October 21, 2024
TYRONE, Ga. – Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director W. Thomas Hammond Jr. thanked members of the Executive Committee on Tuesday for their willingness to make decisions that are helping churches reach the state with the gospel.
“Serving on the Executive Committee is an important responsibility that is critical to the success of the Georgia Baptist Convention and the Georgia Baptist Mission Board,” Hammond said during a meeting at Dogwood Baptist Church in Tyrone. “You are the Georgia Baptist Convention. The business you conduct is Kingdom business. It could impact the eternal destiny of millions of lives because your work affects the lives, ministries and mission efforts of Georgia Baptist pastors and churches.”
Hammond reminded the Executive Committee members that the impact of their work goes far beyond state lines.
“We all know that a healthy Georgia Baptist Convention means there will be a healthier Southern Baptist Convention,” he said. “A healthy Georgia Baptist Convention means more seminary students, more ministers, more missionaries, and more church planters. Georgia Baptists are not and must never be self-focused nor shortsighted.”
Over the past few years, Hammond said, Georgia Baptist leaders have made significant and difficult decisions.
“These decisions lead to many changes for the GBMB and the GBC,” he said. “Some have asked, ‘Why are we making changes?’ ‘Why don’t we just keep things going the way they have been?’ To be vulnerably transparent, it would be easier to just keep floating downstream.”
Hammond said “floating downstream” is not an option. He quoted best-selling author and pastor Rick Godwin, who said “One reason why people resist change is because they focus on what they will have to give up instead of what they will gain.”
Hammond said changes have been necessary in Georgia because the condition of our churches demands changes. Baptisms, he said, have declined 50 percent over the past 20 years, while Sunday school enrollment dropped by 187,634 from 2006 through 2019.
“There is nothing about these ‘vital signs’ that cause me to say, ‘Let’s just keep going the way we’ve been going,’” Hammond said. “Like the ‘watchman’ in Ezekiel 33, we need to sound the alarm because the financial health and effectiveness of the Mission Board demanded change, because it is the responsibility of your Mission Board to help churches reach a constantly changing world.”
Hammond said the state Mission Board is a unique entity with a very broad reach.
“We are not the only organization in Georgia evangelizing teenagers, but those organizations are not doing Disaster Relief,” he said. “There are organizations in Georgia that do Disaster Relief, but they don’t have ministries on 41 college campuses. There are ministries on college campuses, but they are not working to solve the problem with foster care across Georgia. There are organizations in Georgia that service children in foster care, but they don’t have three colleges preparing the next generation to be Christian leaders. They also don’t have children’s homes, senior adult centers, drug rehab centers, crisis pregnancy centers, or public affairs. They also don’t help churches with legal counsel, tax advice, COVID protocols, security training, sex abuse prevention, conflict mediation, discipleship, evangelism, missions, NextGen, the health of pastors and their families. It’s the Georgia Baptist Mission Board that is doing all these things and so much more.”
Hammond said the Executive Board’s willingness to make tough decisions is making a difference now and for the future.
“The world has changed,” Hammond said. “Therefore, we must change to reach it with the unchanging truths of God’s Word and life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.”
