STATESBORO, Ga. — W. Thomas Hammond, Jr., executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board (GBMB), and Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB), announced a new partnership Sunday night (Nov. 10) with the aim of planting more churches in Georgia. Signing of an agreement was held at First Baptist Statesboro at an inspirational service Sunday on the eve of the annual meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

Hammond told Georgia Baptists that partnerships are essential to reaching the lost. He referenced Philippians 1:4-5 in telling the assembly that “we partner together for the gospel.”

He expressed concern for churches that he described as pulling out and pulling away. “We’re going to need each other more,” he said, “until Jesus comes back.”

Georgia Baptists are able to accomplish much, Hammond said, because of partnerships. In the last year, Georgia Baptists gave nearly $51 million combined to the Cooperative Program, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

Hammond went on to say that in 2023 churches reported more than 21,150 baptisms, an increase of more than 6,000 from the year before, “And I pray that it continues to increase until the Lord comes back.”

Baptisms, Hammond told his listeners, are a cause for celebration. “The church that baptizes three celebrates as much as the church that baptizes 30,” he said. “We’re all in this together. It’s not an ‘us and them,’ it’s an ‘us.’ Period.”

Georgia Baptists also partnered to prepare the next generation. “Georgia Baptists wouldn’t have any universities, we wouldn’t have any colleges, without partnerships,” he said, adding that almost 5,500 students are being trained at Shorter University, Truett McConnell University and Brewton-Parker College. Hammond praised the leaders of the schools for having a biblical worldview and being evangelistic, instilling into students the knowledge “that they are called to be light in the darkness, to be salt and to be witnesses wherever they go.”

In addition to higher education, partnerships made it possible for 277 churches to send 3,985 young people to student camps offered by the GBMB to reinforce what students are learning at church, but also as an evangelistic outreach. Surge, Impact, Superwow and 2023 Move reported 432 salvation decisions and 276 calls to ministry.

“The Holy Spirit is falling upon Georgia,” Hammond said, and the ranks of those called to serve are being “filled to the brim with young people who are dedicating their lives to God’s call and to His service.”  

None of these achievements, Hammond stressed, would have been possible without partnerships.

Hammond did mention one area where Georgia Baptists need to improve — church planting. The state is growing rapidly, and it shows no signs of slowing.

“The reality,” he said, “is that we’re going to need to plant more churches.”

Enter the partnership between the state convention and the NAMB.

“They (NAMB) know how to plant churches,” Hammond said. “They know how to do the assessments, and how to do training, and how to do the necessary equipping and mentoring and coaching. And what we have are the churches that say, ‘We want to plant churches in Georgia.’”

Hammond called Ezell to the stage to share his thoughts on the church-planting opportunities in the state.

“The key thing is we’re doing this together,” Ezell said, “and we can celebrate new churches, together.

“NAMB does not plant churches. Churches plant churches.”

Ezell then laid out the three steps to planting a church: engaging the city, making disciples and planting a church.

“We could not be more excited to be partnering with the Georgia Baptist Mission Board to see more people reached for the gospel,” Ezell said, “and we think the best evangelistic strategy is planting churches.”

Hammond and Ezell signed a formal agreement that specified what each organization would contribute to the partnership. The document lays out “the things that NAMB will do, and we can count on them for,” Hammond said, as well as “the things that the Georgia Baptist Mission Board and the Georgia Baptist Convention will do, and NAMB can count on us to do.”

Hammond concluded, “There is a partnership here that I pray will continue until Jesus comes back.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — This article originally appeared in the Christian Index.)