History

First Baptist Church of Nashville has been a caring community of faith with a heart for the people who live, work, and enjoy downtown for over 200 years.

Click here to download a pdf with an overview of 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.