November 11, 2026
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director Thomas Hammond told messengers Tuesday that Georgia Baptist churches are seeing growth in worship attendance and baptisms while the Mission Board expands efforts to strengthen pastors, revitalize churches, build partnerships, and equip congregations to reach their communities with the gospel.
“I praise the Lord that we are stronger,” Hammond said during his annual report to the 204th Georgia Baptist Convention. “We’re stronger in our relationships. We’re stronger in our fellowships. We’re stronger in our churches.”
Church attendance statewide is increasing, Hammond said, while Georgia Baptists recorded more than 26,000 baptisms in 2025, continuing a rebound after nearly two decades of decline.
“We’re stronger in our evangelistic efforts,” he said. “Baptisms are continuing to increase, and we’re excited about that.”
Hammond also pointed to strong finances and partnerships. He said year-end efficiencies allow the Mission Board to send additional resources to gospel work outside Georgia and described growing partnerships with other state Baptist conventions.
GBMB teams have already helped pastors and their wives in Pennsylvania and Nevada, and plans include evangelism training in Minnesota and Wisconsin and a pastors’ wives retreat in Wyoming.
“Because of the fact that God is blessing us, we believe strongly that we need to go beyond our borders,” Hammond said.
The Mission Board’s work, he said, runs on two primary “rails”: strengthening pastors and strengthening churches.
“Pastors are our heroes. Churches are our priority, and Georgia is our mission field,” Hammond said.
Steve Shierling, pastor of First Baptist Church Quitman, described how his church and the GBMB’s Pastor Wellness ministry walked with him while he cared for his wife, Tammy, through a debilitating illness.
Shierling had served in the Marine Corps and spent 30 years in Georgia law enforcement before entering full-time ministry. As Tammy’s health declined, caring for her while pastoring became increasingly difficult.
“I needed practical help, rest, and friends to walk beside me,” Shierling said.
His church provided a daytime caregiver.
“When I left home, I knew someone was caring for my wife,” he said. “That gave me room to care for others.”
Tammy died Jan. 21, 2026. During the illness and after her death, Shierling said First Baptist continued reaching families and baptizing new believers.
“That is why partners matter,” he said. “Caring for a pastor and his family reaches beyond their homes into the lives of the people and communities they serve.”
Shierling encouraged pastors carrying heavy burdens to contact Pastor Wellness before reaching a breaking point.
“Start with four simple words,” he said. “‘I need some help.’”
Jonathan Rosier, pastor of Fellowship Church in Gibson, told messengers the congregation has grown from about 75 to 85 people on an average Sunday to around 220 since he became pastor about 14 months ago.
Rosier is bivocational, also serving as a training officer for a local fire department.
He said the church entered a season of prayer and seeking God, and growth came gradually. Teenagers became a visible part of the movement, filling the first two rows during services with Bibles open and responding during invitations.
“Those young people lit a fire in our church that is still going today, going strong,” Rosier said.
Growth has created an unusual problem for the rural congregation. The sanctuary seats about 100 to 120 people, so the church now livestreams the service into an adjacent fellowship hall where roughly 100 people gather on Sunday mornings.
"We need to know this," Hammond said. "Everywhere is somewhere. And everywhere in Georgia there are lost people. And if we're going to reach Georgia with the gospel, we're going to have to reach Atlanta and Columbus and Macon, and we're going to have to reach Augusta and Savannah, but we're also going to have to reach Gibson and every other town just like it."
Beth Ann Williams told messengers that women are gathering through WMU or women’s ministry in 1,443 Georgia Baptist churches each week.
A video highlighted women in Crawfordville who wanted a conference closer to home after years of traveling an hour or more to attend similar events.
Meggan Barnes, a member of Crawfordville Baptist Church, contacted Georgia Baptist Women consultant Stephanie Bennett for help finding a speaker. What began with hopes that 25 women might attend grew beyond expectations.
Pastor Jay Beeland said, “Just because you’re small, that doesn’t mean that God can’t work in you and what you’re doing.
Bennett agrees. “I just don’t think there’s small churches and big churches. I think we just have churches," she said. "There’s not big Kingdom work and little Kingdom work. There’s just Kingdom work.”
Hammond said he hoped the example would prompt churches across Georgia to ask what they could do differently in their own communities.
Hammond said some Georgia Baptist churches are in declining communities, while others sit in the middle of growing populations but may not know where to begin reaching them.
The GBMB’s church revitalization team is helping congregations through Refocus, a process designed to help pastors and churches assess their ministry, clarify vision, and determine next steps.
Epworth First Baptist had experienced steady growth but reached a point where its pastor believed it needed renewed direction.
“We needed to be asking the question of what is next,” Senior Pastor Chris Clark said.
The church adopted a new vision of “bringing gospel hope to our neighbors and nations.”
That vision was tested only weeks later when severe flooding devastated nearby McCaysville. The church had recently invited GBMB evangelism consultant Brad Marchman to train 50 members in personal evangelism, and they quickly mobilized to feed residents, help with cleanup, pray with people, and share the gospel.
The pastor also serves as one of more than 50 Pathfinders in the state who help other churches through revitalization and renewal.
