What's happening in Fresno - The Walmat Hunger Initiative

Dancing with Apolo Ohno - A Leadership Challenge

Apolo Ohno won the Dancing with the Stars competition in 2007.  As the "Babe Ruth" of short track skating, he is also the best-known short track skater in the United States.  What most Americans know about this sport, they learned from watching Ohno.  He is also on a mission.  Ohno's dominance of the sport grows out of his passion to be the best short track skater in the world.  He is accomplishing his mission:  

• Won eight Olympic medals leading up through Vancouver 2010.
• Was one of only four Americans who have won three medals in a single Winter Olympic games.
• Won more Winter Olympic medals than any other American.  
• Has been the reigning United States’ champion since 2001.
• Won the men's national title a total of 12 times.  
• Was the youngest skater to win a World Cup event title in 1999.

Like most champions, he combines natural physical ability with three critical factors: 

1. Discipline - "Before I even get on the ice for the morning training, I put in as much effort and I focus as if it's the last two hours before the [Olympic] Games."
2. Determination - "I knew it was going to hurt, but it didn't matter."
3. Strength - "We train every muscle in the lower body to work together in synchronicity."  For perspective on strength, imagine squatting down to a 90 degree bend on one leg. Hold it, and then put on a 150lb backpack to account for the additional pressure provided by the 2G acceleration of the turn.  Then balance all of that on a 1mm blade.  Check out the strength in his legs as you view the video!

As you follow after Christ this week, plan to use discipline, determination, and strength.  Relentlessly seek Christ.  Be challenged and encouraged by Apolo Ohno in this video.

Rich Johnstone

8/9/2010 Update on Danny Sotelo

We received this update this morning 8/9 from Debbie Campbell, CSBC Healthy Church Group:

Michelle Sanchez, grand-daughter of Danny Sotelo writes: 
My grandpa is out of the hospital and in a rehabilitation center.
San Joaquin Valley Rehabilitation Center, Room 121
7173 N. Sharon, Fresno 93720
Ph: 559-436-3600
Visiting hours 2:00 pm - 8:00 pm

He is still in pain from a bone marrow biopsy but appreciates short visits from all!

I'm sure Danny would also appreciate cards/notes of encouragement.

Rich Johnstone/rw

Update on Danny Sotelo

This update was sent from Debbie Campbell, CSBC Healthy Church Group, on Wed. 8/3/10:

Bro Danny had a real stroke yesterday and it seemed to affect his right side some. But even hours after the stroke, he was already moving and looked better. He was to moved out of ICU but still remains in ICU until further notice.


Please pray for bro Danny as he is now recovering from the stroke side effects. Pray for his family as the help support him and his recovery. Bro Danny doesn't have his cell phone personally so one of his daughters will answer if you call it. Or you can call the following people for personal updates, his grand daughter, Michelle Sanchez on her cell: 559-274-8802 or Bro Danny's daughter, Lydia Sanchez on her cell: 559-930-4590.

Please continue to pray for a speedy and complete recovery for Bro Danny. He appreciates all your prayers and support!

Hitting the Missional Bulls Eye

Matt Emmons is an American shooter who competed in the Athens Olympics in 2004. He held a commanding three point lead in the Olympic 50-meter three-position rifle final. All he needed to preserve a gold medal win was to safely hit the target. Any shot close to the bulls eye would suffice. A perfect score — dead center in a bull’s-eye that is smaller than a dime — is worth 10.9 in the final round. Matt only needed an 8.0 for gold. From the standing position, Matt squeezed off his final shot. It was good enough to retain the lead and earn the gold. However, the score did not register on the scoreboard. He gestured to the judges, as if to suggest something was wrong with the target. The judges huddled and confirmed the worst. Matt shot from lane three, but hit the bulls eye in lane two. He dropped from a certain gold medal to eighth place.

Perfect execution doesn't count if you are perfectly executing the wrong things. Missional alignment is all about accomplishing goals that are truly mission critical. Consider this as you develop your task list for this week. If you and your church perfectly execute your plans, will the mission of God be directly advanced? Thom Rainer urges leaders to "say no to almost everything." Ruthlessly say no to the extraneous this week. This will buy you the time you need to make a more significan impact on behalf of your mission.

