VALDOSTA, Ga. — Lt. Col. Scott Smith’s regular job is flying F-15s for the U.S. Air Force, but during the long Labor Day weekend he was manning a chainsaw for one of the Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief crews helping Valdosta residents clean up in the wake of Hurricane Idalia. “I don’t know that I have a whole lot of the spiritual gifts the Bible talks about, but God has given me a strong back,” said Smith, a member of Central Baptist Church in Warner Robins. “I feel like manual labor is one way I can serve.” People from all walks of life have joined forces through the Disaster Relief ministry to help hurricane survivors in the Valdosta area, where thousands of trees were toppled by Idalia’s winds.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — In Georgia’s hurricane zone, the long Labor Day weekend has been no walk in the park for Disaster Relief crews who are volunteering their time to help storm victims. Sweat soaks their conspicuous yellow shirts as they balance on sweltering rooftops, sawing away fallen trees that had been toppled by Hurricane Idalia on Wednesday.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — Cleanup is underway in south Georgia after a pummeling blow by Hurricane Idalia knocked trees onto homes and downed powerlines, leaving thousands without electricity in the summer heat. A chainsaw crew from Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief spent Friday removing a fallen tree from the Baptist Collegiate Ministries building at Valdosta State University. Others prepared meals for storm victims.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — Hurricane Idalia arrived in Georgia as a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph Wednesday morning, bringing heavy rains, toppling trees, knocking out power, and causing lowland flooding. First responders in southern Georgia used boats to rescue some residents stranded by localized flooding. Utility crews worked throughout the day to restore power in hard-hit areas.

JEFFERSON CITY,  Mo. – The Executive Board of the Missouri Baptist Convention has named former Georgia pastor Wes Fowler executive director-treasurer. Fowler succeeds John Yeats, who steps aside after 12 years of leading the network of 1,750 self-governing churches through challenging times and to higher levels of cooperative ministry.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Dr. Brad Whitt stood waist-deep in a pool Sunday evening, sending out ripples with each new believer he dipped beneath the water’s mirrored surface. Hundreds of people from Abilene Baptist Church had gathered at Camp Lakeside to see 21 people baptized in the sun-warmed waters.

SUWANEE, Ga. — Georgia Baptists, who give millions of dollars each year to reach the lost around the world, will focus their financial resources on their home state in the coming month. September has been set aside as the Mission Georgia emphasis month, meaning churches will spent the next four weeks encouraging members to get behind an effort to reach the state’s 7 million unchurched residents with the gospel.

ATLANTA, Ga. — Standing-room-only crowds of students have been flocking to Baptist College Ministries on university campuses across Georgia as the new academic year gets underway. One of the largest gatherings involved 450 international students who gathered at Georgia Tech for  worship and a meal provided by First Baptist Church of Woodstock, said Beverly Skinner, collegiate ministry catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — A study from Lifeway Research has found that 52% of American Protestant churchgoers say their church teaches God will bless them if they give more money to their church and charities. That’s an increase from 38% of churchgoers surveyed in a similar study in 2017.

ATLANTA — Fortune 500 companies looking for quality business leaders are finding that pastors make topnotch managers, motivators, and multitaskers. That’s according to Todd Linder, founder of Launch Point, an Atlanta-based firm that has carved out a niche in the business world nationally by helping pastors transition from churches to the secular marketplace. A significant increase in the number of pastors leaving ministry opened the door for the new venture.

NASHVILLE — Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee interim president Willie McLaurin has resigned effective immediately after members of a search team found that he had included false information on his resume. He had been interim leader since February 2022 and was a candidate for the permanent position.

VILLA RICA, Ga. — Georgia pastor Kevin Williams sees what he describes as a spiritual shift that is bringing the Bible back to the Bible Belt. “People are searching for truth,” he said Friday, a day after 220 students in Carroll County, Ga., surrendered their lives to Christ. “We’re living in a time that the Bible warns about, when people will be calling wrong right and right wrong. We’ve reached a point where people are saying enough is enough. It’s like a switch has flipped and things are going back the other direction.”

