SNELLVILLE, Ga. (BP) — Georgia Baptists have given an additional $1.7 million to the International Mission Board to support missionaries serving around the world.

Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director W. Thomas Hammond, accompanied by Finance Committee Chairman Steve Browning, Executive Committee Vice Chairman Stephen Fountain and Administration Committee Chairman Tim Oliver presented the check to IMB President Paul Chitwood at the Church on Main in Snellville during the Georgia Baptist Convention’s meeting.

The gift is in addition to the $16.5 million that Georgia Baptist churches have already given to IMB this year.

“Georgia Baptists are consistently among the most generous IMB partners, but this is far and above the largest gift of this kind from a state convention,” Chitwood said. “With the missionary candidate pipeline growing every day, this gift will go a long way to ensure those being sent will go with full support. I’m incredibly grateful.”

Georgia Baptists are sending more than funding for international missions. They’re also sending personnel. Some 300 of IMB’s current missionaries are from Georgia.

“The reason this check was able to be given was because of the Lord’s blessing on the faithfulness of Georgia Baptists and their commitment to sacrifice and serve together to reach the world for Christ,” Hammond said. “They are the most generous and evangelistic people in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Steve Browning, lead pastor at First Baptist Church of Alpharetta and chairman of the Georgia Baptist Financial Services Committee, said the gift was possible because of a financial surplus in this year’s state mission board budget.

“We can think of no better place to make investment of those dollars than in the International Mission Board,” Browning said.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Compiled by staff with The Christian Index, news journal of the Georgia Baptist Convention.)