was a comment that caught me a bit off guard. Coming from America where nearly every church has a children's ministry and topics like these are discussed more and more consistently, it's hard to grasp that a country so steeped in religion and church culture could go for so long without recognizing the need to reach children. But that's exactly what's happened in Greece for centuries and it's also exactly what's currently changing in this nation. More churches are waking up to this blind spot and working to remove it to better reach the next generation. Praise God for the revelation He's bringing to His people in this land! This conference was an incredible contribution to the cause of Christ amongst the Greeks and the people of the nations who attended. However, it's also just a drop in the bucket of the work that needs to be done to make up for centuries of neglecting to spread the Gospel to the youngest members of the church. Please pray that the Lord would send more workers for the harvest of the littlest hearts in Greece!

For more information about Jona Pettijohn Missions and her ministry, go to worldmissionsadvance.org/pettijohn

06/02/2026

In our last newsletter, we discussed that when we approach Scripture, it is a great idea to use the Inductive Bible Study Method: 1) Observation, 2) Interpretation, 3) Correlation, 4) Application. This is not a magic formula to arrive at Scriptural truth, rather it is a guard rail that keeps us from “going off the rails” when we engage in the art and science of biblical interpretation.

We now turn our focus, briefly, to the second step of this process, Interpretation. Once we have spent time observing the text (which would of course include prayer), we then seek to interpret the text. We can’t apply a text that has yet to be interpreted. So often, we jump to application. The problem with doing so can quickly become clear. Joshua was instructed to walk around the walls of Jericho and then make a loud noise and then the walls would come down. Is this prescriptive for us today? Are we to say “the Bible says it so I’m going to do it,” and then walk around the walls of a building and yell? It seems funny to think of such a thing, yet often, this is exactly how we apply Scripture. Cherry-picking can be a harmful and dangerous thing. We wrongly interpret and apply a verse and then get mad at God when He doesn’t do what we thought He promised to do, only to realize in retrospect, that God didn’t fail, it was our faulty interpretation of His Word that caused the problem. Don’t indict God for your mistaken interpretation. He ALWAYS keeps His promises. If it seems like He has not, then the issue is on our end, not His.

As one of my professors explained, we don’t have access to the events of Scripture, we only have access to the text. The events are 100% true, but we have the inspired text not a time machine. The written word is the medium God chose to communicate His Word to the immediate readers and to us today. Proper interpretation begins with the hard work of studying to see what the original sender of the message intended for the original recipient to understand. Only after we spend time in interpretation can we move on in our journey of methodical Bible study to correlation and application and, I will add, transformation. -Chad

“A reader cannot create any meaning [he/she] likes. In any intelligible verbal or nonverbal communication, the sender communicates a message to the receiver with the assumption that the receiver will understand the intended meaning of the sender.” -Dr. Cornelis Bennema, “Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Book of John”
(see podcast below)

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q-I46Uyo98g?si=E1Z1lprdrU0awtup

ApplePodcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/finding-ourselves-in-the-gospel-of-john-chad/id1814853643?i=1000759640156

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3PKCdzBTN65soM3WFMY6Qt?si=3e58203286674ac3

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Cor Bennema, Head of Research and Professor of New Testament Studies at London School of Theology. We discuss his journey fr...