Local Info

The City

Known by locals as “America’s Finest City,” San Diego is a place of great beauty; beaches dot the city’s coastline, desert flowers bloom in inland areas, and, of course, there’s the nearly perfect weather. It’s a center of industry and research, a home base for thousands of residents who serve in the United States military, a temporary home to 250,000 college students, and a thriving tourist destination.

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The Ministry

Greater San Diego offers some unique challenges to effective ministry, the first of which is the area’s size. San Diego County comprises more than 4000 square miles, and within those miles are many distinct communities. To reach Greater San Diego with the Gospel, churches in each of these communities must be aligned in their desire to see their city transformed. That’s why Vision San Diego’s focus is the local church. When volunteers come from around the country to meet needs in San Diego, they will work with and represent a local San Diego church. When thousands of intercessors pray for ministry in San Diego, their prayers will focus on the local congregations that are reaching out to their communities.

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The Needs

San Diego is also a city with needs. It is a place where one finds both great wealth and abject poverty, usually within a few miles of each other. It is a city of differences, with more than 2 million Hispanic residents on the US side of the border and across in Tijuana, Mexico. Most importantly, as California’s second-largest city and the nation’s eighth, Greater San Diego is filled with more than 3 million people, more than half of whom claim no religious affiliation. Partnering with the San Diego Southern Baptist Association and California Southern Baptist Convention, Vision San Diego will work alongside local churches so that more people might come to know Christ in a city where only 6% of the population claim to be Evangelicals.

The Opportunity

Volunteer missions projects and prayer are two ways you and your church can be part of reaching out to Greater San Diego; there are many other opportunities for partnership. Your church can help by: assisting a San Diego church in planning and executing a special event or emphasis, supporting the teams that will start more than 100 new churches over the next three years, or engaging in a long-term partnership with a church or church start to encourage them in their effort to increase God’s renown in their city.