As for Matt, he landed on his feet. A Czech shooter, Katy, was watching the Matt's match. Katy felt so bad for Matt that she approached him later that day to console him. The chemistry between the two was instant. They began dating, and the couple married in 2007. They competed together in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Rich Johnstone, DOM

Mid-Valley Churches and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering

Mid-Valley Churches not only engage in local missions through our Association, but they also support world-wide missions through the Cooperative program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. In 2009, over 5,300 international missionaries engaged 1,100 people groups resulting in 24,600 new churches and 506,000 overseas baptisms.  37 Mid-Valley churches supported world missions through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.  Trinity Southern Baptist Church gave the most dollars, and Sierra Baptist Church in Ahwahnee was the top per capita giver.
Mid-Valley Churches who gave to Lottie Moon in 2009:

• Baptist Temple, Fresno
• Bethel Southern Baptist, Madera
• Cambodian Mission, Fresno
• Copper Springs, Clovis
• Cornelia Avenue Southern Baptist, Fresno
• Crosspoint Church, Fresno
• East Fresno Baptist, Fresno
• El Encino Baptist, Fresno
• First Baptist Church, Firebaugh
• First Baptist Church, Mendota
• First Baptist Church, Oakhurst
• First Southern Baptist, Chowchilla
• First Southern Baptist, Coalinga
• First Southern Baptist, Hanford
• First Southern Baptist, Kerman
• First Southern Baptist, Madera
• First Southern Baptist, Reedley
• First Southern Baptist, Snager
• First Southern Baptist, Selma
• Golden Valley Church, Madera
• Grace Community Church, Chowchilla
• Grace Community Church, Madera
• Iglesia Bautista, Kerman
• Iglesia Bautista Central, Fresno
• Iglesia Bautista Central, Riverdale
• Iglesia Bautista Nueva Esperanza, Madera
• Jewels Community Church, Clovis
• Lifeway Baptist Church, Fresno
• NewLife Community Church, Fresno
• Northpointe Community Church, Fresno
• Oakview Baptist Church, Auberry
• Paraclete Missionary Baptist Church, Fresno
• Sierra Baptist Church, Ahwahnee
• Sierra Heights Baptist Church, Fresno
• Swan Avenue Baptist Church, Sanger
• Trinity Southern Baptist Church, Fresno
• Woodward Park Baptist Church, Fresno

Weekly News Update - June 24, 2010

Read the latest weekly news update from Mid-Valley Southern Baptist Association here.

News Update - 6/17/2010

Read the latest weekly news update from Mid-Valley Southern Baptist Association here.

The Leadership Opportunity

Leadership and Conflict: Interwoven Threads

In every sphere of life—home, work, family, and especially the church—leadership really matters.
As we all know, leadership is hard, but it is perhaps most challenging in those moments where leadership and conflict intersect. If you’re a leader, you often sit at the center of conflict—those times when tension surfaces in a leaders’ meeting, when you are managing a difficult change, or when the angry couple is sitting in your office.

And leaders don’t just see other people’s conflicts—at some time or other, every leader has inadvertently caused a conflict through an unpopular decision, poor communication, or even one careless word. Even in the healthiest churches, conflict and leadership are interwoven threads.

The Leader’s Response
When conflict threatens to shake the foundations of your church, wise leadership can hold your church together, creating a solid structure that can withstand the forces of damaging conflict. However, all too often, leaders default to worldly solutions by avoiding or attacking, and they end up standing by as the building crumbles. Compounding this problem is the recent unhealthy infiltration of corporate thinking into church leadership—the “results over relationships” approach may sound good, but it actually adds to the damage.

Conflict provides an opportunity for the church leader to respond in a way that is markedly different—living out the gospel of Jesus Christ in those critical moments when conflict and leadership intersect.

A Biblical Alternative

While many worthwhile resources on leadership exist, The Leadership Opportunity stands alone in addressing this distinct area of conflict and leadership. Based on over 25 years of work with churches and church leaders and as part of a larger family of resources for churches, The Leadership Opportunity is a solidly biblical resource, providing highly practical help for the common conflicts that all leaders face. It was created by church leaders for church leaders, and it will help any church lay the solid foundation of leadership needed in order to build a culture of peace.



FREE copies of a promo DVD introducing this resource are available at the associational office.

Social Networking in Ministry Workshop
July 13, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
CSBC Ministry Resource Center, 678 E. Shaw Avenue
Purpose: Teach church leaders strategies and processes for effective Kingdom use of social media in ministry.  Attention will be given to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogs, and other media that can be utilized for effective ministry.

