Building on our past, looking towards the future
Nashville First Baptist Church has been a caring community of faith with a heart for the people who live, work, and enjoy downtown for 200 years. We connect people to Christ, His church, and to one another for the sake of the gospel. Sunday, April 11, 2021 we are celebrating our two hundredth anniversary as a church. This celebration was postponed from July 2020 due to COVID19. As we continue to see signs of hope on our horizon, we want to express our gratitude for God’s providence in blessing our church.
Join us as we celebrate God’s work through us by looking at some of our history articles.
Our History
The Overcoming Church: Starting Over with Only Five Members
On July 22,1820, our church was founded as the Baptist Church of Nashville. The church had thrived under its first pastor, Reverend Richard Dabbs, a seasoned church planter from Virginia. The Baptist Church of Nashville had grown and prospered to the extent that it was able to build a handsome church building where the present-day Nashville Public Library now faces the state capitol. Read full article.
The Overcoming Church: Taken and Reoccupied
The congregation of the First Baptist Church of Nashville had just gathered for worship on Sunday morning, February 11, 1862, when the news came that, after a bloody four-day battle, Confederate Fort Donelson had fallen to the Union Army. Situated on the Cumberland River twenty-five miles west of Clarksville, the fort was the last bastion of defense keeping the Federals away from Confederate Nashville. The rumor was that Union Army General Buell planned to set up batteries of cannon across the river in Edgefield to bombard our capitol city into submission. Read full article.
The Overcoming Church: Rebuilt and Preserved, Lost and Found
The third building of the First Baptist Church of Nashville, dedicated in 1886 at Seventh and Broad, had become inadequate to hold the congregation that had grown so much under the 34-year leadership of Pastor W. F. Powell. When H. Franklin Paschall arrived to be pastor in 1956, he was told by the leadership that the church should erect a new and enlarged sanctuary. As the church approached such a bold change, the dilemma was faced: shall we expand the old or replace it? Read full article.