ATLANTA — Georgia pastor, evangelist and broadcaster Michael Youssef preached the gospel to more than 17,500 people at an event in his native Egypt, reporting Monday that more than 7,850 of the attendees put their faith in Christ. “This is an uncertain and frightening time for people in Egypt and across the Middle East as they watch neighboring Israel at war with Hamas,” said Youssef, a familiar figure among Christians in the U.S. where he is seen and heard daily on his Leading the Way television and radio broadcasts. “With threats of potential escalation, many are asking why this is happening and will peace ever be possible in this region of the world.”
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Fayetteville pastor Josh Saefkow will serve a second one-year term as president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, the state’s largest religious group with some 1.4 million members. Saefkow, with his winsome personality and unwavering work ethic that had him crisscrossing the state for preaching engagements and meetings throughout his first term, had no opposition and was elected by acclamation.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. – Georgia Baptists are projected to give more than $60 million through the Cooperative Program and a series of special offerings to cover the cost of sharing the gospel throughout the state, across the nation and around the world. That total represents a projected 4.2% increase in the Cooperative Program budget, a needed shot in the arm for what been described as the greatest evangelistic initiative of the modern church age.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Messengers attending the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting gave provisional approval to updates to 200-year-old governing documents on Tuesday in a move that is intended to provide greater legal protections to churches and the state Mission Board. Tim Oliver, chairman of the Georgia Baptist Administration Committee, said messengers “owe a great debt of gratitude” to the faithful church leaders who penned the original governing documents but that they had become dated over the years.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Georgia Baptists have voiced their support for Israel as well as their condemnation of Hamas for what they described in a resolution approved on Tuesday as an “abhorrent” attack that “defies human dignity.” “We call upon our state and national leaders to remain steadfast in their support for Israel, which for 75 years has been one of our nation’s closest allies,” the state’s largest religious group, the Georgia Baptist Convention, said in the resolution.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. – The Georgia Baptist Convention, the state’s largest religious organization with 1.4 million members, grew even bigger and more ethnically diverse on Tuesday when 17 additional congregations, a mission, and six new church campuses joined its ranks. Of the new churches presented at the Georgia Baptist Convention's annual meeting, three are Hispanic; three are African American; two are Korean; one is Vietnamese; and one is Russian. The remainder were identified as Anglo congregations.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. – Johnson Ferry Baptist Church pastor Clay Smith challenged “young, old, and everyone in between” at the opening session of the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting to listen for God’s call on their lives to take the gospel to the nations. “There is a specific role for some of you to go — to go to another culture, to go to another nation, to go to another land,” Smith told a crowd of nearly 1,000 people gathered at the Church on Main in Snellville.
SUWANEE, Ga. — The Georgia Baptist Mission Board has expanded its staff by adding three experienced church leaders with some 75 years of combined experience to minister specifically to the needs of the state’s pastors. Jason Jones, with 21 years of experience as a pastor, is serving in southwest Georgia. Craig Ward, who has been in ministry more than three decades, is serving in northwest Georgia. And Marty Youngblood, who has served as a church conflict consultant, college professor and former pastor over the past 25 years, is serving in southeast Georgia. They began in the new roles on Wednesday.
JACKSON, Miss. — Gov. Tate Reeves has taken note of evangelist Rick Gage’s latest crusade, which drew standing-room-only crowds in Mississippi last week. Reeves posted a crowd shot from the crusade on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, showing people crowded shoulder to shoulder in an open-air amphitheater.
JACKSON, Miss. — Nearly 1,400 people heeded evangelist Rick Gage’s appeal to commit their lives to Christ in a Mississippi crusade attended by some 17,000 people over four days. The evangelistic crusade concluded Wednesday night with an estimated 10,000 people packed shoulder to shoulder in an open-air amphitheater.
SUWANEE, Ga. — More than 4,500 locations will open to collect Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts for the Samaritan’s Purse project during national collection week Nov. 13-20. Operation Christmas Child has been collecting and delivering shoebox gifts — filled with school supplies, personal care items and fun toys — to children worldwide since 1993.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Georgia Baptists will hear sermons from an array of pastors during this year's annual meeting set for Nov. 12-14 at the Church on Main in Snellville. Johnson Ferry Baptist Church Pastor Clay Smith will be first up at the three-day meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention, the state’s largest religious organization with some 1.4 million people.
HOMERVILLE, Ga. — State Sen. Russ Goodman and his mother, Donna Kane, are safely back in southeast Georgia after having their Holy Land pilgrimage cut short by the gruesome Hamas attack on Israel last weekend. “It was quite an ordeal,” said Goodman, who returned to Homerville on Friday, six days after Hamas militants staged a surprise attack that killed more than 1,300 Israelis, most of them civilians.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Three preachers with strong evangelistic credentials will speak at the Georgia Baptist Preaching Conference set for Nov. 13 at the Church on Main in Snellville. The lineup includes Jerry Vines, an elder statesmen in the Southern Baptist Convention who served 60 years as a pastor, including at First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., which, at the time, was the third largest church in the SBC.
