At 7777 Concord Road in Brentwood, Tennessee, Brentwood Baptist Church is a nine-campus Baptist family known for combining one shared mission with ministry shaped for each community. Its work spans worship in English and Mandarin Chinese, Deaf and Hispanic ministries, special-needs care, leadership development, and local and global sending. The church's identity is expressed in one sentence: to engage the whole person with the whole gospel of Jesus Christ anywhere, anytime, with anybody.
From a Franklin Road Mission to Nine Campuses
Brentwood Baptist began as a mission rather than a conventional church start. Sponsored by Woodmont Baptist Church, it met in the chapel of the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home on Franklin Road. Sixty-five people attended the first worship gathering on September 8, 1968, and a full schedule including Sunday School and Training Union followed that October. The mission voted to become a church in February 1969, adopted the Brentwood Baptist Church name in March, and was constituted on Easter Sunday, April 13. Its roots reach to 1968, while 1969 marks its formal beginning as a church.
Bill Wilson became the full-time pastor in March 1970. Members approved construction on Franklin Road in 1971, and the first sanctuary-gymnasium opened on March 5, 1972. Brentwood Young Children's School began that September with 50 children. A larger sanctuary hosted its first worship gathering on January 6, 1980, and the second phase of the building program was completed without debt in 1988.
The church bought 30 acres on Concord Road in 1996, broke ground there in 2000, raised a steeple and placed a cross on it in 2002, and dedicated the new Brentwood campus that June. A wing containing the Connection Center, Connection Cafe, and Connection Bookstore was added in 2009. Regional expansion then accelerated: Station Hill launched in 2010; Avenue South, West Franklin, and Woodbine joined in 2014; Lockeland Springs became the sixth campus in 2016; Nolensville and Harpeth Heights followed in 2018; and West End in Columbia became the ninth campus in 2023. Membership reached 10,000 in 2016.
One Church, Nine Neighborhood Campuses
Brentwood Baptist's leadership recognized the value of regional campuses in distinct communities throughout the greater Nashville area. The church now gathers at these locations:
- Brentwood: 7777 Concord Rd., Brentwood, with Sunday worship at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00.
- Avenue South: 901 Acklen Ave., Nashville, with Sunday worship at 9:00 and 10:45.
- Harpeth Heights: 8063 Hwy. 100, Nashville, with Sunday worship at 10:30.
- Lockeland Springs: 1601 Holly Street, Nashville, with Sunday worship at 10:30.
- Nolensville: 7388 Nolensville Road, with Sunday worship at 8:00, 9:15, and 10:45.
- Station Hill: 8083 Station Hill Drive, Spring Hill, with Sunday worship at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00.
- West End: 900 W. 7th Street, Columbia, with Sunday worship at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00.
- West Franklin: 700 New Highway 96 West, Franklin, with Sunday worship at 9:00 and 10:30.
- Woodbine: 29 Whitsett Rd., Nashville, with Life Groups at 9:15 and worship at 10:30.
The mission, vision, and message are shared across all nine campuses. Each also has room to contextualize its ministry for the people around it and is led by its own campus pastor. That combination of a common identity and local responsibility gives Brentwood Baptist a structure designed for church multiplication rather than a single congregation copied from one place to another.
Sunday at Brentwood and Around the Campuses
Three worship gatherings are offered at the Brentwood address each Sunday, at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00. The main sanctuary is primarily English. Woodbine has a distinct rhythm, with Life Groups meeting at 9:15 before its 10:30 worship gathering, while the other campuses vary between two and three Sunday services.
The Chinese Ministry adds a Mandarin-centered pattern to the Brentwood campus. Chinese Sunday worship runs from 9:30 to 10:30 in Baskin Chapel, followed by Chinese Sunday classes from 11:00 to noon in Rooms 2140 A and B. Childcare and youth Bible study are provided in Room 2140 C during that class period. Friday fellowship meets from 6:30 to 9:00 in Room 2103, and the ministry also maintains Chinese-language conversation through WeChat.
Discipleship, Groups and Multiplication
Brentwood Baptist says its mission is to engage the whole person with the whole gospel of Jesus Christ anywhere, anytime, with anybody. Its vision is to fuel a disciple-making and church-multiplication movement in Middle Tennessee and beyond, sharing the gospel with millions, engaging community needs by the thousands, and building a network of more than 100 healthy churches.
