California Southern Baptist Convention New Church Starting invites all CSBC churches to join in praying that God would open up the floodgates of Californian’s hearts at 10 a.m., Sunday, October 10, 2010.

On 10/10/10, NCS will launch new churches, hold preview services and begin core group meetings. The NCS goal is for existing churches to join by sending weekend mission teams, conducting outreach events, prayer walking communities that need new churches, taking offerings for church planters, and praying passionately for the harvest.

Every church can be involved!

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated California's population at 36,961,664 for 2009, making it the most populous state in the U. S. This is a 3 million increase since the 2000 census. This statistic reveals California’s population is greater than all but 34 countries in the world. The best way to reach our state is to start churches that start churches that start churches.

The 10/10/10 initiative is a great way to invest in California’s future. On that day the prayers, resources and work of Southern Baptists in California, around the United States and even throughout the world will come together into one large church planting effort. CSBC is planting all kinds of churches for all kinds of people who call California home.

Here are 10 ways your church can be involved in starting churches throughout the Golden State:

1. Be there for a launch or preview service
   Whether you live locally or travel from another state, there will be plenty of ways to plug in. Help with children, serve as a greeter, serve on a set-up team, prayer walk a community or distribute flyers. Here are suggestions for making people feel welcome at a new church.
2. Pray from wherever you live
   Hold a prayer meeting for a new church, or do a real or virtual prayer walk around a community. Pray for these new church planters.
3. Adopt a church planting family or team
   Help with salary support, buy gift cards to stores or restaurants, petition God for their spiritual protection. Remember their birthdays.
4. Host a new church baby shower
   Ask the church planter for a list of items the church needs. This may be a coffee pot, Bibles or nursery items. If your church is local, invite the plant team for cake and present them with gifts. Or host a virtual shower – buy gifts online. Here are tips for sponsoring a new church baby shower.
5. Participate in a community outreach event
   Consider a Block Party, a fair, a festival or a fundraising event that serves a neighborhood. This is great way for you to help churches become visible and build relationships with residents.
6. Sign up for a Vision Tour
   Vision tour participants are those who are seeking to discover God’s will for partnering beyond 2010. Vision tour participants become major, long-term partners with new churches.
7. Support Infrastructure needs
   Support the Church Network Hub as it supports new churches with administrative, legal and technological services. Your gift to the hub will assist church planters who receive minimal funding receive services they can’t otherwise afford.
8. Sow seeds for a future harvest
   Prayer walk and distribute evangelistic materials in communities targeted for future churches. Pray Luke 10:2 that the Lord of the Harvest will send laborers. Distribute evangelistic GPS materials.
9. Improve meeting facilities
   Help paint, landscape, or do construction work that will make meeting spaces for new churches more functional, beautiful and inviting.
10. Give to the California Mission Offering
    Every fall, the California Mission Offering is taken in churches and distributed to important mission causes in our state, including church planting. The prayer is that gifts will exceed the 2010 CMO goal of $450,000. If you represent a California Southern Baptist church, NCS prays this will be the primary financial method of starting churches across California.

For more information about the 10/10/10 grassroots effort to start churches in California, contact Ross Shepherd, CSBC new church starting specialist, either by e-mail or by calling 559.229.9533, x236.

Brook Maturo is the director of the Church Network Hub and is assisting the strategy team in 10/10/10 event coordination. She also can help in connecting churches/individuals with participating associations and church starting strategists by geographical area. She can be contacted by emailing cachurchhub@gmail.com.