May 15, 2025
BOWMAN, Ga. — Greg Bentley is the new Associational Mission Strategist for Hebron Baptist Association in Elbert, Hart, Madison, and Franklin Counties as of May 1, 2025.
“The position is similar to the one I left in Coastal Rivers,” said Bentley, 63.
He previously served as the Coastal Rivers Baptist Association Associational Mission Strategist for nine years. “The landscape is not much different except there are not gnats up here versus gnats down there,” he said.
Bentley was unanimously voted in on March 13, 2025, said Stuart Lang, search committee chairman and Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Hartwell. “He already had knowledge and experience of the job itself, so he already knows what to do.”
Lang said Bentley seems relational. "Greg loves his pastors and is in contact with them regularly and that is something the association needs," said Lang. “We also want someone who is strong in church revitalization. He’s done that. He pastored two churches and grew both of them, not just growing in attendance but also growing them spiritually. So, he has done revitalization two different times. He worked in the association helping churches get stronger. The fact that he has nine years experience doing it as an associational missionary was a huge plus.”
Lang said being someone who understands what Southern Baptists are was a key factor. “If you are going to partner with 50 Southern Baptist churches, you need to know what that is and what that means. And, he does.”
Lang looks forward to working with him. “I think he is going to be good for our association.”
Ricky Thrasher, the Georgia Baptist Mission Board Associational Missions and Convention Planning/Chaplaincy leader said “Greg is gifted as an AMS to continue the work of the Hebron Association and carry them into the future.”
Bentley brings other experience to Hebron. He pastored Southside Baptist Church in Augusta for 12 years and Elim Baptist Church in Ludowici for 6 years. He’s been on nine foreign mission trips. He has also done local and international missions too.
“I believe in instilling missions into the associational work because sometimes our churches, especially if they are bi-vocational, they haven’t planned a mission trip or know how to do a mission trip, so by providing some people the opportunity to go on mission, we build relationship within the association and to help people to work together and see we are on the same team.”
Bentley has also served on the GBMB Executive Committee, the GBMB Nominating Committee, and served as 1st Vice President of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
His family consists of his wife of 45 years, Mickey, children Tabitha and Alan, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The move willput Bentley closer to his children's families: Tabitha and her husband live in Spartanburg, S.C., and Alan lives in Lincoln County.
“God opened up a door here for us to come to this area so that puts us almost in between both of them. About 45 minutes from our son and an hour and 30 minutes from my daughter, so it is primarily for our family, but we believe that God has opened up a door for us to move in a new area where we can be closer to family and continue to do ministry,” Bentley said.
Bentley is a life-long Georgian. Raised in a Christian home in Augusta he felt a call as a teenager, but didn’t pursue that calling. “My dad was a masonry contractor and that’s what I thought I was going to do for a living. God called me again later in life. I was probably in my early 30s. When I told my wife I felt like I was being called into the ministry, she basically told me, you might be called to be a pastor, but I’m not called to be a pastor's wife.”
So, after six months of praying and telling God both of them had to be onboard, Bentley's wife came to him and said what Ruth said to Naomi, "Where you go, I will go, your God will be my God, your people will be my people.”
Bentley said she has been key to his ministry ‘both as a pastor’s wife and now as an associational missionary wife also.
In 2008, while pastoring SSBC, he earned a Bachelor's Degree in Christian Ministries from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s Leavell College.
Bentley's ministry philosophy has two parts. “In pastoring, it was about evangelism and discipleship, naturally. Helping people, growing people to love Christ more. As an associational missionary, it is helping churches and equipping churches to become better agents for the work of Christ. Strengthen pastors, strengthen the people, and strengthen the community around it to reach them for Christ.”
Bentley's desire is to get to know the people, get to know the churches, let them know he is there, be there to provide the things they need, build trust within the leadership so they reach out to him, and help them carry out what they feel is God’s mission for their church and their community.
Bentley says the key to a successful association and ministry is “Relationship, relationship, relationship.” He hopes to build upon the foundation of the last associational missionary, help churches grow stronger together, work together, communicate together, and reach their areas for Christ. “And realize that if we are going to be an association, we are going to have to serve together and work together.”
Working together includes doing local, national, and international missions, and when churches come together, "they are more likely to work together and bond together in their community. It’s not us against them. It’s us.”
The lay people are just as important as the pastor, Bentley said. “The pastor is the shepherd of that flock, the lay people are the ones that carry out the work. As it says in Ephesians, we equip the saints to do the work.”
He added, “It’s got to be their association. It’s not my association. Everybody in the association has got to feel the sense that, one, they belong, and two, they have value and they see the value of the association and it’s beneficial to them.”
Philippians 4:13 has always been a valuable verse to Bentley. “We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. I can’t do it through my strength, I can’t do it through somebody else’s strength. I have to do it through Christ’s strength. We have to remind ourselves that we are where we are because of Him.”
