HOUSTON, Texas — Georgia preacher Levi Skipper will be heading west to serve as lead pastor of a Texas megachurch. Sagemont Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Houston, announced Sunday that Skipper had been called as lead pastor. Skipper, with 17 years of experience as a senior pastor, has led the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s church strengthening and evangelism teams since 2019.

BAXLEY, Ga. — Georgia-based evangelist Rick Gage rocked the Bible Belt in 2023 with his powerful brand of preaching in a series of crusades attended by tens of thousands. In his final crusade of the year, some 17,000 people packed into an open-air amphitheater just outside Jackson, Miss., for four nights of preaching. More than 2,000 people made decisions for Christ.

MONROE, Ga. — Pastors are sometimes depressed, distressed, discouraged, despondent, dejected, disconsolate, disheartened, even doleful. However, that is not true of Mike Peavy, pastor of Gratis Church in Monroe, Ga. At least a recent visit with him gave every evidence that he is a joyful, compassionate, dedicated pastor who always seems to see the glass as half full rather than half empty.

SWAINSBORO, Ga. — Robbie Lane, the starting shortstop on the East Georgia State College baseball team, has hit a grand slam of a different sort in an at bat as an aspiring minister. The 19-year-old baptized 11 of his teammates last week in a shiny aluminum watering trough set up on the baseball field.

Few Southern Baptists would know the name Robert Benjamin Headden, the late Georgia pastor under whose ministry famed international missionary Lottie Moon would be called to China some 150 years ago. By 1873, Headden, pastor of the Cartersville Baptist Church, had earned the reputation of a beloved pastor, dynamic preacher, denominational leader, and ardent supporter of missions, all of which would have been inconceivable 10 years earlier as he lay critically wounded for two days in Gettysburg.

DAWSON, Ga. — Christians in this small southern Georgia town are putting the spotlight back on Jesus this Christmas season, shifting the focus away from Santa who, for generations of Americans, has been the face of the holidays. That shift was on full display at a Christmas party for nearly 1,000 children on Saturday. The jolly old elf wasn’t there, nor were his reindeer, nor elves, nor any other commercialized yuletide decorations.

POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — More than 200 years ago the Brothers Grimm published a collection of fairy tales about a poor shoemaker who was almost out of food to eat and leather to make shoes. However, during the night, little elves slipped into the shoemaker’s home and worked furiously to make incredibly beautiful and serviceable shoes that permitted the shoemaker to prosper. It is a beautiful Christmas story of goodness and grace.

DALTON, Ga. — A Georgia man’s chance meeting with country music star Chris McDaniel in a Delaware store led to a life-changing encounter with someone far more famous. McDaniel, a founding member of the multi-platinum-selling band Confederate Railroad, had stopped at the store for a soft drink as he prepared to drive back to Georgia. When he walked to the counter to pay for it, a man he came to know simply as Pablo was there with a basket of groceries and no way to pay for them because he had left his wallet at home.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — With her frail husband as a silent witness, Rosalynn Carter was celebrated by her family and closest friends Wednesday at her funeral in the same tiny town where she and Jimmy Carter were born, forever their home base as they climbed to the White House and traveled the world for humanitarian causes.

ATLANTA (AP) — Rosalynn Carter was remembered Tuesday as a former U.S. first lady who leveraged her fierce intellect and political power to put her deep Christian faith into action by always helping others, especially those who needed it most. A gathering of first ladies and presidents — including her 99-year-old husband Jimmy Carter — joined other political figures in tribute. But a parade of speakers said her global stature wasn’t what defined her.

PLAINS, Ga. — The chefs who prepared meals for hundreds of Secret Service agents, Georgia Highway Patrol troopers, National Guard troops, and others providing security during three days of memorials for former first lady Rosalynn Carter have vast experience feeding huge crowds, usually in disaster zones. In their trademark yellow shirts and caps, Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers will spend the next three days in the mobile kitchens where they will prepare tasty cuisine served at no charge.

AMERICUS, Ga. (AP) — Hundreds turned out to salute Rosalynn Carter on Monday with the former U.S. first lady and global humanitarian's final journey from her rural hometown to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta as her family began three days of memorials following her death at age 96.