Five values shape that mission:
- Gospel First and Always
- Intentional Innovation
- Crossing Cultures
- Uniquely Called
- Multiplication Matters
The church supports discipleship through adult groups, campus groups, connections ministries, groups and care ministries, college and young-adult gatherings, single-adult ministry, and Bible study. Its Foundations curriculum began in 2014 with the publication Spiritual Practices. A Daily Chronological Bible Reading Plan, the Sermon Notes podcast, the Steeple People podcast, and the Purposeful Family podcast also support ongoing formation. The desired pattern is contagious multiplication: disciples making disciples, groups forming more groups, and churches giving rise to churches.
Ministry for Children, Students and Families
Children's and preschool ministries are served by dedicated directors, ministers, coordinators, and preschool specialists. Brentwood Baptist also operates Mother's Day Out and Brentwood Young Children's School. Childcare coordinators support the church's care for children, while the Chinese Sunday class provides childcare and youth Bible study alongside classes for children and teenagers.
Next Gen and Student ministries serve younger students, while Kairos has gathered young adults since 2004. College and young adults, single adults, women, and senior adults each have dedicated ministry teams. Foster and Adoption Ministry provides another family-oriented avenue of service, and the Chinese Ministry emphasizes strengthening marriage, raising children, and building loving homes according to biblical teaching.
Vacation Bible School is another churchwide program. These ministries reflect the church's conviction that discipleship belongs in homes, classrooms, student gatherings, and intergenerational community rather than in a single Sunday setting.
Worship, Music and the Concord Road Campus
The Brentwood campus grew from its sanctuary-gymnasium and larger sanctuary into a larger worship and ministry complex. The 2009 wing added the Connection Center, Connection Cafe, and Connection Bookstore. Renovation work on the Worship Center was completed in 2022, continuing the physical development that began when the congregation left its Franklin Road home.
Music is supported by worship ministers, instrumentalists, a choir, an orchestra, worship coordinators, and production teams. The Worship and Arts Academy provides another avenue for developing musical gifts. Together, these ministries support a worship culture centered on Jesus, Scripture, and the church's shared call to worship Him.
Special Needs, Mental Health and Congregational Care
Brentwood Baptist began a Special Needs Ministry in 2016. The Rowen Glenn Center, completed in 2022, was built specifically to expand that ministry's space. A Special Needs Day Program, a programming director, a ministry director, and several coordinators support the work alongside families and volunteers.
Mental Health is listed as an additional ministry alongside congregational care, which includes care ministers, a care coordinator, and a Congregational Care Counselor. Foster and Adoption Ministry also extends the church's support to families. These ministries reflect the statement that Christians should show love through relationships and service and should work to provide for the orphaned, needy, abused, aged, helpless, and sick.
Deaf, Chinese and Hispanic Ministries
Deaf ministry began in 1984, when worship was interpreted for Deaf congregants. A separate Deaf worship service started in 1992, and a self-sufficient Deaf Church was established in 1994. The Inman Chapel was dedicated in 2003. In 2014, the Deaf Theological Center opened to train Deaf students from around the world, with six students in its first graduating class. DeafGo later brought theological training, missionary sending, and resource development under one name, and the first version of the DeafGo Bible app appeared in 2016. Aric Randolph has served as Deaf Church pastor since 2013.
The Chinese Ministry, led by Matthew Wang, serves Chinese people and family members in the greater Nashville area, including cross-cultural families. Its members are primarily families with children ranging from infants to college students. Mandarin worship, Sunday classes, Friday fellowship, and WeChat conversation are paired with a stated mission to proclaim the good news about Jesus, disciple fellow believers, strengthen marriage, raise children, and build strong families.
The Brentwood Baptist Hispanic Ministry completes the church's named international ministries alongside the Deaf Church and Chinese Ministry. Together, these congregations embody the church's value of crossing cultures and its conviction that the gospel is for all people.
Serving Middle Tennessee and Sending Across the World
Local mission work involves more than 25 ministry partners addressing poverty, education, healthcare, food insecurity, child vulnerabilities, and international communities. The church's long history also includes a mobile Medical Dental Unit, reflecting its emphasis on meeting practical needs alongside spiritual needs. Community Missions Ministry coordinates opportunities to serve locally, while middle and high school students can take part through designated student leaders.
Mission Journeys take teams around the world for a defined period of service. Work has included medical clinics, pastor training, and sports ministry in places such as Brazil, London, and Ukraine. The central aim on these journeys is to share the good news of Christ. Members and non-members may participate, and most local opportunities are open to all ages even when a particular partner has its own guidelines.
