Years ago, Steven Anderson planned to send a group of people under the leadership of Tyler Baker, his deacon, to start a church in Jacksonville, FL.
Baker ended up getting fired before this happened, but he moved anyway and started Valiant Baptist Church, a non-trinitarian church.
Anderson wasn’t content to let Baker’s church stand unopposed by the New IFB in Jacksonville, so he soon sent Adam Fannin to lead another church plant, Stedfast Jacksonville. The church was rather successful until January of 2019, when the pastor of Stedfast Fort Worth, Donnie Romero, was removed after moral failure. Since Romero was also pastor of Stedfast Jacksonville, Fannin believed the Jacksonville congregation should be involved in the selection of the next pastor, while Steven Anderson installed Jonathan Shelley and quashed the idea of a vote. Shelley’s first act as pastor was to anathematize and kick out Adam Fannin from his position at Stedfast Jacksonville.
Fannin would go on to start Law of Liberty Baptist Church in Jacksonville, mostly made up of members from Stedfast Jacksonville.
Ben the Baptist recently left Stedfast Jacksonville, where he was quite a presence there, going instead to Stedfast Fort Worth, where Jonathan Shelley pastors.
Now Jonathan Shelley and Steven Anderson have completed transitioning the Jacksonville congregation from being under Stedfast’s authority, to putting them under the authority of Patrick Boyle, pastor at Revival Baptist Church in Orlando, a much closer congregation.
All said and done, there are still three so-called Independent Baptist churches in Jacksonville, Florida, which teach all kinds of unbiblical and anti-baptist teaching:
- Law of Liberty Baptist Church (Adam Fannin)
- Revival Baptist Church Jacksonville (Patrick Boyle)
- Valiant Baptist Church (Tyler Baker)
Below are a couple videos from the channel of “Revival Baptist JAX” about the transition
