Fountain, Dean call Georgia Baptists to go, preach Christ as 204th annual meeting opens

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Georgia Baptists opened the 204th annual meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention Monday evening with calls to take the gospel into their communities, love people well, and trust Christ to build His church.

Convention President Steve Browning, lead pastor of First Baptist Church Alpharetta, called the meeting to order at Second Baptist Church in Warner Robins.

“We’re excited about what the Lord has in store for us over these coming 24 hours together,” Browning said, pointing to the convention’s “WIDE OPEN” emphasis and the estimated 7 million people across Georgia who have yet to place their faith in Christ.

Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director Thomas Hammond described the annual meeting as “the largest family reunion we can have all year long.”

“It is a blessing to come together,” Hammond said, “and be encouraged by what we’re hearing from stories around our state, but also feed on the Word of God.”

Senior Pastor Jim Perdue welcomed messengers on behalf of Second Baptist Church. Tim Millwood, director of missions for the Rehoboth Baptist Association, then prayed for the gathering, asking God to bless the preaching and leadership and help Georgia Baptists discern His will.

The convention formally constituted its 204th session with 753 messengers already registered, with additional messengers expected to register during the meeting.

Fountain: ‘Our mission is to win the lost at any cost’

Tommy Fountain, senior pastor of 1025 Church in Monroe, delivered the missionary sermon from John 15:16-17.

Before Fountain preached, John Smith, pastor of Ty Ty First Baptist Church, read John 15:9-17 and prayed that God would fill Fountain with His Spirit and allow those gathered to “hear the voice inside the man.”

Fountain began with the story of his own conversion.

Growing up in a troubled home in Columbus, Fountain first heard the gospel as a 9-year-old at Vacation Bible School at Highland Baptist Church. His teacher, J.D. Sheehan, was a mill worker with a fourth-grade education who was missing several fingers.

For a week, Sheehan told Fountain and the other boys about Jesus. The following Sunday, he shared Scripture with them again.

“That morning, I got gloriously saved,” Fountain recalled.

He described Sheehan as a man who “had enough love and understood his call to mission” to tell a poor child from the projects about Jesus.

From Jesus’ words, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you,” Fountain said that Christians must first understand that they have been chosen by Christ.

Fountain recalled his own ordination council asking what he would do if they decided not to ordain him.

“Whether you ordain me or not, I’ve already been appointed and ordained by the Lord Jesus Christ,” Fountain recalled answering. “I’m going to preach anyway.”

Believers are also commissioned to go, he said.

“Have you ever thought about what the gospel starts with?” Fountain asked. “If you were to spell it, what? G-O.”

As a young pastor in Red Level, Ala., Fountain said he spent a day visiting homes and sharing the gospel but saw no response. Discouraged, he began to pray.

“I didn’t tell you to save them,” he said the Lord impressed upon him. “I just commissioned you to go.”

“I don’t know what else to do but to go,” Fountain said. "Evangelism ought to be at the forefront of everything we do in the church."

But, he added, evangelism must be accompanied by discipleship. “You can’t have evangelism without discipleship. They go hand in hand.”

Fountain said believers should carry out the mission Christ has given them with boldness. “The confidence that we have in the Lord, it’s not in who we are, but it’s in who we belong to,” he said.

He encouraged pastors facing difficult seasons to keep their confidence in Christ.

“Pastors, I know it’s hard,” Fountain said.  He recalled conflict and difficulty in churches he has served but said he eventually resolved not to allow fighting to define the ministry.

“We’re going to love Jesus, and we’re going to love people,” he said. “And that just settles it.”

Fountain’s final emphasis came from John 15:17: “These things I command you, that you love one another.”

“The problem we have with love is not defining love,” he said. “The problem we face with love is demonstrating love.”

At 1025 Church, Fountain said that has meant finding ways to serve local schools and the surrounding community. Church members provide pregame meals and volunteers for area high school football programs and serve in other community ministries.

Fountain said more than 70 football players have professed faith in Christ and followed in believer’s baptism since the church began serving the program about 10 years ago.

Fountain closed where he began.

“My mission is to know that God has chosen me,” he said. “My mission is to know that God has commissioned me. My mission is to know that I have confidence in the Lord. My mission is to know that I am commanded to love.”

“Our mission is to win the lost at any cost.”

Dean: ‘Jesus will build His church’

Chip Dean, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Powder Springs, delivered the doctrinal sermon from Matthew 16:13-19.

Jed Coppenger read the passage and prayed before Dean’s message, asking God to use the preaching of His Word to strengthen those gathered and “help us to see Jesus in a fresh way.”

Dean focused on Christ’s promise: “I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

“It’s not our church,” Dean said. “If you’re the pastor, it’s not your church. It is Jesus’ church.”

Dean told pastors that they are called to shepherd the church Christ is building rather than try to build it themselves.

“The church is not about us,” he said. “The church is not about our worship. The church is not about our word and what we can do. The church is about Jesus.”

Dean then asked, “How do we become the kind of church that Jesus loves to build?”

His answer centered on three charges: preach Jesus unashamedly, preach the gospel unapologetically, and preach the Word unwaveringly.

Dean urged pastors to keep Christ at the center of their preaching.

“People today are not looking anymore for life hacks,” he said. “They’re not looking for self-help. They’re not looking for little spiritual tips.”

Every sermon, he said, is an opportunity to preach Christ.

“Don’t wait to leave Him to the end,” Dean said. “You preach Him early, and you preach Him often.”

He also told pastors that their own relationship with Christ must remain a priority.

“The most important spiritual life in your church is yours,” Dean said.

He urged leaders to spend “significant, unhurried, unrushed time with Jesus,” not simply because they are pastors but because they remain dependent on Christ themselves.

Dean then turned to Christ’s promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church.

“The gospel will continue to advance because hell can’t stop it,” he said. “Satan can’t stop it. Satan can’t prevent it.”

Dean connected that promise to the convention’s “WIDE OPEN” theme from 1 Corinthians 16:9, which speaks both of an open door for effective work and many adversaries.

Dean described the gospel as the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” entrusted to believers in Matthew 16:19.

“Jesus gave the keys to us so that we can give them to others to unlock the door of eternity in their life,” he said.

His final charge was to remain faithful to Scripture regardless of cultural pressure.

“Never shy away from that message,” Dean said. “Never back down from preaching the Word of God.”

Dean closed by encouraging pastors who may be discouraged by slow results.

“Don’t quit,” he said.

“Jesus promised you … that based upon the confession of our faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, He will build His church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”