The savvy, creative experts in the advertising industry understand the impact of key words in getting consumers’ attention. Can you guess their favorite word most often used in advertising campaigns?

One free and highly effective way to reach your community is for a church to claim its Google Maps church listing. People want authenticity, and they're using Google Maps, not just Google searches, to see who you are. A blank Google Business page might as well say: “We’re not expecting guests.”  

Volunteers are the unsung heroes who make ministry happen week after week. They greet at doors. They disciple kids. They brew coffee, run screens, clean up messes, stack chairs, lead worship, and pray over needs.

The Apostle Paul says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). He had just also declared that while we are alive (“at home in the body”), we are absent from the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6). This simply means that no one can physically see Christ today; we must trust what the Bible tells us.

As 2025 draws to a close, I’m reminded that there is still so much to do in the Asia-Pacific Rim to fulfill the Revelation 7:9 vision of a multitude from every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping around the throne.  

"The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions. " This well-worn jibe is used to describe those (myself included at times) who react rather than reflect and jump to conclusions about people and situations instead of considering whether there might be more to the story than meets the eye. 

If I were to ask you to name the best Christmas movies of all time, I am confident several titles would make the list: It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street,  A Christmas Carol,  A Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas,  Home Alone, and Elf (no, Die Hard is NOT a Christmas movie). 

One of our young adults in my previous pastorate, Allie, served as a house parent at the Fame Girls’ Ranch in Alabama. A new 16-year-old girl was assigned to her cottage. It was time to decorate for Christmas, and the girls brought out the decorations and the new resident opened the box containing the Nativity set.

The church glows with candles and Christmas trees. Families arrive for the Christmas Eve service dressed in their Christmas best, ugly sweaters, and pajamas. Children wiggle in the pews, hoping this is the year they get to hold a real candle. As the choir begins “Silent Night,” the room feels full.

My family and I went to serve with the International Mission Board in Portugal in 2017. Like many of my friends on the mission field, I felt the IMB knew me better than I did following a slew of medical exams, tests, labs, and needed vaccinations.  

Long before Christ arrived on the earth, His coming was prophesied and recorded by one the the major prophets: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6 NASB). 

Thursday is Christmas Day, one of the two most important days of the year (Easter is the other). We celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on this day and rightfully so. Burl Ives sang, “Holly, Jolly Christmas” and declared that this is the best time of the year. I love this song and agree that Christmas is certainly one of the best times of the year.

The theme for the 2026 Georgia Baptist Evangelism Conference is Not Ashamed. The theme was born out of Romans 1:16 where Paul writes, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

For many, images of glowing lights, nostalgic carols, bountiful tables, and family gatherings are synonymous with Christmas. Jubilant declarations of peace on earth and good will toward men warm our hearts with the hope of Jesus Christ.

My journey to international missions began in the most ordinary of places – a middle school Bible study at Hoffmantown Baptist Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was leading students before school when a question stirred in my heart: Could I serve overseas with Southern Baptists? 

Rylee Henderson was seven years old when she responded to the Vacation Bible School invitation at Peavine Baptist Church in Rock Spring, Georgia. “The ABC’s of salvation made sense to me,” she said.

Pastoral succession can be a tricky course to navigate, especially when large churches, big egos, and long tenures are involved. But rather than dwell on the risks, I’d like to highlight a recent success story. 

Every person alive needs God, desperately. And too often he does not even know it.

Fifteen years ago, Southern Baptists rallied around a simple, biblical conviction: we must send. Out of the Great Commission Resurgence emerged a fresh strategy – Send North America (now called Send Network) – to help churches plant evangelistic, Bible-anchored congregations in the places of greatest need.

“Massachusetts independent movie theatre turns 100 — and shows how to survive and thrive.” That was the headline from a Nov. 25 episode of a national radio show featuring The Capital Theatre in Arlington, Mass., identifying it as a success story in the context of 5,000 similar venues closing their doors since 2020. 

Once again, Georgia Baptists will have the opportunity to have leaders and church members from across the state at the Capitol on February 5, 2025, for the 12th annual legislative event. We will get to hear from leaders across our nation and state on standing for Christ in the public square.

Most have heard the ancient proverb, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” Some trace the pithy premise back to Aesop’s fable of a fox that lived in such proximity to a lion that he was terribly afraid. Over time, though, the interaction between the animals became more casual. Soon, the fox strolled up to the lion, only to be devoured as a result.

For six straight years, a church in a mid-sized town hosted one of the best community barbecues you could imagine. The food was incredible. Smokers fired up at dawn, volunteers served mountains of pulled pork and ribs, and the aroma drifted across the neighborhood like an open invitation. People came from everywhere — families with kids, retirees looking for conversation, even city officials.

‘Mr. or Mrs. No’ are fictional names of real people in many Baptist churches. They are people who possibly mean well, but over time have developed a stranglehold on the growth and health of their church. They possess an outsized influence, and people either like them, are afraid of them, or are determined to overlook them.  

Do you trust me? That was the question I heard from one of my sons as he, through a sly grin, begged me to sit down. Because he was unaware that I saw him slip the Whoopee Cushion beneath me, his efforts to persuade his dad were even more entertaining to me than what was about to happen would be to him.