For over 150 years Annville Baptist Church has proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ in her current location. She rose from the ashes of the Civil War. Migrants from Tennessee brought their message of the gospel with them as they migrated to this area.
Some of our charter members were here before Jackson County was even organized in 1858. Some of those members were part of Mt. Gilead Baptist Church, which was then in Estill County and the New Hope Baptist Church in Owsley County.
Soon after the church organized in September 1866, the church exploded in growth. They established the Friendship Baptist Church in Moores Creek in 1869 at the home of Dr. Samuel Johnston, Jr. In addition, they helped organize several churches in the area and one in Clay County, Kentucky.
The Church at Chinquapin Rough was renamed Annville Baptist Church in 1937. She has weathered good times and hard times, such as a small pox epidemic in 1916 and a flu epidemic in 1919. She has also been been through world wars, several conflicts, and economic depressions. The church has experienced the best life can offer as well as the worst. She has labored through both great revivals and downturns.
The church still stands in the community as a beacon of hope for all to see and hear. Truly, the church is a testimony of a “gentle shower of divine grace.” To God be the Glory.
–Taken from Ch. 32 of “A Gentler Shower of Divine Grace” by Roger Williams