Mabel White Baptist carries on namesake’s desire to serve God

When it began, Macon’s iconic Mabel White Baptist Church was known by a different name.

“Back in 1900, First Baptist Church of Macon sponsored and jointly broke ground with a mission church called Waverly Baptist,” said Lee Sheppard, Mabel White Baptist Church’s pastor for the past seven years.

“First Baptist’s pastor at the time, Emory White, had a daughter named Mabel who wanted to be a missionary. She dedicated her life to that call at a young age, but when she was 12 she passed away due to complications from an appendectomy. Waverly Baptist decided to change its name to Mabel White Memorial Baptist Church to honor her but even more to reflect their dedication to missions and to be known for the same missionary purpose Mabel White had,” he said.

Sheppard said that commitment has lasted through the years in the Southern Baptist congregation.

“We have missions partnerships in Nigeria and are establishing partnerships in Honduras,” he said. “Our efforts are felt in other parts of the world but of course we do a lot of stuff here in the states, too. Our Builders for Christ go every summer to build a church or some structure, and locally we’re involved with outreach ministries and organizations such as the Rescue Mission of Middle Georgia (formerly the Macon Rescue Mission) and feeding ministries.”

Sheppard said a Mabel White ministry called Love Out Loud sends members to work at 25 to 30 different tasks all over town during a specific weekend. He said they do things ranging from painting at the rescue mission and working on projects at area schools to feeding firefighters at their stations and helping the elderly with home projects like roof repairs, wheelchair ramps and lawn care.

During the holiday season, the church puts on the Macon Christmas Festival, an evening of music and entertainment that Sheppard said holds something for everyone to enjoy, as well as brings the message of Christ’s birth.

“Our passion as a church is to provide a place where people can have a life-changing experience with Jesus,” he said. “We say we exist to build lives that glorify God and everything we do is tested through that filter. I think Mabel White offers ministry that can meet real needs in people’s lives regardless of whether they’re young or old, no matter what they’re facing. We want to make a difference in the community. We’ve had glorious days in the past and I believe the best days are still ahead of us.”

To serve the community, Mabel White pioneered Christian broadcasting in the 1950s under the leadership of its pastor for 31 years, Mercer University graduate Jimmy Waters. Today, services can be seen Sundays at 11 a.m. on WXGA-Fox 24 but are also streamed live on the church’s website.

“As I understand it, Jimmy started the television ministry in 1958,” Sheppard said. “It caught on and was kind of a big deal. He did something back then no one else was doing.”

According to public records and published reports, during Water’s tenure, Mabel White grew to almost 4,000 members and his Victory Hour radio broadcasts went worldwide. Waters served as chaplain for community groups including for law enforcement and first responders. He gained the rank of Georgia State Patrol captain as chaplain for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Department of Public Safety.

He served terms as vice president and president of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

Following his death in 2004, former Sen. Saxby Chambliss read into the Capitol Record that Waters “made a significant impact on the lives of many Georgians” and “was not the type of Christian who kept his lamp under a bushel.”

Sheppard said though Mabel White’s pastors and members have made significant contributions to Middle Georgia’s spiritual and general well being through the years, the church also has weathered turbulent times. He said about the time the congregation moved from its long-time location at Eisenhower Parkway to its Bass Road address near Interstate 75, it faced an onslaught of challenges.

“The congregation has certainly withstood their bumps in the road,” Sheppard said. “But I think we’re solidly on the upswing these days. We’re back on the upswing.”

A native of the Florida panhandle, Sheppard said he began preaching as a teenager and his first church was one he and his wife, Gina, started in 1986 in Mexico Beach, Florida.

The two have been married 33 years, have three children, and make their home just outside of Forsyth.

Sheppard said he is chaplain for Forsyth’s Mary Persons High School’s football team.

Sheppard earned a Bachelor of Ministry degree from Florida Baptist Theological College, a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Christian Ministry degree from Southern Baptist School for Biblical Studies.

He served a number of churches in Florida, and prior to coming to Mabel White in 2009, he was a teaching pastor at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

“In the pulpit as a teacher, I try to deliver a well-rounded diet over the course of a year,” he said. “It might be a series on the family, it might be on a particular doctrinal truth or we may take a book from the Bible and work our way through it. Or, we might do a series of messages that deal with topics that connect with needs in people’s lives. Whatever it is, I always want people to have a take-away they can use in their lives right now.”

Sheppard said he is an avid sports fan and outdoorsman, as evidenced by the many hunting trophies on his office/conference room walls. One of the church’s ministries, an annual wild game dinner, reflects his love of hunting and outdoor life.

“Sports and the outdoors — it’s something I’ve always enjoyed,” he said. “My son playing football led to my becoming chaplain at Mary Persons and those sorts of things give me an outlet outside the church’s walls to build relationships with people I might not normally get to interact with. Plus, being chaplain offers the opportunity to invest in the lives of some young guys and get them steered in the right direction.”

In light of that, Sheppard said for three years the church has shifted from a routine vacation Bible school during the summer to a week-long sports camp. The camp brings in area high school and college coaches and other volunteers to coach youngsters in football, soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, karate, cheerleading, dance and other options.

“We decided to go a little different route than doing the same old vacation Bible school,” he said. “Bible teaching still goes on and there’s a large group worship time, but we wanted something different. There’s been great participation for it with more than 300 kids attending.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Mabel White Baptist carries on namesake’s desire to serve God."