The Pocket Testament League is a Christian nonprofit organization with members from various denominational backgrounds which distributes printed copies of the Gospels. A small team runs the ministry, and it is managed by a 15-person Board of Trustees. Members of The Pocket Testament League have shared over 110 million Gospels.
History
The Pocket Testament League was founded in 1893 by a teenage girl named Helen Cadbury, as a means of winning her classmates to Christ. In 1904, Helen married American evangelist Charles McCallon Alexander, who officially organized the League with Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman in Philadelphia in March 1908. Alexander had been associated with the prominent evangelist Dwight L. Moody, and his experience in worldwide evangelism gave huge impetus to the League. In 1914, The Pocket Testament League opened an office in London, England, and began sharing Gospels as part of its First World War outreach. In October, a campaign gave out 400,000 New Testaments to soldiers on Salisbury Plain. During the Great Depression, members of the League shared Gospels through the Civilian Conservation Corps in the South and throughout New England. The Corps was a government-organized effort to put jobless men to work on public projects. Billy Graham encouraged the League, commenting that "I am completely sold on the work of The Pocket Testament League, and continue to pray for those associated with it." After the Second World War, the league started its missionary work in foreign countries. With the support of General George Marshall and Chiang Kai-shek, bibles were distributed among Chinese soldiers fighting in the Chinese Civil War.
Present
The League has over 450,000 members, and a staff of 5 full-time people that work from virtual offices. The League has members from all 50 U.S. states and from 140 countries. Today The League still prints small, pocket-sized Gospels of John in languages such as English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, , , , , and Portuguese, with a wide range of cover designs. It partners with local Bible Societies for accurate Bible translations and ships from several locations around the world.
