It is time to celebrate! Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia is 30 years old!

During the 1980s, the fundamentalists took over the Southern Baptist Convention. At the Dallas convention in 1985, moderates knew they no longer had a home in the Southern Baptist Convention. I was not present, but my 16-year-old son, a leader of the youth in our church, attended with his youth minister, our pastor, and others from Scott Boulevard Baptist Church. He came home talking about how the moderates were mistreated and about the hatred and ugliness of the convention. I am sad to say that this experience caused him to never want to attend a Baptist church in his adult life.

In the 1990s, a group met in Atlanta and formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship that allowed women to be ministers. Cecil E. Sherman was selected as the first national coordinator of this new organization, a safe haven for moderate Baptists.

In 1992, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia was formed, and Frank Broome became our first executive coordinator.

For fifteen to twenty years, we continued to fight the battle of no longer being a part of the Southern Baptist Convention and the injustices that had taken place. Praise God, we finally moved beyond this and have grown as an organization that is proud of its beliefs and theology. No longer do we talk about the past, but we focus on our future and how we can serve all of God’s children. Frank Broome helped us get established and led us through twenty good years. Jody Long has taken the mantle and is now leading us into the future.

As cited on our webpage, www.cbfga.org,

Our Identity: We are a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission of Jesus Christ and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice.

Our Vision: To serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.

Our Mission: Being the presence of Christ in the world.

I have been blessed to work with the Coordinating Council, Executive Coordinator Jody Long, Coordinator of Young Baptist Ministries Megan Doud, Melissa Kremer, and Rachel Greco. They are the workhorses of CBFGA. I am proud that we are supporting CBF field personnel that have Georgia ties, giving scholarships to future CBF ministers and church personnel, and providing grants to help churches develop innovative ministries.

This year the personnel committee has been working to revise the 30-year-old personnel manual. Also, we have been working to determine a way to provide medical insurance to our employees.

I would urge you to continue to follow the practices and principles of our organization. Several of our pastors are of retirement age. Prayerfully consider selecting a woman to lead your church. If you have Methodist friends who have lost their church, we would probably be a good fit for them. Prayerfully work and provide financial support to keep CBFGA a strong organization.

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