Editing Greater Grace World Outreach (section)

===Origins===
In the early 1960s, Carl H. Stevens Jr., a bakery truck driver, was praying at Wortheley Pond near [[Peru, Maine]], and developed a vision for a worldwide Christian ministry. Stevens was later ordained by a council of independent ministers at the Montsweag Baptist Church on March 7, 1963. From there Stevens went on to minister at the Woolwich-Wiscasset Baptist Church, and establish the Northeast School of the Bible in 1972. He also began to experiment with radio evangelism, with a program called "Telephone Time."

In 1973, following an arson attack on their church building and a controversial church split, Stevens and his closest followers moved the center of their operations to a former Catholic school facility in [[South Berwick, Maine]]. There "The Bible Speaks" became the name of the church, and "the Northeast School of the Bible" was renamed as "Stevens School of the Bible". Expanded radio and television outreaches continued to draw in new followers and—both through church planting operations by the organization's Bible school students and graduates, and existing churches affiliating themselves with Stevens' organization—a network of "branch ministries" began to develop.

In 1976, the school grew beyond its capacity. As a result, Carl Stevens moved the "home base" of his organization to a former private boarding school facility which they were able to purchase in [[Lenox, Massachusetts]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.carlstevens.org/subpage1.html |title= Report on "The Bible Speaks"|accessdate=2008-05-27 |last= |date=1981-03-28 |publisher=Gospel Truth Ministries}}</ref>

The cornerstone of Stevens' career in Christian broadcasting was the call-in radio show he hosted, originally known as "Telephone Time", now called "Grace Hour".

In both South Berwick and Lenox, the Bible Speaks developed a considerable local presence, not only through drawing large numbers of young adults into these small communities as Bible school students, but also through operating extensive Sunday School operations, with a private fleet of retired school buses for bringing in children from the surrounding area.

They also established a network of private K-12 schools, beginning with Southern Maine Christian Schools in South Berwick (later moved to [[Scarborough, Maine]]), and then Stevens Christian Schools in Lenox. Church planting missionary teams were also sent out first to [[El Salvador]] and then to [[Finland]] and other European countries {{Citation needed|date=May 2008}}. In the 1980s this expanded to include church planting operations in South America, Africa, Asia and Australia.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} Thomas Schaller, the current leader of GGWO, began his pastoral career as the head of their original missionary team to Finland.

In the 1983, the Bible Speaks purchased a Norwegian ferry boat which they renovated to use as a missionary relief vessel in the Caribbean. This boat was named La Gracia, with Baltimore, Maryland as its official home port.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.warsailors.com/homefleet/shipst2.html |title=Norwegian Homefleet–WW II|accessdate=2008-05-27 |year=2008 |publisher=Warsailors.com}}</ref>

In 1987, "The Bible Speaks" was forced to declare bankruptcy due to a $6 million dollar court case in which the founding pastor was determined to have manipulated and pressured a donor into secretly donating large sums of money. <ref> BS, [https://www.baltimoresun.com/2004/05/15/church-dispute-spills-onto-internet/ Church dispute spills onto Internet], baltimoresun.com, USA, May 15, 2004 </ref>