FBC Chattahoochee

Contact Lead Pastor Jim Haskell at 404.794.4922 or jimh {at} fbcchat(.)com

Dr. Jim Haskell grew up in Hardeeville, South Carolina, located between Savannah and Hilton Head. His father was a Baptist Pastor for 21 years in Hardeeville. While Jim loved and respected his father, he wanted nothing to do with being a minister so he enrolled at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the summer of 1970.

While at Tech, Jim was a CO-OP student with Union Camp Paper Corporation and Great Dane Trailers, both located in Savannah. He was also a member of the Ramblin Reck Club, CO-OP Club, Student Government, Intramural Sports Assistant and President of the Baptist Student Union. During the summer of 1974 he served as a 10 week Summer Missionary in the Quad City area of Iowa and Illinois for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board (North American Mission Board).

And yes, during that summer God led Jim to understand that ministry was His plan for him. This is contrary to what some of his friends jokingly communicated…that Thermodynamics and Mechanics of Deformable Bodies had sent him to his knees so much that he finally saw the light. Actually, that summer in Davenport, Iowa was the beginning of the development of a heart for helping people know Jesus by leading churches to become relevant witnesses of the love of God in their communities, while at the same time extending themselves to people beyond their normal geographic reach. He began to see the body of Jesus from a “Glocal” perspective that has done nothing but grow through the years and become his passion.

After Jim received his Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree from Tech in the spring of 1975, he enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. There he received three blessings; two he earned and one was a Gift of God. He earned Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry Degrees and God gifted him with a beautiful young lady named Linda to be his partner in ministry. He married way above his gene pool. God Is Good! Jim and Linda have two adult children, Trey and Cari.

God has also been very good to Jim and Linda in their ministry opportunities. After serving as a youth minister for a few years God called them to their first pastoral assignment in 1980. It was to begin a new church in the Dallas, Texas suburbs. Jim has pastored five churches, including First Baptist Chattahoochee, in Texas, Kentucky, Alabama and, of course, Georgia.

One common thread existed in each of the churches he has been led to pastor: there was a need to transition into a more relevant expression of Jesus in a community that had changed. God worked through Jim and Linda to see some miraculous things occur. Jim has pastored churches as small as 20 on his first day in the Dallas suburbs to First Baptist Church Georgetown, Texas (near Austin) where he stayed for 16 years and which grew to over 4,000 members by the time God relocated him. But in each church God moved and worked within the fellowship of obedient Followers of Jesus to make the appropriate changes in order to really make a difference.

In addition to these places of ministry assignment, Jim also has a heart for the world. You can see in the pictures on this page some of the places God has allowed him to lead his churches to make a difference. Jim has touched the lives of people through missions endeavors in China, Japan, Mexico, Venezuela, the poor Black Belt section of Alabama and in New York City where he serves on the Board of Directors for Graffiti Ministries (www.graffitichurch.org) located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

About five years before Jim and Linda came to First Baptist Chattahoochee they began to feel a passion and a call to the city. They were just not sure which city. That it ended up being “back home” in Atlanta is a tremendous blessing for a Yellow Jacket fan. Jim’s gifted areas are visionary and turnaround leadership, preaching (see upcoming messages) and Pastoral Care. He has a passion for the city and desires to help FBCC become even more relevant with the message of God’s love for the people on the Upper West Side and to see that spread throughout Atlanta, primarily inside the perimeter.  Jim serves on the Core Leadership Team of t he Urban Atlanta Impact Initiative www.uaii.info and is leading FBCC in an exciting journey called Mission Upper West Side www.muws.info.  More about MUWS can be found on this web site.

Dr. Haskell’s personal purpose statement is, “My desire is to compassionately lead a church or network of reproducing churches to be worshipping and praying communities of obedient Christ followers. My dream is to lead them to apply a relevant and biblical methodology to reach multiple generations of diverse people locally and globally. This vision includes a call to participate in reseeding our spiritually neglected city cores with churches.”