The first CLC bookshop nearly didn’t happen! Ken and Bessie Adams had a bookshop in Colchester and, at the same time, in the late 1930s, they were considering running a WEC Regional Headquarters.
Ken wrote:
“We were willing to offer our services to WEC but we had a problem… the bookshop. We had no liberty to close it; we were willing to consider selling it or employ someone to carry the main responsibility, which would free us to travel throughout East Anglia in the interest of WEC.”
On mentioning this to Norman Grubb (WEC General Secretary), he said: “Close it? Indeed not! We should have bookshops like this all over the country – a chain of Christian bookshops…”
“As we prayed and thought and dreamed, the vision kept enlarging. We could see not only a chain of bookshops across the British Isles, but a chain of bookstores throughout the English speaking world… and even in other countries where English was widely used. And more, we could become a service agency for the literature needs of missionary societies and the national church around the world.
We had been doing this very thing in a limited way… now the whole world was our vision.”
“The Christian literature organisation, under the title of Evangelical Publishing House*, was born on November 1, 1941. At this time, the name did not need to be registered with any government department, but on that day it was my happy privilege to go to our local bank and change the bank account from ‘The Bible Depot, Proprietor: Kenneth R. Adams’, to The Evangelical Publishing House, with myself and Fred Whybrow as the two signatories to operate the account. We did not, of course, register with the bank the name of the true Proprietor, but to us and to the rest of our small team of workers, we fully and gladly recognised His name to be the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Foolishness of God by Ken Adams)
* Just a year or so later the mission title was changed to ‘Christian Literature Crusade’
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Forever Grateful, CLC 75
Based on material first published in a 75th anniversary magazine, you will find stories from the 75 years of CLC. There are stories of God’s faithfulness and miracles, of people coming to faith and special ‘forever grateful’ moments.