October 21, 2024
DULUTH, Ga. – Georgia Baptists face “a God-sized” challenge in reaching the state’s millions of unchurched residents – a challenge that can only be met by strong, healthy churches working in unison.
That’s the message Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director W. Thomas Hammond Jr. delivered to his staff on Tuesday, challenging them “to always go the second mile” in helping churches and pastors to fulfill the mission God has called them to.
“There’s only one organization in Geogia that has the commitment, the assignment, the responsibility for strengthening churches and for resourcing pastors to be able to reach the lost in Georgia, and that’s us,” Hammond said during a quarterly staff meeting at the Georgia Baptist Missions and Ministry Center in Duluth. “This is what we exist to do. This is who we are.”
The Georgia Baptist Mission Board is by far the state’s largest religious organization with nearly 1.4 million members. The organization’s website declares, “Pastors are our heroes. Churches are our priority. Georgia is our mission field.”
In a message based on 1 Corinthains 12, Hammond reminded members of the state Mission Board staff that they are not only a team but a part of the body of Christ. All parts of the body, he said, are crucial to the overall mission, whether their responsibilities are inside the building helping to keep the organization functioning or outside the building working to strengthen and equip pastors and church leaders.
“Who’s more important, the outside people or the inside people? That’s like asking a pilot which wing is most important, your left one or your right one,” Hammond said. “Both are necessary for the plane to fly. So, who’s most important at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, the inside people or the outside people? They’re both so critically important to the success of this organization. We cannot move the needle on lostness in Georgia without Church Strengthening, without Pastor Wellness, without BCM, without Disaster Relief, without accounting, without technology. By working together, we can do this. We all have the same passion, and we all feel the same brokenness over the lostness in Georgia.”
But Hammond said Georgia Baptists have much work to do.
“The reality is we have a task before us that is monumental, that is God-sized,” he said, adding that the work of Georgia Baptists is too important not to focus our resources on enabling churches to fully evangelize our state.
“We must finish this task,” he said. “We must be faithful.”
