October 1, 2026
ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Every dollar given through the Georgia Baptist State Missions Offering stays in Georgia, helping churches meet needs, share the gospel, and reach the mission fields God has placed around them.
Each September, many Georgia Baptist churches promote and collect gifts for the offering, which funds the work of Mission Georgia. Churches also may include the offering in their budgets or emphasize it at another time that works best for their calendars.
Thomas Hammond, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, said the offering is one more way Georgia Baptists can work together to reach the state.
“As Georgia Baptists, we believe strongly that we can do far more together than we ever could do by ourselves,” Hammond said in a promotional video to pastors.
Mission Georgia, he said, is both the state missions offering and the instrument GBMB uses to resource and train churches to reach their local mission fields.
“The purpose of Mission Georgia is to reach Georgia with the gospel,” Hammond said. “But it is designed to help pastors and church leaders, ministry leaders, to resource and equip their people to do really all that they can to meet needs, but most importantly share the gospel.”
Mission Georgia partners with Georgia Baptist churches to provide gospel-centered care to people in need. Its ministry areas include foster care and adoption, childhood literacy, adult literacy, job training, Disaster Relief, Mission Georgia Builders, mobile medical ministry, backpacks, trauma-informed training, maternity care, refugee support, and response to human trafficking.
Beth Ann Williams, lead strategist for Georgia Baptist Women and Mission Georgia, said the offering helps churches see needs around them and step into ministry.
“We do have some specific areas that we’re focused on,” Williams said. “Beyond that, we really want to help a local church figure out what they’re passionate about and help them then step into that ministry. We want to help you do what you feel God’s calling you to do.”
Hammond said Georgia Baptists have taken a state missions offering for many years, but the way the offering is being used through Mission Georgia is significantly different.
“We’re using these resources to help churches to know about the needs in their community, but also how they can start ministries to meet those needs,” he said.
Those ministries are reaching into communities across Georgia.
At New Hope Baptist Church, Mission Georgia helped support a Cup of Nations soccer outreach connected to this summer's World Cup. Al Mead, the church's community outreach pastor, who helped organize the event at New Hope, said the opportunity was too important to miss.
“When the world comes here, and it’s a sporting event, that’s probably one of the biggest mission fields that you’ll have,” Mead said. “And I could not miss this opportunity to collaborate with Mission Georgia right here in our community to share the gospel message.”
Ellis Daniel, discipleship and evangelism pastor at New Hope, said Mission Georgia helped take much of the administrative load off church leaders so they could focus on ministry. Rich Terry, missions minister at New Hope, said the partnership provided resources that helped the church build a tournament involving 300 children.
“We introduced an entire group of people in this community to our church,” Terry said, “but more importantly, we were able to bring the gospel into the entire event.”
Through the Love Your Neighbor event, Mission Georgia helped churches serve communities through practical ministry and gospel witness. Keith Ivey, missions consultant for the GBMB, said Mission Georgia provided vision, communication, promotion, registration resources, and financial support for the outreach.
“Mission Georgia is a partnership with Georgia Baptist churches to really provide a catalyst to reach our state for the gospel,” Ivey said, “to help mobilize the church to engage with the lost community through compassion ministries, through any avenue where we can connect with the needs of people and where they are.”
Joey Pritchett, pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Cleveland, said he was encouraged to see believers from different churches quickly join together for the Great Commission.
“What stood out to me in these projects was to see Christians who didn’t know one another and had never met, to see how quickly the body of Christ joined together in spirit to accomplish the Great Commission,” he said.
Mission Georgia’s mobile medical and dental ministries also open doors for gospel conversations. During the Love Your Neighbor event, Jon Huebner, pastor of Mt. Airy Baptist Church, said two dental clinics served 93 patients.
“Every single patient that came through received the gospel, and heard the message of the gospel, and had an opportunity to make a decision,” Huebner said.
Mission Georgia also helps churches care for vulnerable children and families through foster care, adoption, kinship care, and trauma-informed ministry.
Jodie Marsh, foster care mobilizer for the GBMB, said the need is urgent. “We’re in a crisis. We lack foster homes across the board.”
Children entering foster care are often removed not only from their families, but also from their support systems, schools, friends, and communities, she said. Mission Georgia helps churches become safe places for those who need one.
“We need to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” Marsh said. “And being the hands and feet of Jesus looks like us going towards the messy and not away.”
Darren and April Talley, adoptive parents at Bethsaida Baptist Church, said Mission Georgia’s work in adoption and foster care helps families like theirs. Darren Talley is associate pastor of children and students at the church.
“When people give to Mission Georgia, they’re doing more than just giving dollars to programs,” Darren Talley said. “They’re giving dollars that help families find their children.”
The state missions offering also helps churches participate in ministry beyond what they could do alone.
Williams said the first response Mission Georgia asks from Georgia Baptists is prayer. “We hear all these statistics, we see all the issues, and it really can feel overwhelming,” she said. “And we aren’t the answer, but Jesus Christ is the answer.”
“The second thing we want to see people do is to act,” Williams said. “To get involved, to not just see the needs, but to step into those issues, to meet people where they are, to serve and to love and to care.”
The third response is giving through the Georgia Baptist State Missions Offering. “We turn around and send those resources back out into ministry across our state,” she said.
Hammond said the offering helps inform churches about needs across Georgia and gives them ways to engage through prayer, participation, and giving. “Informed Baptists always do far better in reaching lostness than uninformed Baptists,” he said.
The offering matters, Hammond emphasized, because Georgia remains a mission field, with all 159 counties needing gospel witness and more than 7 million lost people across the state.
“The unique thing about this state missions offering is that every dollar given stays in Georgia and is committed to reaching the lost in Georgia,” Hammond said.
He thanked pastors and churches for their commitment to gospel work in their own communities and in partnership with Georgia Baptists across the state.
“I think that Mission Georgia is one of the greatest opportunities for all Georgia Baptists to partner together to reach our state,” Hammond said.
And as Georgia Baptists pray, serve, and give, the goal remains the same: meeting needs so churches have opportunities to point people to Christ.
“There’s hope for Georgia, there’s hope for America, there’s hope for the lost,” Pritchett said.
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Additional information about the State Mission Offering and Mission Georgia can be found at: https://missiongeorgia.org/offering/.
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