God has done amazing things in the lives of our people.  Marriages have been restored. Addictions have been broken. People have come to Jesus for the first time, and people have returned to Him.

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.

We have seen God do some amazing things at Southbridge in our short history. Lives have been changed people have trusted Jesus, relationships have been reconciled, believers have grown, addictions have been broken, diseases have been healed. God has done some great things, but I believe there are greater things ahead.

Today was an amazing day at Southbridge. It was our commitment Sunday for our first ever call to a serious financial commitment to the vision of Southbridge beyond normal tithes. What was amazing to me was seeing so many people come forward and lay down their commitment cards, because behind those cards represents for many a journey, a spiritual journey, for some even a wrestling match with God. Ultimately what we placed at the front of the church was a tangible expression of our trust in God to provide when we step out. What an amazing thing. With all that we have seen I believe greater things are still ahead.

As a church, as families and as individuals we stand at a place where we are stepping out into the unknown. Like Abraham (Genesis 12:1; Hebrews 11:8), we know God is calling us to take the next step, but we don’t know the final destination and it is very exciting. I am looking forward to what is ahead.

Today launched the beginning of a four week spiritual journey at Southbridge that will culminate on February 28th, which is our commitment Sunday. We are asking God to use the people of Southbridge to raise $1.5 million dollars over a three year period and $150,000 for a special offering on February 28th. Why?

Official Vision Video from Ascending Productions on Vimeo.