Sam Leslie, minister of music at South Harriman Baptist Church, leads a combined associational choir during Big Emory’s recent “Night of Worship” following simultaneous revivals from 34 of the association’s 51 churches.

HARRIMAN — Approximately two-thirds of the 51 churches in Big Emory Baptist Association joined together Aug. 25-28 to plant gospel seeds in their communities.

The 34 churches that participated were divided into 10 different groups, said Matt Cannon, director of missions for the association.

From Sunday through Wednesday nights, each group held a revival service at one of the churches in the group with a pastor from a different church bringing the message, Cannon explained.

On Thursday night, all the groups gathered at South Harriman Baptist Church for an association-wide “Night of Worship” led by Roc Collins, director of strategic objectives for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and a combined choir from members of the association’s churches.  [Read more…]

FRANKLIN — Continuing their response efforts after Hurricane Helene’s devastating output, Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief will be setting up two incident command posts in the coming days.

One post will be stationed at First Baptist Church, Dandridge, and Tennessee volunteers will be working out of that area covering Jefferson and Cocke counties. TBDR will be feeding with Salvation Army, and Tennessee chain saw and flood recovery teams will be working out of that site.

An additional incident command post will be set up in Johnson City, covering Washington and Unicoi Counties. Wes Jones, disaster relief specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, is still working on determining the location for this post. Texans on Mission will operate that incident command and the feeding area, and the Salvation Army will also be working with the feeding team. Tennessee chain saw and flood recovery teams will be working out of that site also. [Read more…]

FRANKLIN — Some Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief teams are already in action (see story HERE), but more are needed in the efforts to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene. 

Wes Jones, disaster relief specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, sent out an email Saturday morning, asking that all TBDR teams and volunteers be on standby.

“East Tennessee has been hit hard,” Jones said in the email. “The worst damage is from Newport to Bristol with major flooding and wind damage. Local teams are already responding, but we will need teams to respond for some time to come.” [Read more…]

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 4:15 p.m. on Sept. 28.

NEWPORT — Eastern Tennessee experienced significant and widespread damage Friday afternoon due to torrential rains and high winds from Hurricane Helene.

Helene made landfall in the Florida Panhandle late Thursday and forcefully progressed through Eastern Georgia into Tennessee along the Appalachian Mountains, causing severe flooding and wind damage in numerous East Tennessee counties. Newport, Irwin, Hampton and other cities have been affected.

“It has been a catastrophic afternoon,” said Randy C. Davis, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board executive director, on Friday afternoon. “Our hearts are broken for the people in Cocke, Washington, Unicoi, Greene and other counties that may be eventually affected by the severe weather and its aftermath. [Read more…]

FRANKLIN — Lonnie Wilkey’s tenure as editor of the Baptist and Reflector is coming to an end, but his columns will continue to be read for years to come. 

Wilkey, who has been with the B&R since 1988 and has served as editor since 1998, has put together a collection of his columns in a book titled Faith, Family and Life’s Lessons: Reflections of a Christian Journalist. 

Wilkey’s columns have won a stream of awards through the years, including a number of first-place honors in the annual Baptist Communicators Association publications contest. The new book includes more than 70 of Wilkey’s columns. 

“During my career, God has allowed me to write countless news and feature articles, but the personal columns I wrote always seemed to draw the most attention,” said Wilkey. “I tried to keep them real, drawing from lessons I was learning ‘on the job’ in life as a husband, parent, layman in my local church and in my career as a writer.”  [Read more…]

Steve Gaines.

CORDOVA — Steve Gaines, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova and a former SBC president, announced to the congregation on Sunday that he will be transitioning out of his role of senior pastor and into the role of “itinerate preacher.”

Gaines, who has been at Bellevue for 19 years, was joined on stage by his wife, Donna, when he made the announcement. 

“Many years ago, the Lord spoke to my heart that he would one day want me to serve as an itinerate preacher,” said Gaines. “That simply means that I would travel and minister at different churches instead of serving as pastor of one church.” [Read more…]