Seeking His Will, Following His Lead, Looking Forward
“Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established”
(Proverbs 16:3).
Letter from the Editor -Ron Barnes
Nine years ago, during my first week on the job as CEO of SLM, I sat in front of all the SLM missionaries in Madison and began to lay out the vision for that year on a PowerPoint. I showed them a slide of a tree with the roots, trunk, and branches all visible. Then, as I drew their attention to the branches of the tree as it grew and grew with new ministries and branches, I finished the presentation with a question: “What had gone missing since that first slide?” Not a single person could answer my question.
When I created the presentation, I added more and more exciting things to the branch part of the tree, drawing attention to the top, distracting them from me slowly making the roots disappear out of sight. I said SLM had seen such growth over the previous years, I feared if we didn’t pay more attention to the root system of SLM, that like a tree with rotten, weak, or shallow roots, it wouldn’t take much to upend us.
So, each year for many years, we have done just that. We have strengthened our administrative skills, our accounting, our accountability, our training, and our resources significantly. Each year we, as a leadership, set goals for that year in areas we wanted to see growth and strength, and God has richly blessed us.
As we approached 2021, having spent much of 2020 with more time to dedicate to those last tasks, we determined that in 2021 we needed to be talking about a long-range vision beyond the next year, and begin to seek and pray for some long-term direction.
God has given us a broader vision for ministry, doing mostly the same type of things, just on a broader scale and utilizing the tools and resources that this season in history has made available and has made us aware of.
Electronic Expansion
This past year has revealed to us the doors that are opened in getting the Gospel into the hands of the unreached and unsaved, as well as an opportunity to disciple them with better, more regular communication, and the ability to provide even more resources, electronically.
Our “Basic” lessons went online and have been utilized by each of our United States Branches. Now that training is complete, we expect this to expand our reach exponentially. At the same time, our Portuguese and Spanish lessons are going online soon, followed by many other languages, which will be utilized throughout the world on those online platforms through slmcourses.com.
At the same time, we have offered the advanced courses, our Bible college program, called World Wide Bible Institute at https://wwbionline.org, for students to take their knowledge of the Bible to the next level and possibly earn an Associate’s Degree of Christian Ministry, so they can be better equipped for the ministry God has called them to.
We have also begun to use quite effectively the video conferencing tools now widely available and inexpensive to host and participate in conferences, seminars, training, and accountability. I have sat in meeting after meeting these last few months where our missionaries have expressed that they have never felt so close, so loved by the SLM staff and administration, who through video conferencing have been able to listen, pray, counsel, and encourage them. Many now meet weekly on Zoom or Whatsapp for fellowship, prayer, counsel, and meetings.
What we have learned through the pandemic is that it is possible to accomplish a great deal through electronic means. With a little creativity, we believe we can use these new digital tools in relationship building, teaching, training, and a multitude of other tasks, which we believe we can use to expand our Gospel outreach and fulfill our desire to make disciples.
We have seen evidence of this already in many of our restricted access countries. Previously, it has been difficult to get seekers and new believers to come to an actual church building for fear of the dangers associated with living under Muslim, Hindu, and oppressive religions and governments.
Our missionaries have found great success in “getting them in the door” virtually, then seeing them saved and discipled until they are strong enough in their faith to take the step to attend in person. Some of our missionaries are seeing three-fold growth in church attendance via the internet and are already seeing their in-person congregations grow.
Passing the Batons
Another area we aim to tackle in this next season at SLM is mentoring and training the next generation of leadership around the globe. As many of our Branch Directors are growing older, we want to ensure that the ministry of SLM will continue seamlessly, with plenty of room for one “relay team” member to smoothly pass the baton to the next runner.
We plan to seek out and train this next generation of leaders with a deliberate and well established plan of training. Pray for God to raise up this next generation of leaders.
Grafting in New Branches
As our ministries have expanded in our Branches around the world, we have established schools in many neighboring countries which are begging to join us officially as Branches. We have established works in the Caribbean, Uruguay, Burkina Faso, Benin, Tanzania, Zambia, Lebanon, Ireland, and Cuba that are ready to start officially, if they can raise the necessary funds to run a Branch. Please pray that in the coming years, between local (national) support, micro-enterprise, and the support of churches and friends in the United States, we would see each of these schools serving as full time, fully grafted Branches of SLM.
New Press
While the exact details of which final machine we will need to buy aren’t finalized, we do know that in order to make courses in the best quality we can while keeping the costs to the missionary and schools low, we still need to print “in-house.”
We need a machine that wasn’t built in the 60’s, one that you don’t need to have a mechanic and an engineer to keep running, and one that will provide less wear and tear on the operator and press men, while providing a top-quality image. After all, how effective is a piece of literature that no one takes due to its low quality? With the presses we have had these many years, we have always produced the best quality product we could, but it is time to upgrade, likely to a machine that will cost between $400,000–$500,000. Would you pray with us that God would provide?
New Courses
As time has passed, we have determined the need to develop and expand our own line of courses. As we have expanded into more diverse cultures, we have come to the conclusion we must write courses that can more easily and effectively cross not just languages, but also cultures, and deal with a variety of new topics.
God has assembled a wonderful team of editors with excellent editing skills, as well as international and cross-cultural experience, and we have secured designers and artists who can illustrate and design the courses. We also have a few skilled writers, but are still praying God will provide a few more gifted writers who can offer their time and expertise in writing the courses.
With the new courses, we hope to be thorough and clear in our presentation of the Gospel, systematic in our discipleship, leaving no stone unturned, and extensive in our offerings, so that we are dealing with some of the current challenges people are facing in life, and yet focused on the same values of simplicity, understandability, and a commitment to the prolific and accurate use and application of Scripture.
Also of extreme importance, we want to have the courses illustrated in a way that would attract the attention of potential readers with its art, and draw them into the message of the courses, without distraction sometimes seen in western designs.
Yes, this is a tall order, but we believe God will provide the financial resources, probably about $100,000 to complete it, and the volunteers and staff to see it through. Please pray that the Lord of the harvest will raise up laborers… which leads to our final push and vision for the future….
New Partners and New Missionaries
We need new partners and missionaries. With an expanded vision, there will be expanded needs. Would you pray that God would provide many new supporters of the Global Outreach Fund, which is how this project will be funded? Would you also be in prayer for the expanded needs we will have for volunteers and missionaries to come serve in our office in Madison, as well as around the globe? We need office help, administrators, print shop staff, IT help, maintenance staff, and much more.
Perhaps you know of someone who is looking to serve, someone who is looking for a change, someone who is approaching retirement, or a missionary needing a new place to serve.
Would you let them know about the needs of SLM and have them contact us at:
hr@slmin.org
Or at 706.342.0397
Yes, we at Source of Light are on a mission, we invite you to join us, “Seeking His Will, Following His Lead,and Looking Forward.”
