No walls, but building up

Joe Westbury/Index

GBC Executive Director J. Robert White honors Kathy Jolly of First Baptist Cumming for her service as a member of the Health Care Ministry Foundation Board of Trustees.

DULUTH — Even in a down economy, the numbers remain impressive.

• 51 ministries received grants from the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation this month, more than double the first 22 grantees in 2005.

• Nearly 75 percent of the awards were presented to Baptists within Georgia for ministry needs here and around the world.

• 314,178 pregnancies – 2,876 in Georgia – were carried to full term rather than ending in abortion.

• 9,097 professions of faith were recorded.

The statistics go on, but the lasting impression is the same – the “hospital without walls,” the term used to describe the Georgia Baptist health care ministry since it exited the bricks-and-mortar approach, remains a viable way of bringing both the gospel and medical care to those in need.

The grantees gathered at the Baptist Missions and Ministry Center on Sugarloaf Parkway Feb. 18 to share in $3,257,283 in awards to health-care related ministries. The Foundation reviewed 107 applications for $18 million in assistance, said President and Chief Executive Officer Frank Upchurch.

“We wish we could have awarded more grants this year but we prayed over each one and sought the best of the best. This economy continues to depress the return on our investments which forces us to make some difficult decisions,” he added.

This year’s grants were down $1 million and seven recipients from the $4,243,865 awarded last year in the early days of the recession. The previous year’s grants, before the economy began its steep slide, totaled a record $6,053,035 for the 2007 year. Those grants were awarded in February 2008.

But even with the slump, Upchurch said the Foundation has awarded more than $22 million in the first five years since it began in 2005.

Joe Westbury/Index

Delos Sharpton, president/CEO of Baptist Village Retirement Communities, in navy coat, receives a grant check from outgoing Foundation board chairman Arnold Johnson.

Grant recipients range from providing health care to rural areas to helping fund eye clinics to assisting in substance abuse recovery to providing medical assistance to ministers.

Encouraged to get aggressive

Last year the Foundation launched a more aggressive approach to its ministry by encouraging churches and associations to become involved in providing medical assistance as a church-based ministry. Known as the Baptist Health Initiative, the approach has met with success in several locations that have become statewide models of how to minister in the name of Christ. Among those are the House of Hope partnership in the Consolation Association in Baxley, Kingdom Care clinic in Waycross in the Piedmont-Okefenokee Association, Compassionate Care Clinic in Washington Association in Milledgeville, and the Mission Columbus Medical Clinic in Columbus Association. The Foundation was formed in 2001 when the GBC Executive Committee decided to close its hospital network and create an entity by which proceeds would be awarded to help support others bringing health care to their communities. The new model, termed a “hospital without walls,” created a system that put cash back into communities to offer health care wrapped in a gospel presentation.

Forty-four associations have already received assistance since the grants were first awarded, sharing in about $19 million in grants.

For more information on the grant application process visit www.gbhcs.org. Grants are accepted from Sept. 1-15 of each year.

Joe Westbury/Index

Foundation trustee Phill Bettis joins in prayer with others at the Feb. 18 event.

Joe Westbury/Index

Foundation president Frank Upchurch, right, greets Robert L. Williams and his wife Theresa. Williams is the executive director of Miracle Making Ministries of Augusta.

Joe Westbury/Index

Frank Cox, trustee of the Health Care Foundation and pastor of North Metro Baptist, speaks with Emir Caner, president of Truett-McConnell College, and Mike Simoneaux, vice-president of TMC.

Joe Westbury/Index

J. Robert White, trustee of the Health Care Foundation and executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, blesses the funds after the checks were awarded.