Church and Pastoral Care

• With approximately 10 percent of SBC churches without a pastor at any given time, please pray that God will raise up additional trained intentional interim/transitional pastors, especially from our ethnic and language groups, to meet this growing need.
   
• Unresolved conflict over control, power and decision-making is the number one issue for church conflict. Praise God for the number of churches who have embraced CPC's Statewide Peacemaking Strategy and the thousands who have participated in biblical peacemaking skills training. Please pray that more churches will engage in creating a culture of peace through this strategy, and that more DOMs will join the six who have completed conflict coaching and mediation training.
   
• Pray for additional conciliators representing various ethnic and language groups in CPC's growing network of mediators, especially as church conflict intervention teams are formed.
   
• Four out of five pastors feel their families are negatively impacted by unrealistic expectations -- whether self-imposed or congregation-imposed -- and that ministry is an outright hazard to the health of their families. These unrealistic expectations result in stress, and possible burnout. About 75 percent of pastors have experienced a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry. Pray that more pastors and spouses will avail themselves to observing regular Sabbath rests, especially through the week long ministry of Genesee Home, a place of pastoral renewal.
   
• Over two-thirds of couples who plan to marry still seek clergy to perform their wedding ceremony. Please pray for the successful passage of Proposition 8 in California's November 2008 election. Pray that more CSBC pastors and church staff will complete CPC's Prepare/Enrich training seminar which certifies them in this excellent premarital and marriage enrichment program.

Church Starting Group

• Prayer for new planned communities where there is no church presence. Pray for at least three new planned communities of 50,000 persons each, who need Christ and His church. Pray for these new communities – Plumas Lake (north of Sacramento), Mountain House (between Tracy and Antioch) and North Rocklin. (northwest of Sacramento). Pray for the funding to recruit the best planters for those areas, and the money to provide for their well-being while serving California.
   
• Pray for the development of two church planter training centers in Southern California – Santa and Burbank. Pray for the funds to renovate the facilities and recruit the seminary students.
   
• Pray for more African-American churches throughout the state, especially in South Central LA. Pray for Compton and Inglewood which have the largest African-American populations.
   
• Pray also for African-American churches to be started in East LA and in smaller communities such as Palmdale and Lancaster.
   
• Please pray as CSBC continues to target the San Joaquin Valley as it quickly transitions to a more ethnic face to start new churches for Hispanic, Filipino and other ethnic, cultural and language groups.

Healthy Church Group

• The Healthy Church Group desires to see our convention full of healthy congregations fulfilling the Great Commandment and Great Commission. Pray that our CSBC churches will strive to be and remain healthy.
   
• Ministry Evangelism is an effective tool to spread the message of Christ. CMO offerings are used each year to help provide for 60 “Feeding Those Who Feed Us” locations in California. Along with all the free items we provide for families at these migrant worker centers, we are praying for more than 1,700 souls to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Join with us in that prayer.
   
• Our state youth choir (New America Singers) sings across our state twice each month, sharing Christ through music at churches and military bases. CMO offerings are used to help support their ministry. Pray that they will be effective in their outreach.
   
• Many children come to Christ during a church’s Vacation Bible School week. CMO money helps provide four state and 15 associational events to train adults to lead and teach VBS in churches. Join us in lifting up these leaders in prayer.
   
• A Healthy Church is one that has a central mission and focus of their ministry. Healthy Church consultants are helping churches examine their values, mission and vision statements in order to strengthen and focus their tasks of making disciples. Pray for your consultants as they seek to add value to CSBC churches.

Missions Advancement Group

• Pray for Disaster Relief volunteers who will respond to needs in California, throughout the United States and around the world.
   
• Pray for Disaster Relief leaders to direct mass feeding, clean-up, search/rescue chainsaw, medical/dental, childcare and other types of teams throughout the year.
   
• Pray for disaster relief victims the witness of Disaster Relief volunteers to victims and that Christ would receive the glory.
   
• Pray for California Woman's Missionary Union and Women's Ministries leaders as they continue to seek new ways to provide missions education information to more than 2,000 CSBC churches. Missions education is a vital lifeline for the continued prayer and financial support of mission efforts in California.
   
• Language materials for missions education are critical for the ongoing expansion of missions awareness in California Southern Baptist churches. New printed materials are now available in Korean for children's and preschool mission groups for California's 200 Korean churches. Part of this year's CMO gifts will be used to produce additional language items in Vietnamese, Russian and Chinese.
   
• Leadership skills development is a primary focus for California women. Please pray that efforts to provide quality leadership training will be well received.
   
• Christian Women's and Christian Men's Job Corps is expanding in California, due in large part by the faithful giving to the California Mission Offering. Continue to pray for this ministry to women and men in poverty as they gain life and work skills and learn about God's plan for their lives. The first three men’s sites are in the development stages.
   
• Pray for the new ministry to California Baptist University students whose parents are serving as SBC international missionaries. This ministry seeks to create a helping network for Third Culture Kids who find themselves in the states while their parents serve overseas.
   
• Pray that CSBC churches will catch a vision for cooperative missions in ways that will support Cooperative Program ministries as well as special offerings.
   
• Pray as we translate both stewardship and Cooperative Program materials into languages and train consultants to tech them.