Senior Adult Homecoming Retreat is returning to the Golden Isles coast of Georgia in April.  The retreat, geared for people age 55 and up, is a wonderful time of worship, Bible study/preaching, fun, and fellowship with other seniors from around the southeastern United States.  One senior adult pastor likened the retreat to a “refreshing revival” while another said it had the atmosphere of an old-fashioned campmeeting!

CLEVELAND, Ga. - Truett McConnell University is excited to announce the much-anticipated Friends and Family Weekend 2024, scheduled to take place on campus March 15 and 16. This two-day event includes a  dynamic lineup of events and distinguished guests, offering an unforgettable experience for all attendees.

DULUTH, Ga. – Members of the Georgia Baptist Convention’s Administration Committee unanimously re-elected Milledgeville Pastor Tim Oliver to a second one-year term as chairman on Tuesday. Oliver, pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church, was first elected to the position last January.

SUWANEE, Ga. — Jenni Carter, a beloved children’s ministry leader who has served as the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s statewide kids ministry consultant for more than 10 years, has announced her retirement, effective Feb. 29. And in an interesting twist, one of Carter’s longtime colleagues in children’s ministry, Krista Staton of Tifton, will replace her. “I’m leaving them in very capable hands,” Carter said of Staton, the children’s ministries director at Northside Baptist Church in Tifton.

In the middle of January it might be hard to see, but life is waiting to be revealed in a few months. I am not advocating we rush through these cooler days or skip the beauty of a winter morning, but it can be lost on each of us that as the fields and flowers lay dormant for a season, spring will soon make its grand, green appearance.

God is the giver of life. Human life is sacred because God created humans in His image. Consequently, humans are to value human life from the womb to the tomb. God valued human life so much He initiated a covenant with all mankind in which God affirmed the sacredness of human life and placed obligations upon humans.

WOODSTOCK, Ga. - Steve Hale serves as staff evangelist of Woodstock’s First Baptist Church and has been recognized as one of America's most gifted preachers. His sermons are penetrating, passionate and powerful. With a degree in journalism from Murray State University in Kentucky, he is also an extraordinary and skillful writer.

The call to reach all nations, people, languages and tribes with the gospel has always united Southern Baptists. Today that call includes reaching other nations that come to North American soil. With a renewed commitment to assist churches in connecting with internationals close by, the International Mission Board, North American Mission Board, Send Relief and Woman’s Missionary Union are uniting to better serve churches focusing on the missionary task in every community.

WAKE FOREST, N.C. — Twenty years ago, Southeastern unanimously elected Daniel L. Akin as its sixth president, recognizing God’s providence in directing Danny and his wife Charlotte to Southeastern. Now in his twentieth year, Akin has distinguished himself as a humble leader with an unwavering commitment to God’s word and a singular focus on fulfilling the Great Commission.

ATLANTA — If one ponders the successes achieved by Mark Price as a collegiate and professional basketball player, you might suspect that he would gloat or revel in those accomplishments. On the contrary, Jeremiah 9: 24 seems to characterize this former Georgia Tech and Cleveland Cavalier point guard - “Let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

HARRODSBURG, Ky. (KT) — Gary Chidester knows there is victory in Jesus, but says it’s often found in places you might not expect. As director of discipleship at Isaiah House, which ministers to those struggling with addictions and substance use, Chidester said it is amazing to see how the Lord is changing lives.

ROME, Ga. — The Shorter University College of Business is ringing in the New Year with exciting announcements and accomplishments. The Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) recently awarded the University’s College of Business accreditation for undergraduate BBA and graduate degrees.

During his lifetime, Clint Clifton asked many individuals to consider planting a church, but his son Noah wasn’t one of them. “He just focused on being my dad,” says 22-year-old Noah Clifton. It’s this space that allowed Noah to wrestle through his calling to church planting and the clarity to continue down this path even after his father was killed in a tragic aircraft accident in January of 2023.

CONYERS, Ga. — The Georgia Baptist Mission Board has pulled together a strong lineup of preachers for a pair of evangelism conferences that will be held in Conyers and Tifton in February and March. Keynote speakers from Georgia and beyond will be on the main platforms while a litany of others will lead smaller breakout sessions on a broad range of evangelism strategies.

NEW ORLEANS — The 15th annual Defend apologetics conference at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Leavell College in early January welcomed 465 registrants from colleges and churches from 20 states to hear biblical responses to pressing questions from culture.  

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — From Alaska to Maine, nearly 200 missions leaders from across the country gathered on Missionary Ridge in Birmingham for the Woman's Missionary Union’s January Board Meeting earlier this month.

A pioneer in advocating and sharing stories of God working around the world died Monday. Leland Franklin Webb, 91, was a writer and editor at the International Mission Board for 32 years.   …

JONESBORO, Ga. — The National Disciple Leaders Network, an organization that champions the work of local church disciple-makers, will hold a conference  on April 8-9 at First Baptist Church in Jonesboro. 

LILBURN, GA – Johnny Mercer, the songwriter went to church and heard a sermon that contained the words, “You got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.”  The phase inspired Mercer to write the lyrics to the song Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive in 1944.

God specializes in new beginnings and fresh starts. Isaiah 43:19 reads, “Behold, I will do a new thing . . .” What new thing does God want to do in your life this year?  

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mo. — At 5:30 on Thursday morning, Jan. 4, Pastor James Leezer of Williamstown’s Providence Baptist Church got a call with bad news no pastor wants to hear: “The church and the parsonage are on fire.”

SPRINGFIELD, Tenn. — Her favorite color is purple, she loves animals, is a fourth grader at South Haven Christian School, and some of her favorite books are the Zoe’s Rescue Zoo series. She loves going to church at Hopewell Baptist Church in Springfield, Tennessee, to see her friends and learn about Jesus — and she’s also raised $28,000 selling hot cider on two weekends to help build four churches for the people of Haiti.

DALLAS – Shane Pruitt, national director of next gen evangelism at the North American Mission Board, has been praying for the next generation to awaken to the goodness and glory of Jesus, and he wanted church leaders to have a resource that could spur students to deeper faith that extends beyond platitudes.

Before my husband reads this column, I am apologizing for not telling him sooner about a near miss I had on the road earlier this week. I was making a left hand turn out of the pharmacy.  I looked both ways and pulled out, almost hitting a truck — not just any truck but a new truck.  I did not even see this truck because it happened to be in my blind spot between my window and the front windshield.  Thankfully the driver saw me. 

WAYNESBORO, Ga. — Botsford Baptist Church endured the difficult years of the American Revolution, ministered through yellow fever outbreaks, and survived on little through the Great Depression. Now 250 years old, Botsford Baptist is one of Georgia’s oldest churches, continuing to proclaim the gospel just as it did when Baptist preacher Edmund Botsford and a small group of hardscrabble pioneers built a log meeting house near here some three years before American colonists declared their independence from England.