Roger Carstensen and a copier that he presented, with Children's curriculum to the Church at Irkutsk Siberia in 1991.

The founder of Mission for Biblical Literacy (MBL) was Dr. Roger N. Carstensen of Athens, GA., now deceased.  Dr. Carstensen was was President of the Christian College of Georgia from about 1961-1976.  A well known Disciples Bible teacher and especially in the Old Testament, he and Dr. Fred Craddock at one time traveled together to provide teaching seminars to churches.  They also worked together to provide homiletics training to military chaplains.  Roger and Fred were very good friends.

About 1976 or thereabout, Carstensen launched out on his own with what he called The Feast of Scriptures which were weekend or week long Bible study sessions for churches.  He also began an organization called The Institute for Biblical Literacy after becoming concerned with the level of bible literacy among church leaders, such as Pastors, Elders, Deacons(ess) and other Lay people were.  To solve this problem he began publishing basic Bible teaching manuals, among them one that is used widely even today, "People, Passages, and Places".

At age 70, in January of 1990, Dr. Carstensen went with Dr. James Collins (Peachtree Christian Church, Atlanta) and a small group of people to Russia.  They took with them suitcases of Bibles to the then USSR.  It took three days to get the Bibles past customs. The Bibles were distributed in the cities of Moscow, Kiev, and Leningrad.

Upon his return to the USA, Carstensen began to feel a nudge to return to the USSR.  He felt that Bibles were now flooding he Soviet Union but he was hearing from the Russian church leaders that there was no Sunday school material nor any kind of good Christian education curriculum, especially for children.  Also through a Siberian man, Vasily Telitcin, Roger was challenged to go to the Siberian Churches.

Roger Carstensen, Galina Obrovets, and Fr. Anatoly Redenko meeting in Moscow to discuss the possibility of starting an academy for biblical studies.

The result was that The Institute for Biblical Literacy, now offering its services to the Russian churches who need help.  Soon after, this organization changed it name to The Mission for Biblical Literacy.  The manual, "People, Passages, and Places" was translated into Russian by a woman name Galina Obrovets of Moscow, and other material for children was written and translated by Galina.  Galina is now the Director of the Center for Biblical Resources which essentially is funded by the Mission for Biblical Literacy.  People, Passages and Places has also in several other languages.

In May of 2001, the mission's Board decided to rename The Mission for Biblical Literacy to Friends of Phillip basing the name on the encounter between Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts chapter 7.  It was felt that this name better reflected the organizations mission of helping people to understand the Bible.  However, in 2002 the name was changed back to MBL because of the worldwide recognition that name had achieved.

So, today The Mission for Biblical Literacy operates from offices at Peachtree Christian Church in Atlanta.  Dr. Jim Caton is presently the interim President, Mr. Dean McAdoo is the Chairman and lives in New Jersey. The missionary volunteers are Rev. John M. Novikoff, Disciple Minister, Rev. Thom Walker, Disciple minister in Russellville, Arkansas and Rev Dr. Tom Cook, retired Presbyterian Minister who lives in Montreat, NC.  Thom Walker is Project Minister for Honduras/Nicaragua, CA  and Tom Cook is the Project Minister for Israel.