It is primarily a volunteer organisation with a small number of full-time staff training, encouraging and coordinating ministry workers around the world.

Similarly, Henry Hankinson and Henry Hutchinson had started meetings in Mildmay Park; all were influenced by Rev Edward Payson Hammond, a controversial American preacher who had visited London in the early summer of 1867 and held meetings for both children and Sunday School teachers.

By August 1868 Bishop had joined the committee and by the end of the year, Hankinson was also a member, bringing in the Mildmay Park meetings as well.

In the 1950s, CSSM/Scripture Union held an annual book writing competition, resulting in the publication of many children's novels, including several by Patricia St. John, such as Treasures of the Snow,[7] still in print today.

[8] Scripture Union's work is carried out through local people in ways which are seen as appropriate to each country, culture and situation in which a movement is based.

In Britain, Scripture Union has been criticised by an independent review for its links with the Iwerne camps, where students from leading public schools are said to have been groomed for sexual abuse during the 1970s and 1980s.