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Now after more than a year, area pastors are bracing their congregations for a verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, a self-professed neighborhood watch volunteer charged with fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin during a confrontation in February 2012.

Nearly 20 area pastors in Sanford, where the shooting took place, will meet today with police to discuss preparations for the trial's outcome. The case is expected to go to the jury today.

Pastor Glenn Dames of St. James AME Church in Titusville, one of the early organizers of protests in Brevard County over the case, said he believes that whatever the final verdict for Zimmerman, his church members will be focused on prayer rather than protests.

"For so many of the youth, I think you have to understand that the way this case was handled seems like a slap in the face. How could Zimmerman shoot Trayvon and by his own admission be free to leave 12 hours later? You've also had Trayvon demonized," said Dames, who had the teen's mother and father speak at a rally at his church. "Had everything been done at the beginning then you likely would not have had these tensions. The tensions wouldn't be this big. Ultimately, whatever the verdict may be, it's in God's hands."

The trial's tense setting in the small community of 55,000 residents in Central Florida moved several pastors -- black and white -- to join together in the call for local youth to remain peaceful and build trust between police and the community at-large where there had been a history of racial division.

"The most important thing is that we are talking," said Rev. Jeffrey Krall, the spiritual leader of the Family Worship Center, a predominantly white congregation in Sanford. The meetings -- facilitated initially by the Department of Justice -- began last year when the case brought out civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to the inland Florida town.