Renowned for its stunning biodiversity, the Amazon rainforest region is also home to a vast array of people and cultures. “People usually think that the environment doesn’t contain and include people, but it does,” said soil scientist Judson Ferreira Valentim, who lives in Brazil’s Acre state. “There are many different Amazonias and many different Amazonians.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has provided more than 85 ultrasound machines to pregnancy resource centers since 2004 through what the organization calls the Psalm 139 project. That includes 12 machines, which cost, with training included, about $40,000, so far in 2023.

ROME, Ga. — Hall of Fame College Football Coach Mark Richt will be the featured speaker at Shorter University’s 2023 President’s Gala on December 7. Richt, a committed Christian, philanthropist and author, served as the head football coach for the University of Georgia and the University of Miami for 18 seasons.

DALTON, Ga. — Boxes of Kleenex are always at the ready in the sanctuary of McFarland Hill Baptist Church. They’re for wiping tears of joy among a growing congregation that nearly ceased to exist just more than a decade ago. The 83-year-old church that sprouted from an old-fashion brush arbor service had fallen into a funk, and worshippers were leaving in mass. By 2011, the congregation had dwindled to about 35 regular attendees, and they were shouldering some $330,000 in church debt. They had cut off electricity to the gym and canceled the insurance to save money. They didn’t see a path forward. They were considering shuttering the church permanently.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Rosalynn Carter was never a lawyer. But the former first lady used her powerful posts to address injustices imposed as part of the racist Jim Crow system that prevailed in Georgia courts as her husband climbed the political ladder. The most personal of those cases for Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter involved Mary Prince Fitzpatrick, who met the Carters in Georgia's Governor's Mansion and went to Washington as White House nanny to their daughter, Amy, with a felony murder conviction still on her record and the president of the United States as her parole officer.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Linda Campbell decorated the Lions Club Christmas tree in her small hometown just as she would any other Thanksgiving week, but this was no ordinary Monday in late November. All around Plains, neighbors mourned the death of their matriarch, former U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter, while worrying about their patriarch, former President Jimmy Carter.

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — The Washington chattering class, often unsure what to make of outsiders, dubbed Rosalynn Carter the “Steel Magnolia” when she arrived as first lady. A devout Baptist and mother of four, she was diminutive and outwardly shy, with a soft smile and softer Southern accent. That was the “magnolia.” She also was a force behind Jimmy Carter’s rise from peanut farmer to winner of the 1976 presidential election. That was the “steel.”

ATLANTA (AP) — Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, has died at the age of 96. The Carter Center said she died Sunday after living with dementia and suffering many months of declining health. The statement said she “died peacefully, with family by her side" at 2:10 p.m. at her rural Georgia home of Plains. “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” the former president said in the statement. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”

Former President George W. Bush called Carter a woman of dignity and strength. “There was no greater advocate of President Carter, and their partnership set a wonderful example of loyalty and fidelity. She leaves behind an important legacy in her work to destigmatize mental health. We join our fellow citizens in sending our condolences to President Carter and their family,” Bush said in a statement with former first lady Laura Bush.

CORDOVA, Tenn. — Former Southern Baptist Convention president and Tennessee Baptist pastor Steve Gaines announced to his congregation at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova on Sunday that he has been diagnosed with kidney cancer. Gaines has served as pastor of the Memphis-area church since 2005. Gaines said that he has “a great team of doctors in Memphis who are treating me.” He added that he plans to go to M.D. Anderson in Houston to consult with their physicians.

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — The Georgia Baptist Convention annual meeting added a new feature to the programming at the recent gathering at Snellville’s Church on Main. Six different forums provided helpful information on a stage adjacent to the display area. The "second stage" panels proved to be so popular, the mission board will continue the practice next year.

THOMSON, Ga. — Some have been miserable for days because of aching teeth. Others have cavities in need of immediate attention. But Ron Belcher is convinced the people gathered for appointments at a mobile dental clinic parked outside Washington Heights Baptist Church have an even greater need, a spiritual need. So the deacon tells them about Jesus as they wait their turns with one of the volunteer dentists who help to care for Georgia’s 1.3 million uninsured residents.

ROCK SPRINGS, Ga. – Confetti is no longer limited to sports championships, weddings and New Year's Eve celebrations. Peavine Baptist Church in Rock Springs recently celebrated the 300th baptism of the year by launching a deluge of confetti in the sanctuary. Joel Southerland, lead pastor at Peavine, has a history of emphasizing the absolute importance of reaching the lost. He has been a successful pastor and has led evangelistic initiatives for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board and the North American Mission Board.