History

It all began with two requests: ‘Can you help our key church leaders receive the training they need?’ and ‘Can you provide books to help our pastors preach and teach more effectively?’ These were questions that John Stott heard frequently as he traveled throughout the Majority World in the 1960s. In fashioning responses to these requests from church leaders around the world, John Stott began a work that has directly touched the ministries of tens of thousands of pastors and impacted the lives of millions.

Small committees in the U.S. and the U.K. soon became legal charities, incorporated in 1974; our original name was the Langham Foundation, after the famous street in London that is home to John Stott’s church, All Souls, Langham Place, as well as the British Broadcasting Company. However, folks in the States weren’t as familiar with the Langham name, so in 1996 during one of very few board meetings that John Stott did not attend, the renegade Americans changed the name to John Stott Ministries! A number of original board members are still friends and supporters of the ministry, and one, Rev. Fred Gale, still serves as a current JSM board member.

In 2001, John Stott Ministries merged with the Foundation for Advanced Christian Training (FACT). Both of these organizations could trace their roots back to John Stott, so it was, as John said at the time, ‘more of a reunion than a merger’. We now have offices in Menlo Park, California (our major office); Windsor, Colorado; and Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. We are a member movement of the Langham Partnership International, along with sister movements in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, the U.K. and Ireland.