November 11, 2026
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Outgoing Georgia Baptist Convention President Steve Browning urged Georgia Baptists Tuesday to recognize the opportunities God has placed before them and refuse to retreat when sharing the gospel becomes difficult.
“Don’t let the door close,” Browning told messengers gathered at Second Baptist Church during the 204th annual meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
Browning, lead pastor of First Baptist Church Alpharetta, preached from 1 Corinthians 16:9 and Acts 19 in a message built around the convention theme, “WIDE OPEN.”
He began with a story from his own family. During a heavy rain, Browning and his family hurried from their minivan into their house, planning to retrieve their belongings later. When he returned, he discovered one of the van doors had been left wide open.
After years of reminding his children to shut doors around the house, Browning said there are some doors Christians should work to keep open.
“Are there ever places, are there ever times when we should keep the door intentionally wide open?” he asked. “What about for our churches? What about the faith? What about for the gospel?”
Browning pointed to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 16:9: “A wide door for effective ministry has opened for me, yet many oppose me.”
“You can have huge opportunity and huge challenges at the very same time,” Browning said.
In Acts 19, Paul entered the synagogue in Ephesus and spent three months speaking about the Kingdom of God. Some refused to believe and publicly spoke against “the Way.”
Even the Apostle Paul, he noted, did not see everyone respond to the gospel. Witness to those with hard hearts can be discouraging for Christians.
“It’s hard to keep preaching the gospel,” Browning said. “It’s hard to keep witnessing to people. It’s not always easy. It’s not always salvation. Sometimes it is difficult to be obedient in this.”
Hostility can also cause believers to hesitate in sharing their faith, Browning said.
Paul’s opponents in Ephesus did more than reject his message. They publicly ridiculed it.
Browning said Christians can encounter similar resistance today, whether in conversations with friends and coworkers, online, or elsewhere in the culture.
Comparing that to the experience of sitting among fans of an opposing football team, Browning said, “It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t want to sit in that section again. It’s a totally different thing to allow hostility to pull us back from this gospel message we’ve been called to proclaim.”
After leaving the synagogue, Paul began holding daily discussions in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. Acts records that the work continued for two years and that “all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.”
“Paul didn’t give up, didn’t back down,” Browning said.
The gospel spread from Ephesus across the region as believers carried the message into other communities.
“In the face of pressure, we must not allow the door to close, but instead take hold of the incredible gospel opportunity that God has given us for our neighbors, our community, our state, and the hope of Jesus Christ.”
Browning then turned to Georgia Baptist history and a recent visit to Bethesda near Savannah.
The ministry was established by evangelist George Whitefield in the 1700s. While visiting a small museum there, Browning said he was taken to a bluff overlooking the site associated with the first known Baptist baptisms in Georgia.
According to a historical marker Browning read during his visit, Nicholas Benjamin, an English Baptist minister who came to Georgia to work at Whitefield’s Bethesda ministry, baptized Benjamin Stirk, his wife Mary, Thomas Dixon, and others there in 1765.
Browning stood at the site and considered the missionary who had crossed the Atlantic to serve in what was then the colony of Georgia.
“Two hundred sixty-one years ago, someone said, ‘I see a mission field. I see a wide open door. And I am going to go through it.’”
Generations of Georgia Baptists have followed, he said, carrying the gospel through wars, economic upheaval, cultural changes, and opposition.
“And so it falls to you and to me,” Browning said. “It’s our time.”
“If you ever get a sense that door begins to start closing, put your foot in the door and don’t let it close.”
Browning asked messengers to commit to keeping the door open for the gospel in their communities, cities, churches, and across Georgia.
“This is the task,” he said. “I know we can partner on a lot of different things, but this is the task that Georgia Baptists have been known for and will be known for.”
Browning closed by turning the final prayer into a commissioning. He asked those in the room to stand and place a hand on someone nearby as they recommitted themselves to carrying the gospel across Georgia.
“Oh, Lord God, this is our state,” Browning prayed. “You have put us in this place today for Your glory. And we want to reach it for You.”
He asked God to mobilize Georgia Baptists to reach the estimated 7 million people in the state who do not know Christ.
“God, mobilize us to the 7 million lost,” Browning prayed. “And I pray that as we come back 365 days from today and gather once again as a convention, that we will have reached multitudes for Your glory and still see multitudes more.”
“Send us out,” he prayed. “Commission us for Your glory.”
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