FORSYTH, Ga. — A new nonprofit organization has been created to generate financial support for the Camp Kaleo Retreat Center, a site in rural Monroe County where children gather each summer to learn about Jesus. Friends of Kaleo will raise money for improvement projects and to help cover camp fees for students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend, said Jim Strickland, president of the new organization.

SWAINSBORO, Ga. — Lured by a few simple handwritten signs and some orange traffic cones, long lines of people showed up for a drive-through prayer outreach in Swainsboro. And in yet another sign of spiritual revival in Georgia, some 30 people surrendered their lives to Christ.

CHATSWORTH, Ga. — As a school bus driver, Robert Richardson feels the weight of responsibility in hauling the most precious of all cargos — children. But, as a Baptist minister, he gladly shoulders that responsibility. With school districts across Georgia struggling to fill bus driver positions, church leaders have been stepping into the role, fitting bus routes into their daily ministry routines.

CARROLLTON, Ga. — Thousands of backpacks filled with classroom supplies have begun making their way into the hands of needy children in time for the start of school, courtesy of Mission Georgia, the wide-ranging outreach to the state’s most vulnerable residents.

MONROE, GA – Scores of people from 1025 Church and community gathered for the dedication of the church’s newest facility, which will be called the Murray Ministry Center. The freshly painted, sparkling white building, formerly occupied by Monroe’s First National Bank, was given to the church by Kenneth and Jean Murray. Their son, Kenneth Murray, Jr. is an active deacon at 1025 Church, drummer for the worship team, and Pastor Fountain’s prayer partner.

STATESBORO, Ga. — Cambodian Southern Baptist leaders believe their recent purchase of a 7-acre former wedding venue, to be used as a conference center, is a miracle given to them by God. They call it the Blessing Field, an obvious reference to the Killing Fields Cambodians endured during the 1970s as depicted in a 1984 major motion picture of the same name.

CORNELIA, Ga. — A spiritual movement that began in Georgia in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is still going strong, showing up most recently in Habersham County where 39 people made salvation decisions last week in an evangelistic outreach. Tony Gray, associational missions strategist in the Habersham and Liberty Baptist associations, said a new church also could be planted as a result of the outreach, which, he said, shows the impact congregations have when they work together.

BARRE, Vt. — Disaster relief volunteers from Georgia Baptist churches are continuing their work in in Vermont helping flood victims recover from what’s being described as that state’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century. “The jobs are massive, lots of debris and flood damage,” said Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief Director Dwain Carter.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Amid the fun and games of Vacation Bible School, serious spiritual business has taken place at churches across Georgia over the past two months. “Thousands of kids have made salvation decisions,” said Jenni Carter, kids ministry consultant for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. Churches of every size and in every region of the state reported not only the highest attendance in years at Vacation Bible School but also large numbers of children committing their lives to Christ.

BLAIRSVILLE, Ga. — In north Georgia, people eagerly make their way into Blairsville’s First Baptist Church each Sunday. An excitement has taken hold here that causes people not to want to miss worship services. Attendance has surpassed pre-COVID numbers. More than 80 people have joined the church in the past year. And nearly 40 have been baptized. Not all churches are so fortunate, according to a Lifeway Research survey that quizzed churchgoers about the top reasons they skip church services.

SUWANEE, Ga. — Crews from Georgia churches are deploying to Vermont to help victims in what has been described as that state’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century. Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief Director Dwain Carter said flood response units are expected to pull out Monday morning enroute to Barre, Vt., one of the hardest hit communities.

ROCHELLE, Ga. — More than 30 migrant workers who came to southwest Georgia to harvest watermelons will leave with much more than a paycheck. That’s because they prayed to receive Christ at First Baptist Church of Rochelle, where they gathered Thursday for dinner and a gospel presentation by Georgia Baptist Mission Board missions consultant Samuel Ayala.

SUWANEE, Ga. — The Index News Service has been launched to provide Georgia-centric religion coverage to the state’s newspapers at no cost. The Christian Index, the nation’s oldest religious newspaper, created the news service to provide access to the kind of content readers want in a state where, according to the Pew Research Center, 64 percent of residents consider religion “very important” in their lives.