Category: News Briefs

Source: Global Recordings Network, August 27, 2025

We stood in an unnamed African airport at 1:30 am, holding a $600 invoice for duty on the recording equipment that we had brought with us. We had just completed an overnight train ride and an overnight flight in the shadow of the earth and had finally arrived at our destination. The head of customs curtly ordered us to leave the inspection room and report to the office [to pay duty] on this invoice.

She said she could see from our itinerary that we had been traveling close to 30 hours. She also noticed my age from my passport, which she was holding. She asked, “Why is someone your age doing this? Who is paying you? Don’t you have children and grandchildren to enjoy?” She told me that if we had been carrying Bibles as missionaries, she would let it go. But she couldn’t see why all this new electronic equipment was necessary.

I told her that we had something better than Bibles. We had the story of Jesus in more than 500 languages of her country. I asked what she spoke as a first language, and she told me. While I was trying to find it, she kept asking me who was paying me to do this…

Read the full story. It’s a good one!

Source: Forum18, August 20, 2025

Courts in Russia have prohibited the activities of several Council of Churches Baptist communities because of their refusal to seek any form of state registration. Prosecutors are seeking similar bans on at least another three, Forum 18 has found. Once a court ruling enters legal force, church leaders are at risk of fines if they continue to conduct worship services, and bailiffs may seal church buildings, preventing access by congregations.

One community, in Kurganinsk in Krasnodar Region, has been regularly meeting for worship outside its building for over three months since officials sealed it in May.

Read the full story. Long but thought-provoking. The government is likely to consider a piece of legislation that would bring further restrictions in its next session, which begins in September.

See also a first-person report from the National Prayer Breakfast recently held in Kyiv, Ukraine (Evangelical Focus).

Source: Mission Network News, August 19, 2025

The situation continues to get worse, yet hope remains. People are turning to the Lord as they encounter the peace only he can offer.

“One of the guys that I work with, who was an imam [and] became a Christian, he says, ‘In my lifetime, I never believed that I would see a Muslim come to know Christ. And then in the space of a year, I’m seeing them lead 50 to Christ,” [says John, a gospel worker].

With help from John’s ministry, new believers from Muslim-majority Sudan learn how to share Jesus and start churches.

“We have about 26 teams: 15 are inside Sudan, and 11 are in refugee points outside Sudan. They’re all leaders we have trained at our school; [350] Muslim-background believers from 65 tribes,” John says.

“We’ve been working in Darfur for a long time. Many of the house churches that were underground in Darfur are displaced, and they’re now in Chad.”

While church planting is the believers’ primary focus, they offer limited aid whenever possible.

“We’ve given them training; we try to give some support,” John says. “We did a feeding program in Chad, just the 100 most vulnerable in three camps. We were able to feed for two months and give tarps for shelter. That’s all we could do.”

In recent weeks, the leaders held biblical trauma healing workshops, and 150 Muslims came to the Lord. “Satan wants hope to be contraband, because it is hope that removes the control of the enemy; it removes their power over a person’s life,” John says.

Read the full story.

Also from MNN, read about Dodi, an Indonesian church planter choosing to work in Aceh, a field considered “100% Muslim.”

Source: Global Christian Relief, August 29, 2025

Christians in Pakistan number approximately 3 million, or about 1.37% of the population. About 96% of the country is Muslim. Tragically, members of minority faiths are treated abominably in Pakistan, and Christians frequently face persecution. Believers endure discrimination, violence, kidnappings, and blasphemy charges. Many are trapped working long hours in dangerous brick kilns to repay debts that they may never be able to cover.

“Nowhere else in the world are persecuted Christians in more danger of violence from mobs, but the violence is always well-organized and strategic,” a minister told GCR. “We are watched all the time, and the moment we spread the Word with power, we are in trouble, and we pay with our blood. But that makes the gospel spread all the more.”

The shocking persecution Christians in Pakistan face sounds like something out of antiquity: forced marriages, forced conversions, and even enslavement. But this struggle is ongoing, and Pakistani Christians need your prayers.

Get the full story with links and pictures. See also How a VBS in Rural Iowa Rescued Six Families from Slavery in Pakistan.

Please also pray for the people of neighboring Afghanistan, struck by an earthquake on Sunday; the death toll is in the thousands now.

Source: International Christian Concern, August 25, 2025

More than 200 house churches in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh have been affected following new restrictions on worshiping inside a house, claiming that it’s necessary to maintain law and order.

According to media reports, the police chief of Raipur called the pastors to a public meeting a few weeks ago, announcing that Christians could no longer worship in house churches as they were receiving numerous complaints that illegal conversions were occurring in house churches.

Additionally, the superintendent of police informed the pastors that Christians would only be permitted to meet in officially registered church buildings, and all prayer meetings in private homes must be stopped to maintain law and order.

The arrest of the pastor for trying to reopen his church has alarmed the Christian leaders, who fear that this could set a precedent across Chhattisgarh.

