October 2, 2026
TALMO, Ga. — It’s a changing of the guard as three northeast Georgia Associational Missionary Strategists with sixty years of combined experience are retiring. They are baby boomers passing the baton to a new generation of leadership. The three recently met in Talmo, Georgia, to discuss changes they have seen over the past twenty years and challenges facing Associational work in the future.
Steve Ferguson with the Hebron Baptist Association, Jojo Thomas with the Chattahoochee Baptist Association, and Lex Bowen from the Sarepta Baptist Association began their associational ministries within a year of each other, and 20 years later they are finishing the journey together.
Feguson, 70, is a native of Thomaston in Upson County. He and his wife Angie have five children and three grandchildren. He pastored in north and middle Georgia, where he “learned how to blow gnats,” prior to becoming an AMS for the Hebron Association out of Hartwell. He reminisced that while pastoring in Dawson, “out in the peanut fields, farmers would call the house and tell my wife, ‘Don’t let your children go out and play. We’re gonna be crop dusting out there.’” Ferguson went on to note that “They (his children) turned out okay, as far as I know, they’re all right!”
Jojo Thomas, 69, was born in Decatur, Georgia, and is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Southwestern Seminary. He pastored Annistown Road Baptist for 23 years, a church where he was the church planter and founding pastor after graduating from Southwestern. This was his only pastorate before becoming an AMS with the Chattahoochee Baptist Association. He and his wife Debbie, a retired educator, have three sons and nine grandchildren and live in north Hall County.
Lex Bowen, 71, is a native of Dawson in Terrell County. His ministry has included pastorates in Oklahoma and Georgia, serving with the International Mission Board in Singapore, and Lifeway Publishing, as well as the Sarepta Association out of Athens, for nearly 20 years. His wife Pam was raised as a preacher’s daughter in Oklahoma and on the mission field in Singapore and Malaysia. They have a son, a daughter, and six grandchildren.
All three expressed the value of mentors in their lives and the need for ministry mentors today. Bowen said his father-in-law Paul Box, who pastored FBC Moore, Oklahoma, was one of two mentors in his ministry, along with Rev. George Deadwyler. "When I first started my walk with the Lord,," he said, "Deadwyler provided guidance about where I should consider for college and seminary.”
Feguson mentioned his mentor was another Associational Missionary, Claude Healan, who had been an AMS in the Appalachee, Morgan County, and Mulbury Associations. Healan, who passed away in 1998, was a big man in more ways than one. He wore a size 60-plus belt, and his ministry touched many lives. Few people who knew him will not bring up Healan’s name without a smile on their face and a favorite “Claude Healan” story to tell. Ferguson was smiling when he reflected, “He was a great guy to sit with, he’d been through a lot of things, and had such an impact in our part of the state.”
Thomas said his mentors included “Bill Updike, who was the association guy in Gwinnett back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Bill Long, who thankfully, out of the goodness of his heart, joined our church when it was young and small, and he was a great mentor. At the time, he was working at the Georgia Baptist Convention in the Church Planting Department.”
All noted significant changes in associational ministry over the past 20 years. Bowen said one difference he observed is “attending meetings.” Ferguson noted that “people don’t make time for meetings. You really work to get people there.” He also said, “I have found the resources that the association once provided are no longer needed.”
Ferguson and Thomas agreed, as Thomas held up a cell phone, that technology has dramatically impacted ministry during the past 20 years. Thomas also reflected on, “a continued loss of awareness of the value of being connected. For each new generation, you have to make the case or help people see why it matters to be connected; it advances the gospel. It’s kind of eroded over the years.”
Ferguson noted the change in the diversity of congregations, as “basically every church looked the same. They started at the same time, had a choir, choir robes, hymnals, and used Southern Baptist literature. Now it’s different.” Thomas added, “There’s no standardization anymore. So how to serve them (churches) has become much more complicated.” They also agreed on the impact of COVID, saying it caused a lot of division in churches.
The greatest challenge moving forward for associational work, according to Thomas, is building strong relationships. “Institutions in this era are not trusted," he said. "But what is trusted is relationships, and that’s what an association is. It is a place where people can know one another and work together. It’s not an institution.”
Ferguson added, “There’s the question of, will our association last? Yes, I think associations will last because of the relationships. Because we are right there with the pastors.”
All three men agreed that the thing they will miss the most will be the fellowship with the pastors, laypeople, and other missionary strategists. Thomas reflected that he would sometimes attend worship at as many as three churches on any given Sunday. He will miss having those opportunities to connect with those people.
In retirement, both Ferguson and Thomas plan to continue living where they are currently; both have children and grandchildren who live nearby. Bowen, on the other hand, is in the process of moving to Spartanburg, S.C., to be closer to his daughter and family.
Thomas says he looks forward to “being a good member at Hagen Creek Community Church," where his son, Mark, serves as the church planter, pastor, and where Thomas’ wife Debbie, is already “plugged in.” He also hopes to have an opportunity to be a mentor to other associational missionaries as the opportunity affords itself.
Thomas, in parting words to young pastors, said, “Find a mentor. Especially, somebody who understands your local context, which might be the associational guy or might not, but find somebody who gets where you are.” To the AMSs, he advised, "Take heart, your ministry is tremendously needed and vital. And think for yourself, and let the Lord God develop and plan a strategy and invite people into it. Find the places where everybody can get excited that moves the gospel forward, where you are.”
All three will be greatly missed in their fields of service, but there is a new generation that is ready and willing to pick up the baton and run the race, in part building upon the work these men have laid.
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