Our History
For 25 years classic Sonlife has taught the Life of Christ developmentally, believing that Jesus modeled how to create a movement of multiplying disciples. Looking at Jesus’ life from the perspective of a leader trying to “walk as Jesus walked” (I Jn 2:6) and “do what Jesus did” (John 14:12), we have analyzed what Jesus did the first year, second year, and third year in creating a movement of multiplying disciples. Identifying 5 phases in the development of healthy ministry, we have identified critical priorities Jesus lived by in building a movement of multiplying disciples. Believing that Jesus disciples may have been in their late teens or early 20’s, we have committed ourselves to training next generation leaders in developing disciple making ministries.
Sonlife Classic has worked hard to go deep into the Life of Christ… making application to ministry within a local church setting. Over 750,000 leaders have been through some aspect of the classic Sonlife training over the last 25 years. Over 40 organizations globally have identified Sonlife Classic as their training partner and recently Campus Crusade for Christ, endorsed the training for thousands of their staff in several countries around the world.
For the last 3 years, Dann Spader, founder of Sonlife has conducted the Life of Christ training in over 70 countries. Dann now leads Global Youth Initiative, an alliance of 40 organizations around the world, all committed to reaching that 13-30 window (13 to 30 years of age). It is out of this experience the updated Sonlife Classic material will be rewritten.
In 2005 Chris Folmsbee became the executive director of Sonlife. After a couple of years, because of a new ministry focus and some new material, he made the decision to move away from the Classic material and launch this new direction. Because of this new focus and material, the Board of Sonlife felt it was natural to allow Chris to merge with YouthFront in Kansas City, which had a similar focus and training passion. Because of two years of marketing this new emphasis under the Sonlife brand, the Board allowed Chris to retain the name, while the not-for-profit organization left behind would retain the classic Sonlife material and have rights to the Sonlife Classic name.
Under the new name of Sonlife Classic, it is our desire over the next two years to completely update the classic material, gaining from the perspective learned around the globe.
We anticipate developing a totally new delivery system, allowing for an increased multiplication of the training, and an ongoing study of Christ’s life. During 2008-2009 we will be field-testing and developing this new delivery system. For a simple explanation of that plan, look under “Our Strategy” section of this web site.
We have just developed a new training seminar, called “Disciple Making in the Life of Christ”, compiling the best of all that we have learned globally. We also plan to update a number of the other classic training resources.
If you are a veteran Sonlife trainer, or someone new in ministry, we know that the new material will challenge you. Dann, will focus his energies upon rewriting the classic material and Don Roscoe and a leadership team of classic Sonlife veterans will give leadership to providing opportunities for multiplying this new material.