MOULTRIE, Ga. — The last time many folks in Colquitt County saw Terrence Jones on the field at Mack Tharpe Stadium was on Nov. 26, 1999, when the Packers defeated Warner Robins 7-3 in the second round of the state football playoffs.

Jones will return to the field — where he played so well at quarterback for the Packers in 1998 and 1999 — when he helps lead the Turn 2017 community revival at the stadium beginning at 5 p.m. Saturday.

The event, sponsored by the Colquitt County Pastors Prayer Group, is scheduled to run through 8 p.m.

It will feature music and singing and a message from Jones, who is the pastor at Strong Tower at Washington Park in Montgomery, Ala.

A barbecue picnic will be held on the field following the service. Plans are to feed some 2,500 people.

More than 30 Colquitt County churches have banded together to sponsor and get the word out about the event. Bright yellow signs around the community have promoted Turn 2017 for several months.

Pastor John Eubanks of Friendship Alliance Church has said that he believes that “the only way to unify the community is through the church,” he said.

Jones was raised in Norman Park, son of Alfred and DaLaonne Jones, and grew up in the church.

His father is the pastor at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and has been the minister of music and a deacon at Mother Easter Baptist Church.

Many also might know Alfred Jones as a teacher of radiologic technology at Southern Regional Tech. He was named the school’s Instructor of the Year in 2014 and before that was a staff radiographer at Colquitt Regional Medical Center for 24 years.

Alfred and DaLaonne’s oldest son was an outstanding high school athlete.

He started at quarterback for the Jim Hughes-coached Colquitt County teams that went 10-4 in 1998 and 11-2 in 1999, when the Packers won the region championship and had an 11-game winning streak that was snapped in the second round of the state playoffs.

A consistent and productive player, Jones completed 183-of-253 passes for 2,760 yards and 25 touchdowns in his career. He was intercepted just five times and was a second-team All-Region 1-AAAA selection as a senior.

Jones went on to play at Tuskegee University, where he was part of the Golden Tigers national championship team as a freshman and later was an All-Conference quarterback.

He graduated with a degree in computer science and remained at Tuskegee for a year and helped coach the quarterbacks.

Also while at Tuskegee he was the Fellowship of Christian Athletes president for two years and became involved in Campus Outreach, an interdenominational ministry located on campuses on four continents.

While involved in Campus Outreach in 2006, he met Thais Remond. They married and now have five children.

It was about that time that Jones was called to the ministry and he and his family moved to California, where he studied at The Masters Seminary. He received his Master’s of Divinity degree in 2011.

While at the seminary, he served as the coordinator for Church and Urban Ministries at The Master’s College and as a professor at the Los Angeles Bible Training School near Watts, Calif.

Five years ago, he moved closer to home, becoming the pastor at Strong Tower at Washington Park in an area of Montgomery that has a median income of $10,000 and where 39 percent of the residents over 18 do not have a high school diploma.

Interviewed for a story that appeared last week in The Alabama Baptist, Jones said, “As we were praying about what to do, we realized, ‘Why would we not come here to help? There is such a huge need.”

Meeting in a partially finished gymnasium, Strong Tower’s congregation has grown from 25 to 150.

“We don’t have a fancy building, but we do preach the Bible,” Jones told The Alabama Baptist.

The congregation is estimated to be about 45 percent African-American, 45 percent white and 10 percent Latino.

Church members have taken mission trips to Thailand, have served in Africa, Ecuador, Haiti, New York and in Clarkston, Ga., and next week the church is scheduled to play host to a free medical clinic.

Under its energetic young pastor, Strong Tower has a five-year plan that includes building a multi-purpose facility, hosting an extension site of a job-training program, beginning an after-school program to help reach the 2,000 youngsters that live in a three-mile radius of the church; and planting another church.