Register here.

Weekly News Update - June 10, 2010

See the weekly news update here.

View live video from SBC annual meeting

"LoveLoud through the Great Commission" (1 John 3:18) is the theme for the 2010 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Orlando, June 15-16.

Live video streaming is available for each session of the 2010 Pastors’ Conference and SBC Annual Meeting.  

GPS Door Hanger Update

This GPS update comes from Pastor Joshua Smith, Jewels Community Church, Clovis:

Jewels members who participated door-to-door were enthused, and said they would go again.

Update: GPS Door Hanger Day

This update is from Pastor Tom Sims of Baptist Temple:

There were 15 teams of at least 3-5. So my estimate is that 60-70 people participated.  Some got to talk to people, but that was not part of the assignment.  We distributed 5000 packets.

It was a great day.
- Tom

Update: GPS Door Hanger Day

This update is from Pastor Ed Coleman:

This past Saturday on Door Hanger Day we had 16 church members participate. We all had favorable reception from those that we witness to, and one observation is that a young man called my house and asked did our church pray for deliverance from alcohol and would it be O.K. to bring his wife to church on Easter Sunday.


What a blessing!

In Jesus Name,
Pastor Ed Coleman
Paraclete Missionary Baptist Church

Update---GPS Door Hanger Day

This update comes from Pastor Mike Lacaze:

For Woodward Park it went really well. We had probably 55 people participate in handing out 1250 door hangers. Our people were able to talk to neighbors in the community who were outside, so there were some personal invitations to Easter weekend but it appears there wasn’t any clear Gospel presentation.


Pastor Mike
Student Pastor

GPS Update from Jewels Community Church, Clovis

This update comes from Pastor Joshua Smith:

Jewels members did the prayer-walk this past Saturday and will do the outreach and evangelism saturation on the 27th. The prayer-walk went well, and during the event we got a chance to talk and witness to several people. We had positive responses from those we communicated with. I told one family that we were on their street to pray for them, and they said “Great!”


Blessings!

Josh Smith

GPS Update from Sierra Baptist Church, Visalia

This update comes from Lee Yarbrough, MV GPS Coordinator and Church Encourager:

Good Morning:

Today is March 23rd the "I Found it Here" Commercials are airing this week, and our churches have completed their prayer walking by now.  Here is our prayer walking report:

On Saturday 3-20-2010 we had 30 people gather at Sierra Baptist Church in Visilia . We had 6 teams of prayer walkers, each team was given a map of 500 homes that were with in a one mile radius of our Church. We gave each team three hours to cover their areas, then returned to the church for debriefing.

The results was fanatic our people had all kinds of experiences during their Walk. One man said he feflt the presence of the holy spirit as he prayed for houses and people that he met. One of our ladies had the privileged of sharing Jesus. Others prayed for people who they met that had specif needs. The spirit of our people was great as we left and it flowed over into Sunday morning as we invited others to come and help us had out the packets on the 27th.

I am praying for you and your congregation as you prepare for Saturday March 27th .

May God bless you in all that you do.

Lee Yarbrough
Pastor encourager.

GPS Update from Baptist Temple, Fresno

This update comes from Pastor Tom Sims:

Our three (actually 4 when we separate out The Edge) churches participated.

We an amazing crowd. We began at 8:00 A.M. with breakfast and prayer together. We even had a guest join us from off the street who wanted a Bible and was delighted to also receive breakfast and prayer.

We had 5000 bags to stuff with 5 pieces in each bag, so some went out on prayer walks and some stayed back to form an assembly line. It was so encouraging to see everyone working and praying together with energy, enthusiasm, and cooperative joy!

I suppose there were 40-50 people. Lots of miles were walked. We covered from Shaw to Clinton (north/south) and from Blackstone to Millbrook (west/east). Some groups focused on each business, others did houses and neighborhoods and schools.

I have confidence that we will be able to get the word out this Saturday within about 3 hours. It will be an amazing feat, but I had no idea we would get all of last Saturdays tasks done in one morning. God is very good!

- Tom

GPS Update from First Southern Baptist Church,Sanger

This update comes from Pastor Chuck Antaramian:

We had 15 people meet at the church and we prayer-walked several of the new housing developments that have sprung up in Sanger in the last few years. We estimate that in the nine sections we prayer-walked we covered approximately 1500 homes.


