Our History

A Free Will Baptist Mission was started at the Aurora YMCA in September 1961. There were five present for the first service with seven present in the evening. After six weeks, the Mission moved to the East Central High School and met in the Little Theater Room until 1962. The Mission then moved to the Odd Fellow's Hall where a Free Will Baptist Church was organized on November 11, 1962. At this time the church had grown to around 30 in Sunday morning attendance.

There were nineteen charter members. Tom Slamans and William R. Bain were ordained as deacons of the church. Charles Waggoner, James Boggs and Don Galloway were elected as the first trustees. Rev. William Buster, who was instrumental in the organization of the Mission, became the first pastor. He soon felt led to organize a church in Elgin, IL and Dr. W. Stanley Mooneyham, then associated with the National Association of Evangelicals in Wheaton, IL, became interim pastor. It was under his leadership that the church purchased the property at the corner of Butterfield and Farnsworth Roads. Rev. Gerald Mangham, a student attending Northern Baptist Seminary in Lombard, IL, followed Dr. Mooneyham as pastor.

In October of 1964, Rev. James Walker, a recent graduate of Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, TN, became the first full-time pastor. In the winter of 1967, the church began a Bond Program under the leadership of Dr. Billy A. Melvin, Executive Secretary of the National Association of Free Will Baptists in Nashville, TN.

In the summer of 1968, the church moved into the first phase of their building program, a chapel and five classrooms. When the congregation moved into its own facilities, new dimensions of outreach were possible and the church enjoyed a good period of ministry under Pastor Walker. A year later Pastor Walker left to accept a pastorate of the South Roxana Free Will Baptist church and Dr. Melvin became interim pastor. He served the church for a year before Larry Montgomery, a pastor in Georgia, was elected as pastor.

Pastor Montgomery served eight years at Butterfield during which time several noteworthy developments took place. There was spiritual and numerical growth, purchase of a parsonage, and erection of our two-story educational building and development of a solid financial base. It was during Pastor Montgomery’s last two years that the church experienced such a steady growth that two morning services were necessary. In the fall of 1978, Pastor Montgomery accepted a call to the Hollywood Free Will Baptist church in Hollywood, FL and Dr. Melvin again became interim pastor.

In September 1979, the church called Rev. J. Reford Wilson, former Director of Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions and Professor of Missions at Hillsdale College in Moore, OK. Pastor Wilson served for eleven years with many conversions and additions to the church family. During his tenure, the church name was changed to Butterfield Community Church. In June 1990, Pastor Wilson retired from the pastorate and moved to Oklahoma.

Rev. Daryl Ellis came to Butterfield in August 1990. He moved from Nashville, TN, where he pastored Cross Timbers Free Will Baptist Church for four years. He served until August 31, 2005.

In September, 2004 we moved to the North Aurora Activity Center after selling the building on Butterfield Road. Construction has begun on a new facility in the Tanner Trails subdivision in North Aurora. The church was renamed "Tanner Trails Community Church".

In September 2006, Pastor David Womack was called as our new pastor and we moved into the new facility on Tanner Road.