Send the Light
| Founded | 1957 |
|---|---|
| Founder | George Verwer |
| Dissolved | Entered into Administration December 2009 and moved into Liquidation December 2010. |
| Type | Registered as a British charity and a private company, limited by guarantee with no share capital |
| Focus | Advancement of education and religion |
| Location | |
|
Area served
|
UK and elsewhere |
| Method | Advancing the Christian Faith through the creation, distribution and retailing of Christian resources |
|
Key people
|
Michael Fitch (Chairman) Keith Danby (CEO) David Ryan (Secretary) |
|
Revenue
|
£35.8m (2009) |
|
Employees
|
390 (2009) |
Send the Light (STL) was a British Christian book distributor which had absorbed other Christian publishers and bookshops, and eventually merged with the International Bible Society to become one of the largest non-profit book distributors in the world under the title of IBS-STL Global, now known as Biblica.
The name “Send the Light” first appeared in 1957 as a Christian literature evangelism ministry sending copies of the Gospel of John from Chicago to Mexico, under the direction of George Verwer, then a student at Moody Bible Institute. Verwer later moved to Bolton in the UK, where he established Operation Mobilisation (OM), which today distributes Christian literature in many countries around the world. Verwer decided to keep the name “Send the Light” for one particular aspect of OM, exporting Christian books to India. As STL, this developed into a general distributor of Christian books, and relocated to Bromley in Kent.
In January 1986, Keith Danby was made chief executive of STL. Danby had a background in finance and by introducing stock catalogues, a free telephone number and next-day deliveries he increased turnover by 52% in one year. In 1988 he set up an independent board for STL which separated it from the governance of OM, and the following year the company relocated to Carlisle. In the 1990s STL began to expand its interests.
In 1992 an old Christian publisher, Paternoster Press, was acquired, and the first Wesley Owen Books and Music shop was opened in Bromley. The intention was to create a “Christian Waterstone's” which would be more professional than many of the Christian bookshops then found in the UK. The following year STL took over the Church of Scotland shops, the Evangelical Christian Literature (ECL) shops, and the Scripture Union shops. Danby explained that STL’s aim was to show “excellence combined with Christian compassion”.
In 1993 OM released STL to operate as a separate organisation to allow it to concentrate on the publishing and distribution of Christian literature.[1].
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