Read the full story.

On a more positive note, readers might enjoy reading how Punjabi Christian pastors are harnessing the beats of the bhangra to express their faith and reach more people (The Print).

1. Russia: People in the Caucasus Putting Faith in Christ
2. World: UK, Australia, and France No Longer Majority Christian
3. Tajikistan: Urgent Call to Prayer as Afghans Face Deportation
4. Iraq: Man Goes from Unreached to Reaching Many
5. Uganda: Former Sheikh Loses Family after Vision of Christ

Read or share the email edition.

Source: Evangelical Focus, August 8, 2025

According to the North Caucasian Evangelical Alliance, at the beginning of 2024, substantial groups of locals in almost every ethnic group in the Russian part of the Caucasus professed faith in Jesus.

Just a few years ago, most of the peoples of the Caucasus were considered unreached by the gospel. Professing Christians were virtually unknown among them. This has changed significantly in the meantime. According to the North Caucasian Evangelical Alliance, at the beginning of 2024, substantial groups of locals in almost every ethnic group in the Russian part of the Caucasus professed faith in Jesus.

Among them are 3,000 Ossetians, 700 Adyghe, 200 Kabardians, 100 Balkars, 70 Chechens, 50 Karachays, 40 Circassians, 15 Abazins, 15 Nogais, 3 Ingush, and around 300 representatives of the peoples of Dagestan.

The ice seems to be breaking. However, this development is less due to the efforts of missionaries, and certainly not to Western missionary efforts in the region, but rather marks an impressive spiritual awakening among the Caucasians.

As far as the Caucasus is concerned, we will probably have to go back to the origins of the Christian faith in the region and restore God’s history with the peoples of the region. Only in this way will they return to their own identity and thus also to the lost faith of their fathers.

Read the full story; quite thought-provoking and includes source info.

Source: Crosswalk, August 4, 2025

A recent Pew Research report found that the number of countries with Christian majorities declined between 2010 and 2020. Despite Christianity being the most geographically widespread world religion, representing 29% of the global population and consisting of the majority in 60% percent of countries, there has been an evident decline in the growing number of people leaving the faith, while there has been an increase in those who are religiously unaffiliated.

The report also found that the most significant changes took place in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Uruguay, with a 50% drop in the number of professing Christians in that 10-year span. Meanwhile, Uruguay stood out as the only country in the Americas (as of 2020) without a Christian majority, with 52% of people who are unaffiliated and 44% identifying as Christian.

Read the full story.

See also Where Is the Most Religious Place in the World? (Pew Research).

From the UK, a Pentecostal church has forced London authorities to overturn a ban on street preaching (Christian Post).

Source: SAT-7, August 7, 2025

SAT-7 has been in regular contact with an Afghan man called Alborz, based in Tajikistan, whose brother was killed in Afghanistan for his faith.

“When my brother was killed by the Taliban because of his faith in Jesus, for a long time I struggled to forgive them,” Alborz told our team.

After meditating on the Sermon on the Mount, he felt able to forgive, but the thought of returning to Afghanistan is still extremely concerning for his family, especially for his teenage daughter, Armita.

“Many of our fellow [Afghan] believers have been deported from Tajikistan… and in Afghanistan, unmarried girls like me are being forced into marriage, which is very distressing. I don’t even know how to express the terror we are experiencing. The conditions here are really tough,” [said Armita].

Read the full story.

We also saw some distressing news from Pakistan in Christian Man Dies after Years of Neglect in Prison (ASSIST News Service) and Court Orders Investigation into Growing Abuse of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws (International Christian Concern).

Source: Frontiers UK, August 8, 2025

Growing up in northeast Iraq, Kojin was surrounded by a 100% Muslim population. There wasn’t a single follower of Christ.

He read the Quran several times, trying to convince himself that it came from God and that it would be a sin to question its teachings. But in his heart, he couldn’t accept that as true. He understood that ideas have consequences, and it was not possible for him to accept the consequences of this book as divine.

For a while, he tried to be an atheist and freethinker, but he couldn’t sustain that approach. Several times, drawn by fear and conscious of the supernatural, he tried again to faithfully practice the Islamic religion. One day, in the window of a bookstore, he saw a little book titled The Gospel According to Luke. The bookstore owners had only one copy, so they offered to let him pay a daily fee to borrow it. He read it in a single day and loved it.

Desperate to know more about Jesus, Kojin searched. But he found no further information anywhere.

“When I took the book back to the bookstore,” he said, “I asked them if they had any other books about Christ. They said, ‘No, that’s all we have.’”

A few years later, Kojin finally met some followers of Jesus, people who had been discipled by our team. After that, everything changed—not just for him, but for the many people in his region that he eventually led to the Lord. Read the full story. It also describes the great progress made in engaging unengaged Muslim groups since the Vision 5:9 campaign was launched in 2001. Frontiers is now focusing on 100 priority groups, with a growing number of its new teams going to those groups each year.