target new york Why Are There No Free Will Baptists Churches in New York? by Richard Atwood Find out more about the ministry of Free Will Home Missions at www.homemissions.net.

Free Will Baptists are back in New York! Upstate New York was once home to more than 100 Free Will Baptist churches (according to the Free Baptist Cyclopedia), but there haven’t been any Free Will Baptist churches in New York for almost 100 years…until 2006. Last year, a new FWB church began holding services in a Holiday Inn south of Rochester.

David Marks, one of the great FWB evangelists, was born in upstate New York in the early 1800s. Marks made a great impact on the northern movement of Free Will Baptists. He left home at age 15 with almost no money and walked from town to town to preach. He rode one horse over 19,000 miles as an itinerant preacher. He was a pioneer; he helped form the denomination’s first home and foreign mission boards; he published the first Treatise and the first denominational hymnbook; he organized and taught in several schools and seminaries; he was a home missionary to Rochester, and organized FWB churches in other towns.

Another pioneer has arrived in New York. Dana Booth and his wife Betty left family and friends and moved to Rochester to start a church. They are veteran church planters who have already started three FWB churches. While traveling to raise money, Dana met Jim and Sylvia Martin in Alabama. The couple caught the vision and moved to Rochester to help Dana and Betty. The church now meets in a rented building located along a growth corridor. The Rochester metropolitan area currently has a population of 1.3 million people.

As we drove around the area with the Booths, we noticed something—or rather a lack of something–evangelical churches. Dana said, “The people around here are nice folks, but most of them just don’t go to church at all.” Many churches don’t claim to believe the Bible. One of the Booths’ church-going neighbors told them, “The difference between our church and yours is that we don’t believe the Bible is inspired by God.”

The door is open wide for Free Will Baptists to enter this large mission field. David and Marilla Marks, Dana and Betty Booth, Jim and Sylvia Martin are all pioneers who took up the challenge. Will you take up that same challenge and move into the future? 

• New York is the third most populous state in the US with 19,255,000 people (2005 US Census estimate).

• New York City is the largest city in the US with a population of 8,143,000. This is larger than the population of 39 states. (The population of the metro area of New York which includes portions of New Jersey and Connecticut is over 19 million.)

• Other cities in the state of New York with a population of more than 50,000 people include: Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, Syracuse, Albany, New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, Schenectady, and Utica. Every one of these cities need (at least) one Free Will Baptist church.

• Free Will Baptist Home Missions has designated the state of New York as a target area for new church planters.

About the Writer: Richard Atwood is director of missionary assistance for the National Home Missions Department.