AUGUSTA, Ga. – The Georgia Baptist community has grown over the past two centuries into state’s largest religious organization with more than 1.3 million members. “God did that,” said W. Thomas Hammond Jr., executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, speaking to a standing-room-only crowd Tuesday at Warren Baptist Church. Georgia Baptists now have 3,400 churches in every city, town, and community across the state. “God did that,” Hammond repeated.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Georgia Baptist Convention President Kevin Williams acknowledges the “ups and downs” of two centuries of sharing the gospel. “Here we are 200 years later having accomplished much,” he told messengers to an annual meeting Tuesday at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta. “But we are not done yet. Jesus has not returned. The rapture has not taken place. So we must continue to move forward and advance the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Georgia Baptist pastors were challenged in a series of sermons on Monday to fulfill the Great Commission, preach the truth, take risks, and submit to the lordship of Christ no matter what. Abilene Baptist Church Pastor Brad Whitt called on church leaders at the Georgia Baptist Preaching Conference to remember the excitement they felt as new believers about the Great Commission.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Nearly 1,000 people gathered at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta on Sunday for a send-off for 26 new international missionaries, many of whom are going into countries that are hostile to the gospel. The large turnout isn’t surprising in a state that has long been an ardent supporter of the International Mission Board.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The first of what’s expected to be a crowd of more than 1,200 messengers began arriving in Augusta on Sunday to attend events leading up to the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. The early arrivals have come not just from Georgia but also several other states to attend a send-off for the newest crop of International Mission Board missionaries preparing for deployment to countries around the world.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The messenger count has already surpassed 1,200 for the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, which begins Sunday at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta. Georgia Baptists from across the state will gather to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the state’s largest religious organization, made up of some 1.4 million people.

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga. – First Baptist Church of Blairsville has called Rev. Ricky Powell to succeed Dr. Fred Lodge as pastor. It has been said, “The church is not a campus but a community. Pastors are not CEOs; they are shepherds.” All indications provide evidence that Pastor Powell is God’s shepherd to nurture the existing spirit of unity and community among the people of Blairsville’s First Baptist Church.

DULUTH, Ga. – Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief crews have been placed on alert in case they're need to cleanup after Hurricane Nicole, which slammed Florida’s Atlantic coast early Thursday before turning north toward Georgia. Now downgraded to a tropical storm, Nicole had drenched the whole of Florida with heavy rain that have since moved into Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. Damaging winds extended as far as 450 miles from the storm's center.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Ministries from across the state and nation are coming to Augusta to be with Georgia Baptists during their annual meeting that runs from Sunday through Tuesday. Nearly 50 organizations have reserved space in the exhibit hall at Warren Baptist Church where Georgia Baptists will gather for the event that dates back 200 years.

CHATSWORTH, Ga. – Churches in Whitfield and Murray counties that need sheet music for morning worship services or special events no longer have to place expensive online orders. The new music library at the Conasauga Baptist Association could have just what they need. It's another example of churches helping churches to shine the light of Christ, said Associational Missionary Darey Kittle

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – Josh Saefkow has learned a great deal about building trust and fostering relationships by spending time around the stables where his horse, Lil Joe, hangs out. Saefkow, the Fayetteville pastor who is being nominated for president of the Georgia Baptist Convention later this month, said corrals can be great classrooms. “When it comes to horses, everything is done in steps,” he said. “Each step builds upon another. One step leads to the next. You can’t rush it. You have to build trust with the horse. It requires total commitment and loving patience to do it well.”

DULUTH, Ga. – Flat Creek Baptist Church Pastor Josh Saefkow, the only announced nominee for president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, would use the position to urge church leaders to focus on what’s most important. “I believe it’s time to get back to what makes Southern Baptists so unique, our focus on evangelism, education, and missions,” he said in a Q&A with The Christian Index.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – More than 1,200 messengers have pre-registered for the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting slated to begin Sunday at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta. The milestone gathering commemorating 200 years of cooperative ministry among Georgia Baptist churches will begin with a send-off for the latest crop of International Mission Board missionaries being deployed overseas, some to places so dangerous they’ll be silhouetted behind screens to hide their identities.