SNELLVILLE, Ga. — The next generation of Georgia church leaders are now growing up in the state’s congregations, awaiting a spiritual nudge to step forward. So says Georgia Baptist Convention President Josh Saefkow who has built an annual meeting of the state’s largest religious group around the theme Calling Out the Called.
SUWANEE, Ga. — One of Mark Marshall’s greatest keepsakes is a notebook filled with letters from church members expressing their love and appreciation for him and his wife. “It was given to me 26 years ago, and I still have it,” said Marshall, a longtime Southern Baptist pastor now serving as assistant executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.
LITTLE MOUNTAIN, S.C. — When wounded military personnel recovering in the Soldier Recovery Unit at Fort Stewart, Ga., are physically able, they venture into the great outdoors courtesy of a big-hearted veteran from South Carolina who knows the value of fresh air and sunshine to the body and soul. Chuck McAlister, who was stationed in Georgia more than 40 years ago as a young Army officer, welcomes injured soldiers onto a 200-acre sanctuary at Little Mountain, S.C., where they can get away from the sterile confines of hospital rooms and experience nature at its finest.
DULUTH, Ga. — A metro Atlanta pastor will lead the Georgia Baptist Education Commission, which provides scholarships to college students and monitors campus trends on behalf of the 1.4 million-member Georgia Baptist Convention. Tim Akin, pastor at First Baptist Church of Douglasville, was elected chairman of the commission on Tuesday in meeting that highlighted an ongoing spiritual movement not only on the state’s three Georgia Baptist-affiliated campuses but also in the Baptist Collegiate Ministries operating on public universities.
BAXLEY, Ga. — Hundreds of people streamed out of the bleachers at Jimmy Swain Stadium on Wednesday, responding to a call from evangelist Rick Gage to get right with God. In a scene that harkened back to evangelistic crusades of yesteryear, they crowded around the platform where the man dubbed the “small-town Billy Graham” had just wrapped up a fiery gospel sermon that warned of judgment for unrepentant sinners and promised eternal life for those willing to turn from their sins and commit their lives to Christ.
MOUNT VERNON, Ga. — An estimated 150 students made spiritual decisions during a chapel service at Brewton-Parker College on Tuesday in a scene that President Steve Echols described as amazing. Between 60 and 80 of the students made first-time salvation decisions while others rededicated their lives to Christ. “The Holy Spirit was moving in a way I have never seen before,” said Echols, a longtime preacher and educator. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I have seen some marvelous things of God. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more precious than this.”
VALDOSTA, Ga. — Two weeks after Hurricane Adalia walloped south Georgia, doing some $35 million in property damage and knocking out electricity across a large swath of the region, Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief crews finished the cleanup on Saturday and headed for home. Disaster Relief Director Dwain Carter said chainsaw-wielding volunteers cleared away hundreds of fallen trees from homes and prepared more than 30,000 meals for residents of the Valdosta area.
BAXLEY, Ga. — Christians in the Baxley area were preparing for an evangelistic crusade when a revival broke out. Some 600 people had gathered for a pre-crusade youth rally on Wednesday evening. Nearly 300 of those made decisions for Christ. “The key to the success last night was the people of God have been praying for months for this crusade,” said Rick Gage, the Georgia-based evangelist who leads GO TELL Ministries, in an interview Thursday. “This area is ripe for a great harvest, and I think we’re going to see a move of God.”
SNELLVILLE, GA. — With several first responders in his family, Bethany Baptist Church Executive Pastor Rick Kirkland is privy to the needs of police officers, including, well, their privy needs. Turns out police officers need restrooms where they can safeguard their firearms, tasers, pepper spray, handcuffs and assorted other items attached to their duty belts.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Fayetteville pastor Josh Saefkow will seek a second term as president of the Georgia Baptist Convention with hopes of keeping churches focused on sharing the gospel. Saefkow, elected last November, said the position has given him “a front seat to see all that the Lord is doing in Georgia.” “I have loved seeing how God is moving all over our state, and I have loved being with our pastors, our associational missionaries, our Mission Board staff,” he said.
VALDOSTA, Ga. — In the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, residents of south Georgia have been turning to Christ for hope, comfort and salvation. “When people get into these kinds of life-or-death situations, they start thinking about their own mortality,” said Bob Sprinkel, a longtime volunteer with Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief. “When a hurricane hits, people need hope, and Jesus is that hope.” Disaster Relief volunteers reported that nine people had made salvation decisions in the Valdosta area as of Monday.