Global Workers serve through short-, mid-, and long-term assignments in Europe, East and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and North America. Their work includes evangelism, discipleship, church planting, leadership development, and humanitarian aid. Some work specifically among Deaf communities, including theological education and church planting, while other workers train leaders, create resources for unreached people groups, or serve alongside churches in rapidly changing communities.
International Crisis Relief and Disaster Response extend the church's sending life during crises. Disaster Response teams clean up fallen trees, provide roof tarping, and help rebuild homes after storms. These ministries embody the church's statement that missions combine verbal witness with Christian lifestyle and service in harmony with the gospel.
Leaders, Church Planters and Ministry Training
Senior Pastor Jay Strother leads Brentwood Baptist alongside Senior Executive Pastor Brian Coates. Aaron Bryant serves as Lead Campus Pastor for the North Region, John Joseph leads the South Region, Jay Fennell leads the Brentwood Region, and Bill Ferrell oversees central support. Campus leaders include David Hannah at Lockeland Springs, Brandon Hays at Harpeth Heights, and Brandon Abbott at West End. Darrel Girardier leads Ministry Resources, while ministers and directors oversee missions, groups, worship, leadership development, stewardship, family formation, and care.
The Middle Tennessee Initiative began in 2014 as a church-multiplication strategy addressing poverty, healthcare, and education. Its NEXT campaign raised $14.4 million in pledges toward a two-year, $17 million goal. That emphasis continues through the Acts 1:8 Ministry Plan and a vision of 100 or more healthy churches.
Brentwood Baptist's two-year Ministry Residency combines cohort learning, spiritual formation, supervised experience, and practical work within the church. Tracks include church planting, pastoral ministry, worship leadership, missions, and disciple-making. The Center for Christian Coaching, EQUIP Seminary partnership, bivocational residency, TNT, and leadership-development ministry create additional training pathways for people serving in ministry.
What Brentwood Baptist Believes
Brentwood Baptist teaches that the Bible is God's true and perfect Word, the center of Christian union, and the supreme standard for human conduct and belief. It confesses one living and true God, eternal and triune, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is affirmed as fully God and fully man, born of the Virgin Mary, without sin, crucified, raised from the dead, ascended, and now the mediator who will return in power and glory.
Salvation is offered freely to those who receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior through repentance and faith. The church describes salvation as regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification, with the Holy Spirit convicts, regenerates, comforts, and empowers believers. The mission of Christians is to make disciples of all nations through witness, service, and the preaching of the gospel.
The church describes a New Testament church as an autonomous congregation of baptized believers associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel. Ultimate authority rests with the membership in congregational governance. Its scriptural offices are pastor or elder or overseer and deacon. Both men and women are affirmed as gifted for service, while the office of pastor, elder, or overseer is limited to qualified men.
Believer's baptism is immersion in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience in which members memorialize Christ's death and anticipate his return. The first day of the week is affirmed as the Lord's Day for worship and spiritual devotion. Brentwood Baptist also teaches the importance of Christian education, peaceful cooperation, religious liberty, care for the vulnerable, protection of human life, and the family as a foundational institution.
Its stewardship teaching says that God owns everything and people manage what he entrusts to them. Christians are instructed to serve with their time, talents, and possessions, to give cheerfully and regularly, and to use generosity for the advancement of Christ's work and the welfare of others. These convictions connect worship, discipleship, care for people, and the church's sending ministry.
Giving That Fuels Gospel Conversations
Brentwood Baptist teaches that tithing, defined as giving 10 percent of gross income, is the standard to which Christians should aspire. If someone cannot give 10 percent, the church encourages beginning, giving consistently, and growing. Giving options include cash or checks, appreciated stock, a traditional IRA, a gift through a will, and recurring or one-time online contributions. The church also offers a Brentwood Baptist mobile app for giving.
The church's stewardship theology says generosity resembles God, directs the heart away from earthly things, and advances the Great Commission. Its resources are used to share the gospel and engage community needs in Middle Tennessee and beyond. Giving is framed not as a way to earn salvation, but as an essential part of sanctification and a response of gratitude to God.
The Whole Gospel Across Brentwood and Middle Tennessee
Brentwood Baptist's story stretches from 65 people in a Franklin Road chapel to nine campuses, additional Deaf, Chinese, and Hispanic ministries, and mission work spanning multiple continents. Its shared conviction is that worship of Jesus, formation in Scripture, relationships, service, leadership development, and multiplication belong together. That is the life of Brentwood Baptist Church in Brentwood and across Middle Tennessee.