The event was encouraging as a few people got to talk to people in the neighborhoods and one family said they would be at our Sunrise service. It was also interesting to see a church of another denomination going door to door giving out invitations to their church.

We will be stuffing our 1500 outreach packets tonight and preparing to go out Saturday with a special invitation to attend Easter services at FSBC Sanger.

His servant and yours,

Chuck Antaramian

GPS Update from First Baptist Church, Oakhurst

This update comes from Pastor Richard Cavoretto:

At First Baptist Church of Oakhurst, we planned for 1,000 door hangers to cover a radious of 1 mile around our church. We have many members who are elderly and a neighborhood that is hilly with a lot of steep, long driveways. Most homes are spread out. We decided to combine the prayer walk with the distribution of the flyers. We also decided to strertch it out over the whole week to give our folks some flexability. This Saturday we distributed about a third of our goal. My partner and I spent three hours. 8 individuals have volunteered to be prayer-walkers-flyer-distributers. We have included a card in each bag inviting the public to a 9:00 a.m. "Late Risers Sunrise Service" which will include a skit and family freindly message. It will be followed by a continental breeakfast. Our 10:45 service will have some special music and a special evangelistic message. Children's church will also be special with a traditional egg hunt.




Blessings,

GPS Update from Oakview Baptist Church, Auberry

This update comes from Pastor Dale Fink:

As a rural, low home density area of the foothills, and with an older congregation, we chose to gather strategically in one home each of the 3 dominantly populated areas near the church; Prather, Auberry and Tollhouse Sunday afternoon. We had a potluck following the Baptist credo- where 2 or more are gathered they shall eat. Then we prayed for our neighbors by streets and named those we know that are unsaved. This went off well in 2 of the 3 locations where there were 10+ adults each.


For those that are applying themselves, this is a great way to connect, pray and advance the message of Jesus Christ.

Thanks,

In the Lord,

Dale Fink

GPS Update from Sierra Heights Baptist Church

This update comes from Pastor Bill Steele:

We had about 30 participate in the event. Because many of our members are “mobility challenged” we combined prayer walking with “drive-by” prayer and bicycle prayer. We broke our church zip code area into 11 sub-areas and assigned 2-3 people to cover each area. Some observations:


1. Helped us to see up close and personal the houses that contain the homes of families in our immediate area. Each house was different, some well kept, some neglected, some abandoned. This is similar to the spiritual lives of people, well balanced, neglected, and empty!

2. Some, after explaining what they were doing, prayed with individuals they met along the way. They were well received and encouraged.

3. Most realized that this prayer time was more for us than for the community. God changes us when we get out on the streets!

4. Momentum is building as we look forward to seeing what God is up to in our area. Having spent Sunday evenings discussing prayer, and praying in small groups for our area – we feel that the real work is on the Holy spirit to draw and call people into the body. Our efforts should be focused on getting ready to receive them.

Bill Steele – Sierra Heights

Haiti Disaster Relief Update

To: Mid-Valley Churches and Friends

From: Rich Johnstone, DOM

Southern Baptists have a Disaster Relief infrastructure that is in place and ready to mobilize. Don Hargis leads the effort on behalf of California Southern Baptists. See Don's initial report. Don is the point person in coordinating people and resources to respond to crises like the disastrous 7.0 quake in Haiti. International relief organizations welcome and respect Southern Baptists as significant partners in responding to crisis needs. Jesus Christ is honored by ministering in His name.

Florida Baptist Convention is taking the lead in this disaster relief effort. Jacksonville Baptist Association has had a close, ongoing relationship with believers in Haiti for the last 12 years. Their orphanage facility is being used as a staging area for relief efforts. Follow their blog for latest updates.

ACTION POINTS:

First, make people aware of the magnitude of the need.

Second, mobilize the church for a major prayer emphasis.

Third, make financial gifts. The 70 Mid-Valley churches can make a significant impact by receiving an initial offering this Sunday, Jan. 17. Assure your congregation that 100% given will go directly to CSBC Disaster Relief. Two options for giving:

1. All Checks Sent to the Mid-Valley Association for "Haiti Earthquake" will be directed to CSBC Disaster Relief. (mail to: MVSBA, 825 W Ashlan Ave. #101, Clovis, 93612)
2. Give online directly to CSBC Disaster Relief.

Fourth, GO. There will be a phase in the relief efforts when volunteer groups will be welcomed. Check back with Don Hargis to learn about these opportunities.