Looking Foward With Foundations

By Bruce Dare

Being very much from New Jersey, moving to Georgia has most definitely been a cross-cultural experience, though perhaps not quite Abraham’s living “as in a foreign land” like a traditional missionary might do. All of us at SLM Headquarters live with this tension, being so connected to worldwide missions yet still “home” in the United States. This is actually a significant factor that led my family here and part of the beauty of Source of Light, that we can serve so many of the nations all at once. Without the support and grounding of Headquarters, our Branches around the globe could not be built, let alone remain or flourish.

Even from the start, SLM has had the identity of a “discipleship school.” That initial effort was intended to act as a home office for the distant island of Jamaica, but what became Madison Discipleship School continued to be the core of the ministry. Methods have been further defined and refined, discipleship by simple sequence and relay relationship but now managed by a powerful framework. The group of students multiplied more than tenfold over decades, leading to the development of a tracking program that can group students by code/region and manage statistics for the central office or eventual associates. MDS has now become a training ground and is positioned as a leading expert of sorts for how to do discipleship correspondence, not only by mail but also online as interest has grown organically and now exponentially. Always the goal: increase impact.

This mode of growth has been similar for the Accounting Department as they propel off our integral practice of working with national partners around the world and historic donors locally, but now with technology that broadens access, increases efficiency/accuracy, and decreases waste. Whether it be the standard accounting system, new donor management software, or the development of a robust staff portal for support and project accounts, all have exponentially revolutionized to whom and how information is almost instantly available, while new digital means ease the physical effort and material expended to process and track the finances needed to keep the ministry functional, sustainable, and safe. From this solid standing, our staff remains ready to serve and grow with God’s plan for SLM.

For the Operations Department, the legacy might remind one of when Jesus took a little lunch and made it a basket banquet. From the original upstairs space downtown to a multi-building and multi-residence landscape, God has done great things with “a few” for our facilities. Both in the past and just recently, volunteers donated not money, but their ability. With staff assistance, they drew up electrical plans, while a different skilled crew at their own expense came to install. Maintenance staff at Source of Light have become known for multiplying the value of scrap, whether it be turning old junk into replacement parts or whole buildings into storage sheds. Countless hours and skills have been given by grace to be made into something big by God.

Much of this labor bears fruit in the Publications Department, where we have done our best with what we have and by faith, only and until the Lord provides the means for improvement. Paper, first inventoried on paper up through introducing computers, then toward a more complex item/order database. Whether it be developing film replaced by computer-to-plate prepress, or the progression from a tabletop mimeograph to single-color then two-color lessons printed on the Color King, to the future and a fourcolor press with better automation, God provides. Staff is often just enough, even as we expand, such as when the unspoken language of Braille entered our literature vision from another ministry, which has continued faithfully and doubled in the number of students since its addition. We do what needs to be done and get the Word where it needs to go.

Hebrews 11:9-10 comes to mind, where we join in hope with Abraham who was looking forward to and had a greater vision for what God might have. Yet we also do so firmly and expectantly at Source of Light, with no question that we have “foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”