Materials found in the International Christian Broadcasters collection date largely from the late 1960s after Abe G. Thiessen took charge as Executive Director. Earlier materials are available under the WCMR folder headings (Folders 34-15 through 35-2). These documents contain early correspondence from founders of the original organization such as Clarence Jones, Minor Sterns, and Robert Bowman. There are several photographs and negatives dating from this early period taken at the first conference on Missionary Radio held at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, June 12-14, 1958. Please consult the Photograph Location Record in this guide for details on people, places, and events depicted.

Numerous folders are available detailing the planning, organization, and events of various conferences and congresses sponsored by ICB. The most complete is the information for the Tokyo Congress (Folders 31-1 through 32-16) held March 17-23, 1970. Information found in this series of folders includes registration materials, schedules, programs, correspondence with participants, copies of various addresses, correspondence (with airlines, travel agencies, and hotels), scrapbook, photograph album, and the published report from the Congress which included a copy of each address. Tapes were also made of many of the meetings and are described in the Audio Tape Location Record (tapes T54-T57, T62-T65, T67-T73, and T96). Details and listing of each meeting are available on the index to the tape collection. Materials from the Muslim Conference held in February 1974 are found in Folders 27-23 through 27-36. Available information includes pre-conference planning correspondence, copies of papers delivered, registrations, and plans for the conference. In 1975, ICB sponsored a Children's Television Roundtable for Christian communicators interested in developing programming for children. Materials found in Folders 11-18 to 11-26 include news clippings, participant evaluations, planning materials, and reports. Information is also available on conferences and congresses in which ICB participated such as International Congress on World Evangelization, Space Age Communications Conference, Missions Advance Research and Communication Center, Research Seminar, Ecumenical Satellite Commissions meetings, and All Africa Conference.

ICB compiled and published data on world religious broadcasting in a compendium. Galley proofs from The World Directory are found in Folders 35-3 to 35-9. Data was collected regarding planning, funding, format, finances, and procedures and can be found in the records. The survey responses from each country are also available. Filed by country, they contain the name of each station, location, broadcasting frequency, times of programming, and types of programming. Records are available in Boxes 12, 14, 15, and 16, and Folders 1-1 to 1-3.

The official publication of ICB was the periodical known as the ICB Bulletin. Correspondence, layouts, mailing procedures, mailing lists, copy, subscriptions, themes, and articles are found in Folders 5-28 through 5-43 and 7-4, and Boxes 8-10. Folders 22-12 to 23-51 contain numerous clippings on assorted subjects. These files were apparently used as resource materials for articles and filler in the Bulletin. Topics include video cassettes, Christian communication, computers, cross cultural communication, education and use of media, films, microwave, one-liners, satellites, television, women's file, and youth.

Financial information may be found in various records such as bank statements in Folders 3-1 to 4-5, bookkeeping/accounting files in folders 4-16 to 5-18, check registers in Folders 11-10 to 11-17, financial reports in Folders 21-20 to 21-25, and receipt books in Folders 29-34 to 29-37. Again most of the records are found for the late 1960s and early 1970s under Abe Thiessen's directorship.

Correspondence and receipts to members of ICB for dues and gifts are found in Folders 25-2 to 26-21. Two computer printouts of the ICB mailing list are found in Folder 6-4. Other records include membership applications, certificates, prospective membership lists, and renewals.

A special project sponsored by ICB was the development of a transistor receiver designed especially to meet the needs of field missionaries. Blueprints, architectural designs, correspondence, research data, cabinet research, project bidders, donors, order cards, reports, specifications for production, and service manuals are examples of the records found in Folders 32-24 to 33-32. The receivers were designed, built, and distributed by the organization to missionaries in Africa and South America.

Correspondence files comprise a large portion of the collection. General correspondence files are found in Folders 17-21 to 18-45. The files are arranged alphabetically within each year and then chronologically by date. Other correspondence files exist for organizations with whom ICB conducted business, donors to the organization, board members, and radio station. Specific correspondents include David Chao - The Lutheran Voice; David Daniell - Radio-Television education, Mexico; Gene Farrell - Missionary Tapes, Inc.; A. J. Chamberlain - Prairie Bible Institute, Alberta, BC, Canada; Paul Schumaker - Family Stations, Inc.; Philip A. Booth - Radio Worldwide, London; Thomas Duncan - Church of God of Prophecy; Howard W. Eppler - Back to the Bible Broadcast; Don R. Falkenburg - Missionary Radio, Inc.; J. E. Goodwin, Jr. - Baptist Mission, Seoul, Korea; William E. Jacobson - Emmaus Bible School, Nairobi, Kenya; Vernon K. McLellan - Sound of Youth, Wittier, CA; Slavic Gospel Association; Viggo Soggard - Voice of Peace, Chieugmai, Taiwan; Robert B. Starkey - Far East Broadcasting Company, Australia; Tom Watson Jr. - The Evangelical Alliance Mission; Timothy Yu - Hong Kong Baptist College; Shirley Burton - Pacific Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventist; Taiwan Radio Fellowship; Central Africa Broadcasting Company, Inc.; Gospel Broadcasting Mission; Latin American Mission; Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship; Mennonite Broadcasts, Inc.; Overseas Radio and Television; ELWA; West Indies Mission; Howard Payne - World Vision; Bethel College and Seminary; Ecumenical Satellite Commissions; and James Irwin-Highflight.

Other organizational and miscellaneous materials in the collection include copies of the Monday Morning Memorandum (Folders 27-16 to 27-19). These memos were sent by the Executive Director to all Board members, keeping everyone updated on ICB activities. State department background notes on various foreign countries are found in Folders 1-34 to 2-76. They provide short sketches of each country, with population figures, climate, ethnic groups, predominant religious, and economic status. Folders 33-39 to 33-48 contain travel diaries from a trip made by Richard Wolff in 1967. Data includes discussion of people he met and radio stations he visited in this tour of Asian countries. Some preliminary contacts were made in preparation for the 1970 Tokyo Congress.

Several types of material were removed from the collection such as slides, negatives, photographs, audio tapes, filmstrips, books, and periodicals. The audio tapes contain recordings from the missionary radio station ELWA in Liberia, speeches, ICB Annual Day of Prayer messages, sound effects, testimonies, and proceedings of an ICB Board Meeting. Please consult various location records for detailed listings.