October 23, 2024
ATLANTA – The Atlanta Braves will be helping to bring attention to the work Georgia Baptists are doing to provide medical and dentalcare to the working poor, to rescue victims of human trafficking, to get refugees from war-torn countries into homes and jobs in the Peach State, and more.
Braves announcers will give Georgia Baptists plugs for the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation and Mission Georgia in radio and online game broadcasts throughout the 2022 season.
“People don’t realize all that Georgia Baptists do,” said Larry Wynn, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation, which provides financial support to medical and dental clinics across the state. “We’ve never really ventured outside Baptist circles to tell that story. Most people have no clue about the Health Care Ministry Foundation or Mission Georgia, and a lot of Baptists in the pew don’t know, either.”
The Health Care Ministry Foundation, created some two decades ago when Georgia Baptists sold their statewide network of hospitals and other medical facilities, provides the funding that helps keep medical and dental clinics in operation across the state, including two mobile clinics that travel into even the smallest communities to provide needed care.
Mission Georgia is a humanitarian arm of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, engaging in a variety of ministries that are impacting lives every day. Along with its work with human trafficking victims and refugees, Mission Georgia is engaged in getting orphaned children out of foster care and into forever families, providing prenatal care and counseling expectant mothers to deliver healthy babies, helping children learn to read through a much-heralded literacy program, allowing those who have fallen behind not only to catch up but to excel in the classroom.
“What we want to do is just to tell the story, to let people know – Christians and non-Christians – that we are about meeting the needs of people,” Wynn said. “In Matthew 25, Jesus challenged us to care for those in need, and we’re doing that.”
The Georgia Baptist Convention is by far the largest religious group in the state with some 1.4 million members in 3,600 churches that partner together to spread the gospel.
Wynn said Georgia Baptists don’t seek plaudits for what they’re doing in the state, but they do want to let people know about their ministries in case they want to get involved with the work.
Wynn said he hopes what people learn from the Braves announcers will be eye-opening.
“My hope is that people on the outside, who know little about what Georgia Baptists do, will say, ‘Oh, these people are involved in the daily care of people,’” Wynn said. “Really, the everyday work of Georgia Baptists is lost on most people.”