MACON, Ga. – Jean Burton got the idea for her sewing ministry after injuries in a car crash caused her to have to rely on a walker during a lengthy stay in a rehabilitation facility and later an assisted living center. Burton found no easy way to carry personal items while using a standard walker, and she quickly realized she wasn’t the only one dealing with the inconvenience.

SARASOTA, Fla. – Carpet cleaners helping to remove the mess Hurricane Ian left inside First Baptist Church in Sarasota received a cleansing of their own after an encounter with a Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief team deployed to Florida to help survivors. “It was a divine appointment,” said Chris Fuller, one of the Georgians who served in Florida. “One thing led to another, and they sat down in the sanctuary of the church where the gospel was presented and received by both men.”

DULUTH, Ga. – Southern Baptists across the nation are capitalizing on ACTS2, a streaming service created by the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, to broadcast state-level annual meetings to the masses. “It’s just one more way ACTS2 seeks to be the place where all Southern Baptists are ‘together in one place’ as the Bible says in Acts 2:1,” said programming director Jon Graham.

FORSYTH, Ga. – More than a dozen Hispanic Baptist pastors gathered this past weekend at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s Camp Kaleo for encouragement, instruction and worship. Rolando Ruiz, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Hispanoamericana in Lilburn, Ga., and president of the Georgia Hispanic Baptist Association, organized the event.

ATLANTA, Ga. – Many Christian families are beginning to see foster care as their mission field. Justin and Tara Twiggs have become missionaries in their own home in Dacula. The Twiggs have no biological children of their own, but after being traind in foster care,  now have four boys ranging in age from 3 months to 11 years old. “It is one of the most challenging yet instantly rewarding experiences that we have had," Justin said.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – In terms of security, churches have come full circle since the formation of the Georgia Baptist Convention 200 years ago. It was normal in frontier Georgia for armed sentries to stand watch outside church buildings, always on the lookout for signs of trouble. “They had a well-defined enemy,” said Charles Jones, a historian and newspaper columnist from Athens. “Today, with all that’s going on, another well-defined enemy has emerged.” With 23 separate fatal church shootings over the past two decades, including one in Texas that killed 26 people, armed security teams are again the norm at houses of worship.

CLEVELAND, Ga. – Dr. Emir Caner, president of Truett McConnell University has announced that the university has received a gift of $3 million, the second largest gift in the school’s 76-year history and the first gift of its kind for the purpose of endowing a faculty chair. The gift will be used to endow in perpetuity the Dr. Charles F. Stanley Chair of Theology and to fund the Global Impact Center in Miller Hall, the building which serves as the centerpiece of the TMU campus.

DALLAS, Ga. – Crude hand-hewn log church buildings have given way to massive contemporary structures. Hitching posts are long gone, replaced by paved parking lots. Pot-bellied stoves disappeared with the advent of central heat and air. Churches have undergone major transformations since the founding of the Georgia Baptist Convention 200 years ago.

DULUTH, Ga. – The Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s efforts to strengthen churches through the creation of leadership networks are getting positive reviews across the state. “In efforts to advance the gospel in Georgia, our church strengthening team has created a plethora of leadership networks that focus on ministry development,” said Levi Skipper, lead strategist for the Mission Board’s church strengthening team.

SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. – Milton Lee Wood, Sr., faithful Georgia Baptist pastor, passed away on Oct. 14, 2022, at age 84. He retired as pastor from First Baptist Church in Social Circle in 2001 after a long tenure, but in succeeding years he became a consultant for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board in church planting, served as an interim associational missionary, and was interim pastor of seven churches.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood is excited about holding a “sending celebration” next month in Georgia for potentially dozens of new missionaries being deployed to other countries. “Georgia Baptists are among IMB’s strongest partnering and most generous churches,” Chitwood said. “Each year, thousands of volunteers come to the mission field to serve alongside their IMB missionaries and millions of dollars flow from Georgia Baptist Convention churches to support those missionaries.”

MONROE, Ga. – A post-COVID revival that has been sweeping across Georgia over the past year has resulted in a record number of baptisms at 1025 Church in Monroe, a city of 14,000 people an hour east of Atlanta. “We had set a goal to reach 100 baptisms, and we passed that,” said Pastor Tommy Fountain Sr. “We actually had 102 baptisms.”