Decem­ber 2018

Mer­ry Christ­mas and hap­py hol­i­days to you and each DBA congregation!

I’m con­fi­dent that our DBA pas­tors and church­es send good hol­i­day wish­es and cheer to their sis­ter churches.

The hol­i­days are a good time for min­istry, and sub­stan­tial min­istry and out­reach is tak­ing place through­out our DBA. You have sent many back­packs to Appalachia through NAMB. You have sent Christ­mas cards to our troops through Oper­a­tion Christ­mas Cards for Troops Over­seas. You have sent the gospel around the globe through Samaritan’s Purse’s Oper­a­tion Christ­mas Child, and still ahead, you have your cake min­istry to our Bax­ley Children’s Home on Decem­ber 6th. You gave back­packs full of bless­ings for out­reach in Wheel­er Coun­ty through our fam­i­ly over at FBC Glen­wood. Glen­wood had some new fam­i­lies vis­it on Sun­day after the out­reach event.

Christ­mas is always an excit­ing time for mis­sions as we receive our Lot­tie Moon offer­ing and part­ner togeth­er through our IMB, and God has sent sev­er­al of our DBA fam­i­ly out on mis­sion dur­ing these holidays.

Joey Davis (El Camino and Igle­sia Bautista De Cedar Cross­ing), Gady Youmans (Sweet Onion Chris­t­ian Learn­ing Cen­ter) and 7 oth­ers were sent to Ugan­da, Africa and saw many salvations.

Dan­nie and Gwen Williams (FBC Lyons), Scott Mor­ri­son and Traci Todd (both FBC Vidalia) just returned from Liberia, Africa where God used them to encour­age and strength­en his church in Africa.

Cur­rent­ly, Ricky Cum­mings (FBC Vidalia), Scott Mor­ri­son and Joey Davis are trav­el­ing to Kan­tu­nilkin, Mex­i­co to con­tin­ue our fel­low­ship with the church that you helped start, Vida Nueva.

Tru­ly glo­ri­ous king­dom work with which God is bless­ing us! I’m con­fi­dent many of our church­es are expe­ri­enc­ing fruit as a result of min­istry and out­reach dur­ing these hol­i­days. I encour­age you to be hope­ful and be bold for the king­dom of God.

Con­sid­er putting togeth­er a small group to go on a mis­sion trip to Albany, Ga or the coast of Flori­da to help vic­tims of the recent hurricane.

Geor­gia Bap­tist Convention

This year’s con­ven­tion was encour­ag­ing. The lead­er­ship at our Geor­gia Bap­tist Con­ven­tion were pas­sion­ate. Pri­mar­i­ly about evan­ge­lism, and praise God for that passion.

You can find footage of the con­ven­tion on Face­book. Find ses­sion three of the con­ven­tion at the link below. Dur­ing ses­sion three, Mike Stone, Pas­tor of Emmanuel Bap­tist, deliv­ered a very encour­ag­ing mes­sage enti­tled, “Convention in Crisis.” He preached from 1 Corinthi­ans 16:5–9. The entire ser­mon can be viewed at the link below and begins at the 1:23 minute point in the video.

https://www.facebook.com/georgiabaptistmissionboard/videos/298567107426626/

Dr. Thomas Ham­monds is the new Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of our state con­ven­tion. Our fam­i­ly at First Bap­tist Lyons will host an oppor­tu­ni­ty for our church lead­ers to share their heart and ideas with Dr. Ham­monds. This “listening ses­sion” will be held at FBC Lyons on Jan­u­ary 23 from 10:30am — noon. I hope you will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend and par­tic­i­pate in a fruit­ful con­ver­sa­tion with Thomas.

God is doing so much in these days. He is mighty. Let’s be strong and coura­geous and full of faith, hope and love as we head toward 2019.

May the Lord of glo­ry vis­it you and yours this Christmas.

Bro. Bil­ly Puckett