Our April 2020 Fundraising Goal

Dear Disciple-Making Friends,

Let me begin with my heartfelt “Thank You!” It’s difficult to put into words just how grateful I personally am for your fervent prayers and faithful support! These are unique times, and we as leaders face unprecedented challenges. How is God inviting you and me to step into this moment and meet the challenges the church is facing as a result of the COVID-19 crisis?
At Sonlife’s Disciple-Making Conference in Orlando two years ago, I spoke to the leaders present about the need to disrupt business as usual in the church in order to see a true disciple-making movement multiply and spread from person to person, church to church, city to city, and nation to nation. I would never have imagined then, nor could any of us, that we would see the disruption of business as usual that COVID-19 has thrust upon us.

I truly believe Sonlife is uniquely positioned to serve the church in these days. As businesses, universities, and churches are moving their meetings, classes, and small groups to the online platform called Zoom, Sonlife has already lived and ministered in that digital space for the past four years. With our leadership staff decentralized across North America, we do all of our staff meetings on Zoom. That has worked so well for us, we made the move to provide our coaching of ministry leaders in our Disciple-Making Cohorts to the Zoom platform in January, 2019. We’ve seen such great success with our online Cohorts, we have been offering to equip ministry leaders in how to use Zoom to facilitate their youth ministries and small groups during this season of virtual church.

Another strategic decision we made two years ago was to provide all of our discipling content in a digital format free through our website. Hard copies of these books are sold in packs of two, conveying the fact that each resource is meant to be shared in discipling someone else, but we also wanted to make clear that we never wanted cost to get in the way of someone making disciples. These studies were made available as free e-books. We’ve had many leaders tell us over the past week that they are using these digital studies, along with Zoom, to continue discipling their students or small group members virtually.

We’ve been in the process of developing training that we could deliver digitally, with plans to shoot those training segments on our Israel Study Tour this month, which was cancelled, as well as at our Portland Disciple-Making Conference at the end of April, which also was cancelled. We’ll figure out another way to complete those projects, which will allow us to make our core training content available to leadership teams in a distance learning format.

As a ministry, while all our leadership staff raise support as missionaries, we are dependent upon revenue from in person training as well as the sale of resources to fund our basic operational needs like our digital platforms, communications, and the administration to keep all those gears in motion. The COVID-19 crisis has, as you can imagine, all but shut down those normal revenue streams.

Right now, we need your help to continue moving forward as a ministry so that we can provide the equipping and encouragement that ministry leaders need during this crisis. We are asking donors with the capacity to make significant gifts, anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000, to help us step into this moment and meet this challenge. Our goal is to have $50,000 committed by the end of April to supplement these needs and carry us through 2020. I personally will be giving $2,500 toward this unique opportunity. Can I count on you to join me?

To give online, visit sonlife.com/donate and select “General Fund.” Tax deductible gifts may also be mailed to Sonlife Ministries PO BOX 1562 Wheaton, IL 60187. For other giving options, contact katie.yates@sonlife.com.

Disciple-Making together,
Doug Holliday Executive Director