Mallary Baptist Association

The 128^th Annual Meeting of the Mallary Baptist Association was held October 20^th at First Baptist Church Sylvester. There were 118 messengers who registered representing 33 churches. There were also an additional 28 guests present. The business session was a blessed time of doing God’s business for the association. Jim Eure (Pine Forest) was elected as Moderator, Charlie Brown (Unity) was re-elected as Associate Moderator, and Alisa Hamilton (Bethel) was re-elected as Clerk/Treasurer. Congratulations to all of these! It is great to have a layman as our Moderator--not every association has that!!! We adopted a Budget for 2012 of $178, 248 which is a 10% decrease from this year’s budget. The Nominating Team presented and had approved an almost full slate of personnel for our teams and organization positions. The Book of Reports including the 2011-12 calendar was approved also. There was an excellent spirit of cooperation exhibited in our business session.

We then had a delicious meal provided by First Sylvester and served by their volunteers. We want to thank First Baptist Sylvester for the wonderful way they hosted us by providing facilities, ushers, volunteers, as well as the great meal!

We were also blessed with those who led us in congregational worship (leaders and accompanists) in both the afternoon and evening sessions. God was honored!!!

Anthony Johnson provided inspirational music before and during the evening session. Appreciation was also expressed to Jason Jones (Isabella) for a job well done serving two terms plus as our Moderator.  We took up an offering of $582.38 for World Hunger. Mike Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church of Blackshear, brought a challenging message he titled, "Bring Back the Ark", based on the scripture in        2 Samuel 6:1-11, when David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, emphasizing the need we have for revival and commitment to follow God's plan, not man’s.

As we conclude 2011, we have so much for which to be grateful to God.  He is an awesome God and has a wonderful plan for each of us, His churches, and His association. Thank you for permitting me to serve God through being your Director of Missions and thank you for the way you have been used by God to provide for Martha and me. We praise God for each of you and what God is doing in your life and His church. Let’s commit anew to “serve together to make disciples to impact the world!”