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.”

SARASOTA, Fla. – More than 150 Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers have been making quick work of hurricane damage in the Sarasota area. Chainsaw crews have been especially busy sawing away trees knocked down when Hurricane Ian blew ashore on September 28.

WOODSTOCK, Ga. – In 2020, George Barna president David Kinnaman predicted that 20 percent of America’s churches could close with the next 18 months. It is yet to be determined if his prophecy has become a reality, but many churches are struggling in the wake of what we hope is the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it appears that churches large and small have suffered some loss in the past 30 months.

PALMETTO, Ga. – While finding a church that still has an old-fashioned revival meeting may be challenging, such an event was a much anticipated and successful experience for the residents of Palmetto Park Senior Living, a ministry of Baptist Retirement Communities of Georgia.

MOUNT VERNON, Ga. – Large numbers of Georgia pastors who work full-time jobs while also leading churches could benefit from a partnership between Brewton-Parker College, the Georgia Baptist Mission Board and local Baptist associations that will provide in-depth training in key areas, including theology and preaching. “Literally hundreds and hundreds of Georgia’s bi-vocational pastors could benefit from this initiative,” said Ricky Thrasher, the state Mission Board’s liaison to Baptist associations.

SARASOTA, Fla. — Scores of Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers continue the difficult work of helping get Florida hurricane survivors back into their homes. Longtime Disaster Relief worker Bob Sprinkel said his Georgia crew has found what Floridians need most right now is hope amid the despair that came with the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Ian.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Some of the state’s most successful pastors will speak at the Georgia Baptist Preaching Conference set for Nov. 14 at Warren Baptist Church in Augusta. “Each of these men were chosen for the Preaching Conference because they exemplify powerful preaching in their own churches,” said Johnny Nix, president of the Preaching Conference, which will run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

VILLA RICA, Georgia (BP) – Most things change over time, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the effectiveness of the Cooperative Program, the way Southern Baptists work together in God’s kingdom work across North America and throughout the world. Flat Rock Baptist Church shares that commitment to do what it can to spread the Gospel worldwide.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – More than 560 messengers already have completed early registration for the Georgia Baptist Convention annual meeting, which will be a milestone gathering commemorating 200 years of cooperative ministry among the state’s churches. “We’ll be looking back at two incredible centuries of sharing Christ, but, more importantly, we’ll be pressing forward, because we’re not done yet,” said Georgia Baptist Convention President Kevin Williams. “It’s our intention as a convention to keep on sharing the gospel until Christ makes his promised return.”