Click here for more than a 1 minute reflection: More than the Mundane.

Untitled from Scott Lehr on Vimeo.

Untitled from Scott Lehr on Vimeo.

Tonight we concluded our retreat for the missionaries here in Madagascar. It was great. For the last message we looked at one of my favorite passages Philippians 3:7-10, Paul’s desire to know Jesus. The majority of the missionaries have shared with me how God has spoken to them through different messages and in different ways. When you pour into the lives of people who will use these things in their faith journey as well as to impact others it is clearly a good use of time and of God’s truth. We concluded the evening with an extended time of worship and prayer, with no time limit. After everything was done I did several video interviews with the missionaries, which I will begin to upload when we return to Tana and have a stronger internet connection. Please pray for us.

I also did an interview with Grant Waller to get an update on their ministry here. I can’t upload the video blogs right now, because our internet connection is not very strong. I will try and upload those when we return to Tana. It has been great hearing what God is doing in and through the lives of these passionate followers of Jesus. Tomorrow morning I preach from Luke 7:36-50 (The fuel of our faith). Then we go see some Lemurs and Crocodiles (illustrations waiting to happen). In the evening I will preach on Luke 8:22-25 (Faith in the storm).

Our childrens workers have been the true all-stars (Judy Grimme, Tim Hockstad, and Sharon Hockstad). They had the kids for about 10 hours today. No Kidding. I can’t wait to interview them and show you how excited they were about it though . Please pray for us.

We then toured around with Tessa, a young lady who does ministry at the local university (which has over 30,000 students). They were completing a “week of prayer,” where for the past five days they have had tents set up for students to come and pray from 6:00am until 6:00pm. It was great to see how many people were coming to the tents. Our team went there to pray with and for the students and the ministry there on campus. While we were there a Malagasy student was playing a guitar. When I went into the tent he had allowed Jad Walters to play. Jad led us in some spontaneous worship (in English, he hasn’t mastered Malagasy YET). Then the young man led us in some songs in Malagasy. He, Jad, and John Wyatt rotated playing songs while we all sang and talked with one another. After that we met again with Grant and Jodie Waller and talked to them about all God is doing in their ministry in the unreached villages. Grant has been translating 20 stories (from Creation to Resurrection) to share out in the bush. Hear from Bill Grimme and Tim Hockstad about day 2 here:

(If you are viewing this on facebook you must click “view original link” in order to see the video).

This will be Southbridge’s first overseas mission trip. Our trip objectives include:

• Provide support for the retreat and encouragement to the Wallers and the other missionaries serving in Madagascar.
• Gain a better understanding of how Southbridge can assist the Wallers in connecting the Mahafaly to Jesus for life-change.
• Use this trip as a means of discipleship for the members of the Body and leadership development.
• Use this trip as a model for future trips and a means of documenting Southbridge’s short-term trip policies and processes.

My plan is to send updates concerning the trip via my blog (you can subscribe by entering your email on the right and updates will be emailed directly to you).

Southbridge Fellowship has been a blessing to many people over the past three and a half years.  Our core values of worship, community, growth, service, and generosity remain, and are second only to our primary value—connecting people to Jesus for life change.  Yet there are thousands of people in the Raleigh-Durham area who have yet to be connected to Jesus.

In order to realize our vision and reach as many as possible for Christ, The Bridge Initiative was launched earlier this year.  This was a major undertaking for our young church.  God richly blessed us as we exceeded our goal for giving on Commitment Sunday and also exceeded our goal for total pledge commitments. We continue to seek out opportunities and wait upon the Lord, and while we have not yet identified a future facility for our new church home, we are nonetheless committed to innovating to accommodate for growth in the meantime.  In this way, we are ‘making a way’ in our present circumstances.

So this Fall, in order to reach more people in our community immediately, we are planning to launch a couple of new strategies.  The first is to have live music each week in each theater and have the pastor/teacher rotate between theaters every week. In order to get ready for this, we will be discontinuing our current Video Venue later this month. The second is to coordinate several outreach opportunities through both Community Groups and the overall church.  As we’ve said from day one, we were not starting a church just to start a church, but to reach a community.  We desire to be outwardly focused.  These new strategies will not be easy; space will be tight.  We will have to sacrifice.  But these new strategies will help us reach out to our community, open more seats by creating four live venues, and bridge the gap until we eventually identify and relocate into a new facility.  This is an opportunity for us to make sacrifices, to do whatever we can to reach our city.
In summary, what do we need you to do?

• Pray for and reach out to the people in our communities.
• Consider attending the 9:00 AM service to help create more seats during the more attended 10:30 AM service.
• Adopt a theater on September 12th—either Theater 9 or Theater 14—and consistently attend that Theater.
• Volunteer—Growth and change means the need for more volunteers, and every team has opportunities to serve.

God has done and is doing great things, but we continue to believe that the best is yet to come. I look forward to this journey together to see what He accomplishes.