September 13, 2024
The Georgia Baptist Mission Board kicked off its series of SPARK church-strengthening conferences earlier this month with gatherings in Cornelia and Columbus. Initial attendance numbers are very encouraging, says Scott Sullivan, the board’s discipleship catalyst. “Our first two SPARK locations exceeded our goals,” he says, “and we are very excited to see how God works this weekend in Augusta and McDonough.”
Last year, more than 2,000 people attended the conferences and nearly 300 churches sent delegations to the conferences. Sullivan says they are on track to more than double those numbers this year. “We registered nearly 900 attendees in the first two SPARK locations and that is the most we've ever had going into week three,” he says. “This highlights the benefit when the local church, the association and GBMB work together.”
Expectations are to exceed 1000 attendees registered for this weekend in Augusta and McDonough.
This year conferences were scheduled in six locations across the state, hoping to make them more accessible to attendees from the various geographic regions of Georgia. The goal, according to Sullivan is to have a convenient conference site for everyone who wishes to attend.
The local hosting churches also benefit from the experience, Sullivan notes. “Hosting requires the church to sometimes double their volunteer base to handle the hundreds of guests who will attend SPARK,” he explains. “Many of our host churches comment that they are still utilizing the strong volunteer teams that they developed even years after the event.”
There is still time to register for the next four conferences at the sites linked below:
East Central Region
Abilene Baptist Church in Augusta on Aug. 24
Speaker: Ken Whitten
West Central Region
Glen Haven Baptist Church in McDonough on Aug. 25.
Speaker: Al Mohler
Southeast Region
First Baptist Church in Brunswick on Sept. 8.
Speaker: Mac Brunson
Northwest Region
West Rome Baptist Church in Rome on Sept. 22.
Speaker: Thom Rainer
And if you are unable to attend in person, Sullivan says you can still take advantage of the conference.
“The beauty of the SPARK conference is that if you miss something in person you can view it in the SPARK vault, which has all the breakouts from the past 3 years,” Sullivan said
The SPARK vault is an online portal where the recorded sessions are archived for on-demand access.
