• Colonialism was collapsing across much of Africa

• President John F. Kennedy was assassinated

• Theological liberalism was spreading through the churches—sparking worries about its effect on world missions

Little was being published to encourage evangelical Christians involved in the Great Commission. Against this backdrop, executives of the world's two largest Protestant missionary associations—Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA) and Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) —held their first joint retreat.

They felt it was time to launch a publication that would present "the best in evangelical missionary thinking." A joint board and editorial committee was incorporated under the name Evangelical Missions Information Service.

The next year our quarterly journal, Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ), appeared.

In 1998, EMIS joined the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois and became Evangelism and Missions Information Service.