City Ministries of Petaluma

Our Mission:

City Ministries exists to bring the churches of the Petaluma Area together through explicit agreement, visible unity, extraordinary prayer and service to our community.

Our Beliefs and Values:

• We believe in the existence of only one God who exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• We believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
• We believe that Jesus Christ was God in human flesh and is the sovereign Lord of creation, the only Savior of mankind, and the Head and Chief Shepherd of the Church.
• We believe that working together in the unity of the Spirit embodies the heart and mind of Christ.
• We value forming authentic friendships with each other that include both support and accountability.

Our Commitment:

We have therefore covenanted together to do the following:

1) Praying privately for each other for at least half an hour each week.

2) Praying publicly for each other each week at our Sunday morning service

3) Gathering weekly for a time of prayer.

4) Meeting quarterly for breakfast and fellowship.

5) Meeting as needed to plan events.

6) Meeting annually for retreat(s) designed around prayer, fellowship and biblical instruction

7) Preserving the unity of the Body by:

Resolving, according to the Biblical pattern, any accusations made against
another Pastor.

Holding people accountable for unresolved issues as they move from one congregation to another.

8 ) Encouraging our individual congregations to seek the Lord in times of extraordinary prayer.

9) Working together in mutually agreed upon community activities to promote Christ’s Kingdom.

City Ministries pastors enjoyed a time of renewal of relationship with God and each other during their annual retreat, January. Some critical issues guided conversations and decisions. Already, the pastors had decided to have citywide Good Friday services every other year, allowing individual churches or smaller clusters of churches the opportunity to hold their own Good Friday services. So, Good Friday services this year will be held at several City Ministries churches. In 2013, we’ll have the citywide Good Friday services. The Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast is another citywide event that we are not currently planning. It’s on indefinite hold, but churches are planning their own events to support the National Day of Prayer.

During the January retreat, the pastors decided to continue pursuing the goal of moving our members out into community service, but we will not organize a citywide community service event. The Serve Petaluma group will continue to raise awareness of events and promote cooperation in service to churches and community needs.

City Ministries will continue to hold an annual citywide worship service. This year’s Together 2012 will be held July 29 at the Fairgrounds.

The reason for scaling back on some of our citywide activities is so we can put greater energy into our supportive relationships with one another. We are focusing more on deeper relationships with one another for support and prayer. The Thursday morning pastors’ prayer meeting is a high priority and the format has been changed so we are spending more time in prayer together, focusing each week on one of our churches. In addition, pastors are determined to meet more often, one-on-one.

There was agreement that the time has come for City Ministries to move towards a structure to ensure accountability and protect financial and legal liability. You can expect a non-profit corporation in the coming year.

Welcome to City Ministries of Petaluma

We have our domain name back, but it looks like we need to rebuild our website.

So…to start with, here’s some info about who we are:

Click for our Facebook Page

The Mission of City Ministries

City Ministries exists to bring the churches of the Petaluma Area together to promote Christ’s kingdom through explicit agreement, visible unity, extraordinary prayer and service to our community.

Our Beliefs and Values

• We believe in the existence of only one God who exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• We believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
• We believe that Jesus Christ was God in human flesh and is the sovereign Lord of creation, the only Savior of mankind, and the Head and Chief Shepherd of the Church.
• We believe that working together in the unity of the Spirit embodies the heart and mind of Christ.
• We value forming authentic friendships with each other that include both support and accountability.

Our Commitment

We have therefore covenanted together by God’s grace to do the following:

• Gathering weekly for a time of prayer.
• Meeting every other month for breakfast and planning joint activities.
• Sharing in regular retreats designed around prayer, biblical instruction and fellowship.
• Praying:
• Privately for each other for at least half an hour each week.
• Publicly for another congregation each Sunday.
• Preserving the unity of the Body by…

• Resolving according to the Biblical pattern any accusations made against another Pastor.
• Holding people accountable for unresolved issues as they move from one congregation to another.

• Bringing our congregations together for times of citywide prayer.
• Working together in mutually agreed upon community activities.
• Giving to the support of City Ministries through our church budgets.