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Pocket Testament League

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The Pocket Testament League is a Christian organization which distributes copies of the Gospels.

History

The Pocket Testament League was originally 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.

Throughout its history, over 100 million pocket-sized Gospels have been shared by its members in every part of the globe.

Billy Graham was a great encouragement to 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."

The Pocket Testament League is a relatively small non-profit organization serving hundreds of thousands of members from many different denominational backgrounds. A tiny team runs the ministry. It is managed by a 15-person Board of Trustees.

Members of The Pocket Testament League have shared over 110 million Gospels.

The ministry provides free resources and tools to help Christians develop a lifestyle of biblical discipline and personal evangelism.

The ministry does not sell anything. It motivates and equips Christians to read, carry and share the word of God.


League Celebrates 120 Year Anniversary in 2013

Motivating and equipping Christians to read, carry and share the Word of God has been a 120-year passion for The Pocket Testament League.

With over one million Facebook fans in dozens of countries, over 350,000 members, and a tiny staff of just 5 full time people that work from virtual offices, The Pocket Testament League is celebrating its 120 year anniversary.

The Pocket Testament League began in 1893 as the vision of a teenage girl named Helen Cadbury, daughter of the president of Cadbury Chocolates. Her heart’s desire was to share her faith, so she organized a group of girls who sewed pockets onto their dresses to keep a part of the Bible. The girls called their group "The Pocket Testament League”. They pledged to read a portion of the Bible every day, carry it with them in their pocket and share the Gospel wherever the Lord would lead.

Today The League still prints small pocket sized Gospels of John in many languages, such as English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese. The League partners with local Bible Societies for accurate Bible translations, and ships from several locations around the world. They offer dozens of choices of cover designs, ranging from original artwork and sporting events to skiers, horses and Harleys so as to appeal to a wide audience. They even have a “camo” cover for the outdoorsman.

The League has members from all 50 states and 140 countries. They receive over 2,000 stories each month on their website (www.ptl.org) about lives changed by the power of God’s Word. In their efforts to reach all people, The League has recently expanded its efforts to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Macau, the Peoples Republic of China, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Japan and Brazil.

In keeping current with technology, many new members find The League through an online search and then become members in countries not being targeted like Ireland, England, the Philippines, Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan and many more.

The League utilizes the latest technology to resource its members including mobile apps for iPhone and android in both English and Chinese. The most utilized feature of this mobile app is the interactive map. When members carry and share Pocket Gospels, they can drop a pin on the map and share their location and their news with other members. While using the map, you can see pins dropping as other users share life-changing Pocket Testaments in their town. You can then tap on the pin to go right to the story that the user posted about how they are handing out their Gospels.

One of the newest, exciting opportunities is The League’s partnership with Christians in China to legally provide pocket Gospels for Chinese people to read. China’s population is 1.3 billion people. It is estimated that a billion Chinese have never read the Bible. In the Last 15 months, the League has shared over 1,000,000 Gospels in mainland China, with amazing results.

The ministry has a rich history. Many grew up hearing the story of a pocket sized Bible in a soldier’s pocket that saved his life. It was Private Jennison of the 5th Yorkshire Regiment who, during WWI, was carrying his New Testament supplied by The Pocket Testament League which stopped the bullet that would have pierced his chest.

After WWII General MacArthur asked The League for Pocket Testaments. Members of The Pocket Testament League contributed a stunning 11 million Gospels for the nation of Japan through gracious giving and prayer. As a result of these Gospels being shared in Japan, Captain Fuchida Mitsuo, who had led the attack on Pearl Harbor, accepted Christ as his Savior. He later worked for The League.


Mission

The Pocket Testament League’s mission is to motivate and equip Christians to read, carry and share the Word of God. For more information about ordering pocket sized gospels in over 50 different cover designs, or to sign up for online training and Bible Studies, go to www.ptl.org

See also


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