"One thing that's wonderful about Georgia Baptists," Hammond said, "is that we are a going people." Georgia Baptist partnerships with other state conventions, he said, are intended to lead to direct church-to-church relationships.
Buck Burch highlighted ongoing work with Baptists in Utah and Idaho, where Georgia pastors have encountered churches separated by great distances and pastors who often minister in isolation.
Darey Kittle, pastor of Salem Baptist in Dalton, described spending extended time in the region simply to encourage pastors.
Kittle said that on his way back from a short-term trip to the region, the Lord impressed upon him a desire to spend an extended amount of time there. Unsure whether the idea made sense, he called Hammond, who encouraged him to go.
“I’m just going to go and love on pastors,” Daryl recalled, noting that many pastors there serve hundreds of miles apart and have few opportunities for fellowship with other ministers.
Part of his work included serving as interim pastor at Pleasant View Church in White Bird, Idaho, a town with a population of 91. The church had been running about 15 to 20 people. Kittle said this past Sunday was the new pastor's first Sunday, and 58 people attended.
The partnership also affected Kittle's own congregation. A young adult approached Kittle earlier this year, saying he believed God might be leading him to missions in the West. The two traveled together for two weeks to visit ministry partners in Utah. The young man is now planning a wedding in Idaho.
Hammond used the second half of his report to put a name to the statewide evangelism effort Georgia Baptists have been developing for more than two years: Reach Georgia.
Its emphasis is simple: “Every believer sharing. Every person hearing.”
“How wonderful would it be if every person in your church knew what the gospel really is?” Hammond asked. “How wonderful would it be for every person in your church to know how to clearly articulate the gospel?”
The goal, he said, is for every Georgia Baptist church to have a strategy, plan, and vision for reaching its own mission field.
Billy Stephens, pastor of Ocilla Baptist Church, described how his congregation has built an evangelistic culture around vision, discipleship, and consistent gospel sowing.
The church baptized five people in 2024, 36 in 2025, and had baptized 31 more this year at the time of meeting.
“We just began sowing,” Stephens said.
Stephens said the church has also intentionally built a culture that celebrates salvation and baptism. When someone comes up out of the baptistry, the congregation rises and applauds.
A men’s ministry that began with a handful of participants now draws about 75 men on Tuesday mornings. A women’s ministry started later and now reaches about 40 women. Six of the church’s seven staff members were raised up from within the congregation.
Stephens said pastors should remain faithful even when results are slow.
“Don’t give up,” he said. “You keep sowing, and you be faithful.”
He expressed his appreciation for the GBMB evangelism staff. “I want to thank Georgia Baptist Mission Board for being a group that just believes in pastors, believes in churches,” Stephens said.
Hammond invited Scott Smith, who is over communications for the GBMB, to introduce a new web-based GamePlan for Evangelism tool designed to help churches assess their evangelism efforts and develop customized action plans.
The tool, currently in beta testing, assesses churches across nine evangelism strategy areas and produces recommendations based on church size, staffing, capacity, strengths, and weaknesses.
Churches receive seven-day, 30-day, 90-day, six-month, and annual plans. The app also includes training material, progress tracking, and an AI-based coach trained specifically on the GBMB’s GamePlan for Evangelism material.
The goal, Smith said, is to move churches “from taking theory and putting it into practice.”
Hammond said the technology does not replace personal help from GBMB consultants, but that church assessments will provide consultants with valuable information prior to meeting with its leaders.
“Reach Georgia is simply this,” Hammond said. “It’s all about every church in Georgia having a strategy, a plan, a vision for reaching the mission field that they have.”
The Mission Board will also relaunch The Big Invite, an Easter outreach strategy first used in 2017.
The seven-week plan helps churches encourage members to invite people to Easter services and intentionally use Resurrection Sunday as an evangelistic opportunity.
Steve Foster, GBMB evangelism catalyst, also announced Engage 2027 following this year’s Engage 6 gatherings.
Foster said 1,641 people participated in Engage 6. The 2027 version will offer three equipping sessions focused on the Sunday morning experience and group outreach, personal evangelism, and making church events intentional gospel opportunities.
Mark Marshall, senior lead strategist for church strengthening, said another Reach Georgia resource is being developed with Lifeway for release in fall 2028.
The short-term Bible study grew out of feedback received at evangelism listening sessions conducted across Georgia. When pastors were asked to identify their greatest challenge in reaching people with the gospel, the most common response was apathy.
The planned study will address why Christians should share the gospel, what the gospel is, and how believers can communicate it.
“We feel like it will help you with a fresh message, a fresh approach of being able to get your people trained to be able to share their faith,” Marshall said.
Hammond closed by pointing to the Georgia Baptist Convention’s partnership with the North American Mission Board through Send Network Georgia.
He said 84 church plants are currently “in the system,” which covers congregations in various stages from the beginning of the planting process until they become self-supporting churches.
“Our heart’s desire is to radically increase that number,” Hammond said.
The report ended with a video thanking Georgia Baptists for Cooperative Program giving that supports pastors, collegiate ministry, church planting, and missionaries around the world.
“Behind every number is a person, a story, a life touched by the gospel,” the video told messengers. “And Georgia Baptists, you’re part of that story.”
___
Video of the sessions and presentations during the annual meeting is available at acts2.app.
Share with others
