About Us

Free Will Baptists trace their lineage to Englishman Thomas Helwys (1575-1616), an Arminian theologian, who believed that Christ died for the sins of the whole world. In Helwys’s words,

“… God hath not in his eternal decree appointed some particular men to be saved and some particular men to be condemned … Christ is given a ransom for all men, yea even for the wicked, that bring swift damnation upon themselves.”

As all Free Will Baptist do, Helwys taught, “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). Much of his understanding of Scripture, came from Reformer Jacobus Arminius, who maintained…

• The total depravity of humanity.
• The prevenient grace of God.
• Christ’s general atonement for the sins of the world by His death on the cross.
• The resistability of grace.
• The security of the believer conditioned first, last, and always on faith.

Helwys put it this way:

“Therefore, let no man presume to think that because he has, or once had grace, therefore he shall always have grace. But let all men have assurance, that if they continue to the end, they will be saved.”

Helwys was more than an Arminian, however. He was also a Baptist, who, along with his friend John Smyth, delineated basic baptistic ideas, such as:

• Believer’s baptism by immersion
• The Lord’s Supper as a memorial
• Two-office church leadership
• Church membership by covenant
• Congregational church government
• Religious liberty without entanglement

Free Will Baptists first sprang up in the American colonies in 1727 under the leadership of Paul Palmer. Known as “the father of Free Will Baptists,” Palmer organized the first Baptist church in North Carolina with 32 “freewillers,” many of which had fled from Virginia due to Anglican persecution. By 1755, the Palmer movement had grown to 20 congregations.

Free Will Baptists came to Tennessee in 1812 under the leadership of Elder Robert Heaton. Planting churches in the greater Nashville area, Heaton taught the same doctrine as Arminius and Helwys before him:

“We believe Jesus Christ, our divine Savior, in person, tasted death for every man and thereby made an atonement for the sin of the whole world, or in other words, made salvation possible for all the fallen family, and that all men may be saved by repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Free Will Baptist churches flourished in the Volunteer State, eventually spreading from the mountains of East Tennessee to the Mississippi River. Those autonomous congregations, organized themselves into regional associations for the cooperative support of the Great Commisison and the Great Commandment.

• 1843: Cumberland Association
• 1850: Toe River Association
• 1865: Original Stone Association
• 1872: Union Association
• 1878: Tennessee River Association
• 1887: Eastern Stone Association
• 1895: Jacks Creek Association
• 1920: Muscle Shoals Stateline Association
• 1957: West Tennessee Association
• 1967: Appalachian Association
• 1970: Northeast Association
• 1975: Liberty Association
• 2008: Smoky Mountain Association
• 2014: Mountain Empire Fellowship

In 1938, the Tennessee State Association of Free Will Baptists organized in Greene County for the purpose of establishing an orphanage, which later became Free Will Baptist Family Ministries.