Erich Bridges

BEIJING (BP) -- A recent conference on religion attended by top Chinese government leaders has raised new questions about whether China's latest round of restrictions on Christians and other believers will ease -- or become national policy. Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the national conference on "religious freedom," convened April 22-23 in Beijing. The other six members of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee also attended, an indication of the meeting's importance.

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Tao Lu never laid eyes on the Word of God until he came to the United States to study advanced computer engineering. That's not unusual in China where Tao grew up, even though his father taught English in a major city. The Chinese Christian movement may be growing rapidly amid periodic crackdowns, but it has yet to reach hundreds of millions of people in the vast communist nation.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (BP) -- Once again, innocent blood stains the ground and fear fills the air in Europe. The March 22 airport and subway bombings in Brussels, claimed by the ISIS Islamic terror group, killed more than 30 people, wounded at least 170 -- and traumatized a region still reeling from the November massacre in Paris, multiple bombings in NATO member Turkey and warnings of more attacks to come. (Regular ISIS -- or Al Qaeda-inspired attacks continue to kill hundreds in the Middle East, Central and South Asia and Africa, with far less ...

Missions columnist Erich Bridges reflects on global risks and Gospel opportunities in 2016 among the world's 2 billion unreached people, many in hostile, chaotic places. "This doesn't mean they can't be reached," Bridges writes. "The opportunity is there -- for those willing to take the risk."

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- Southern Baptist missions pioneer Catherine Walker, age 100, who influenced generations of missionaries and Christian workers in Asia before launching IMB's global prayer strategy effort in the 1980s, died Jan. 7 in Richmond, Va. Walker, a Georgia native, first went to China as a Southern Baptist missionary in 1946, before communist rule forced Western missionaries out. She stayed as long as she could -- and longer than many dared -- before moving on to Indonesia. She became one of the first faculty members of the infant Indonesian Baptist Theological Seminary in Semarang, ...

"When her moment came, young Mary was ready. Not because of her education, talent or insight, but because of her quiet obedience," Erich Bridges writes. "…What is God saying to you at this moment? … Maybe something that He will use to change missions history -- if you obey Him."

Missions columnist Erich Bridges shares eight things he's thankful for in 2015.

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) -- She just needed a friend. Roopa N.* arrived from India in Richmond, Virginia's capital city, in 2001. She was young, well-educated, tech-savvy, fluent in English. She had all the tools for personal and professional success. She also was newly married to Tagore, another young Indian with bright career prospects. But she felt alone. Achingly alone.

Missions columnist Erich Bridges: "Human hearts abhor a vacuum." Yet, meaninglessness is all that contemporary culture has to offer. "The world needs a collective truth, not myth, to live by," he writes.

"Even among those who serve God, service itself can become a little god through which we come to worship ourselves, not Him," writes missions columnist Erich Bridges. "So we should always hold our individual callings lightly, because they are not 'ours.' They are merely means to a divine end: the glory of God."