POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — More than 200 years ago the Brothers Grimm published a collection of fairy tales about a poor shoemaker who was almost out of food to eat and leather to make shoes. However, during the night, little elves slipped into the shoemaker’s home and worked furiously to make incredibly beautiful and serviceable shoes that permitted the shoemaker to prosper. It is a beautiful Christmas story of goodness and grace.

DALTON, Ga. — A Georgia man’s chance meeting with country music star Chris McDaniel in a Delaware store led to a life-changing encounter with someone far more famous. McDaniel, a founding member of the multi-platinum-selling band Confederate Railroad, had stopped at the store for a soft drink as he prepared to drive back to Georgia. When he walked to the counter to pay for it, a man he came to know simply as Pablo was there with a basket of groceries and no way to pay for them because he had left his wallet at home.

PLAINS, Ga. — The chefs who prepared meals for hundreds of Secret Service agents, Georgia Highway Patrol troopers, National Guard troops, and others providing security during three days of memorials for former first lady Rosalynn Carter have vast experience feeding huge crowds, usually in disaster zones. In their trademark yellow shirts and caps, Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers will spend the next three days in the mobile kitchens where they will prepare tasty cuisine served at no charge.

Renowned for its stunning biodiversity, the Amazon rainforest region is also home to a vast array of people and cultures. “People usually think that the environment doesn’t contain and include people, but it does,” said soil scientist Judson Ferreira Valentim, who lives in Brazil’s Acre state. “There are many different Amazonias and many different Amazonians.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has provided more than 85 ultrasound machines to pregnancy resource centers since 2004 through what the organization calls the Psalm 139 project. That includes 12 machines, which cost, with training included, about $40,000, so far in 2023.

ROME, Ga. — Hall of Fame College Football Coach Mark Richt will be the featured speaker at Shorter University’s 2023 President’s Gala on December 7. Richt, a committed Christian, philanthropist and author, served as the head football coach for the University of Georgia and the University of Miami for 18 seasons.

DALTON, Ga. — Boxes of Kleenex are always at the ready in the sanctuary of McFarland Hill Baptist Church. They’re for wiping tears of joy among a growing congregation that nearly ceased to exist just more than a decade ago. The 83-year-old church that sprouted from an old-fashion brush arbor service had fallen into a funk, and worshippers were leaving in mass. By 2011, the congregation had dwindled to about 35 regular attendees, and they were shouldering some $330,000 in church debt. They had cut off electricity to the gym and canceled the insurance to save money. They didn’t see a path forward. They were considering shuttering the church permanently.

CORDOVA, Tenn. — Former Southern Baptist Convention president and Tennessee Baptist pastor Steve Gaines announced to his congregation at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova on Sunday that he has been diagnosed with kidney cancer. Gaines has served as pastor of the Memphis-area church since 2005. Gaines said that he has “a great team of doctors in Memphis who are treating me.” He added that he plans to go to M.D. Anderson in Houston to consult with their physicians.

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — The Georgia Baptist Convention annual meeting added a new feature to the programming at the recent gathering at Snellville’s Church on Main. Six different forums provided helpful information on a stage adjacent to the display area. The "second stage" panels proved to be so popular, the mission board will continue the practice next year.

THOMSON, Ga. — Some have been miserable for days because of aching teeth. Others have cavities in need of immediate attention. But Ron Belcher is convinced the people gathered for appointments at a mobile dental clinic parked outside Washington Heights Baptist Church have an even greater need, a spiritual need. So the deacon tells them about Jesus as they wait their turns with one of the volunteer dentists who help to care for Georgia’s 1.3 million uninsured residents.

ROCK SPRINGS, Ga. – Confetti is no longer limited to sports championships, weddings and New Year's Eve celebrations. Peavine Baptist Church in Rock Springs recently celebrated the 300th baptism of the year by launching a deluge of confetti in the sanctuary. Joel Southerland, lead pastor at Peavine, has a history of emphasizing the absolute importance of reaching the lost. He has been a successful pastor and has led evangelistic initiatives for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board and the North American Mission Board.

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. — Georgia Baptists have given an additional $1.7 million to the International Mission Board to support missionaries serving around the world. Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director W. Thomas Hammond, accompanied by Finance Committee Chairman Steve Browning, Executive Committee Vice Chairman Stephen Fountain, Administration Committee Chairman Tim Oliver presented the check to IMB President Paul Chitwood at the Church on Main in Snellville.

SNELLVILLE, Ga. – Organizations that receive funding from the Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation have reported 1,585 salvation decisions so far this year, the leader of the philanthropic group reported Monday. Executive Director Larry Wynn told the Georgia Baptist Executive Committee that the foundation’s grant recipients have introduced 21,421 people to Christ since it was created from the sale of the state’s Baptist hospitals in 2005.

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.

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — More than 1,100 messengers have preregistered for the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, which kicks off Sunday at the Church on Main in Snellville. President Josh Saefkow, who will be seeking re-election to a second term, said the emphasis of the three-day gathering will be on Calling Out the Called, the title of a broader initiative aimed at identifying the next generation of church leaders and helping them navigate pathways to ministry.

SUWANEE, Ga. — Five years ago, W. Thomas Hammond Jr. was recommended to become executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board because of his heart for pastors and their churches and his passion for reaching wayward souls with the gospel. Now, he’s being applauded for his accomplishments in the role. The Georgia Baptist Administration Committee recognized Hammond on his fifth anniversary and thanked him for the strides the Mission Board has made in helping churches and their pastors navigate through uncertain times that included a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — When churchgoers find a new congregation, most say their reasons for change had a little to do with both their old and new churches. Lifeway Research studied 1,001 U.S. adults who identify as Protestant or non-denominational, attend church worship services at least twice a month and have attended more than one church as an adult. During the research screening process, it was determined 53% of U.S. regular churchgoers say they have attended more than one church as an adult.

Few today recognize the impact “singing schools,” which used “shape-notes” to teach music, has had on American worship. This music, which is associated with the tradition of “Sacred Harp Singing,” enhanced worship across the nation. Singing schools began in New England in the late 18th century. Their purpose was to raise the quality of music in worship services by teaching people to sight read and lead music.

ATLANTA, Ga. — Roy Oliver McClain didn’t talk much about his experiences in World War II, but, on occasion, he did divulge some poignant details of life as an Army chaplain. It was in a sermon that the longtime Georgia pastor described the intense moments aboard a ship filled with troops who were preparing to invade Okinawa before sunrise on Easter Sunday morning in 1945. “I asked hundreds of men to bow their heads in prayer before we hit the beaches,” he said in the 1954 sermon. “In the pale glow of that tensive moment with all heads bowed, they seemed to be as one

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.

DUBLIN, Ga. — Just how many tunes Helen Hobbs has played over nearly 75 years is anyone’s guess. The soon-to-be 90-year-old has been providing musical accompaniment for the singing at Marie Baptist Church since she was a teenager, showing her congregation and her community a picture of true faithfulness.

GAINESVILLE, Ga. — Vandals have defaced a church’s sign that declares: “We stand with Israel.” North Hall Church Pastor Bucky Kennedy is using the incident to proclaim the gospel. “We see it as an opportunity to share the hope, the love and the promise that is in Jesus Christ, the Messiah,” he said on an Instagram video.

ATLANTA, Ga. — The Baptist Campus Ministry under the direction of Eric Swenson is thriving at Georgia Tech. Swenson is giving particular attention to international students because he knows if they become followers of Jesus they will return to their homeland as ambassadors of Christ. Georgia Tech has a total enrollment of 26,878 students with nearly forty percent (10,525) international students representing 149 different countries.