Olive Baptist Church was begun in 1831, when the property was in the state of Georgia, and in 1872 the U.S. Congress designated this land as part of Florida. On Tuesday, November 22, 1853, during the Eleventh Annual Session of the Florida Baptist Association held at Olive Baptist Church, a resolution passed declaring it proper, expedient, and practicable to form an association to be styled The Florida Baptist State Convention. William Brauner Cooper (1807-1878), a native of Abbeville, South Carolina, and one of the first missionary Baptist preachers in Florida, and Olive pastor William J. Blewett (1812-1873), a native of Anson County, North Carolina, were influential in promoting the idea of a new state convention. The convention was formed on November 24, 1854, at the home of Richard Johnson Mays near Madison. Olive Baptist Church became a member of the Middle Florida Baptist Association in 1993, and in 2011 the Middle Florida Association had 32 churches while the Florida Baptist State Convention had over one million members with more than 2,900 churches and missions.