Our History

CLC traces its beginnings to the year 1941 when, through the efforts of a young Christian couples, Ken and Bessy Adams, a bookstore ministry had begun in the city of Colchester. Ken rented some upstairs rooms in the centre of that city and named it "The Evangelical Publishing House."

Some years later they joined forces with Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (now WEC International) who encouraged them to expand their ministry by planting "spiritual Woolworths" up and down the country. Ken and Bessy followed that advice and soon CLC became one of the first Christian bookstore chains in the UK. Others joined them and as the team kept praying about how to spread the gospel more effectively through literature, their vision kept enlarging. They began to see that God was leading them to create a chain of bookstores not only in the UK but throughout the English-speaking world, thus developing a literature service on all continents.

Today CLC has expanded its work to over fifty countries with more than 700 workers who are involved in the many different aspects of the literature ministry. Over 80% of CLCers are national workers in their home countries with about 20% functioning as cross-cultural missionaries. Our vision for the future is as vast as the need!

The remarkable story of God’s provision in the founding and expansion of CLC worldwide is recorded in the book Leap of Faith by Norman Grubb, ISBN 9780875086507, published by CLC USA.