REV. PAUL WILL

Paul was born to a teenage mother and his biological father died tragically in a boating accident before he was born. Growing up he did not know his biological father’s family and the only father figure he knew was his grandfather, Pop Pop who helped raise him. Sadly, Pop Pop died suddenly when Paul was only four years old. This event sent the family on a trajectory of aloneness, abuse and separated. Consequently, Paul was misguided and broken with a struggling single parent, which eventually lead to life choices of substance abuse, heroin addiction and criminal behavior culminating in a life sentence without the chance of parole in Louisiana. Thankfully, this was just the beginning of God’s miracle story in Paul’s life.

During the first few weeks of his incarceration, Paul was in his prison cell when a minister walked in and shared the Gospel. In that moment, Paul realized that God was the Father his heart had been aching for his whole life. He also became acutely aware of his sin and need for a Savior. From that moment on, he never looked back, and his ministry began by preaching and teaching about who God is to anyone who would listen. He became a voracious reader of scripture and regularly taught Bible studies. He was known as a Jesus freak when he regularly washed the feet of some of the meanest and most violent inmates at the Angola State Prison.

Because of God’s grace and mercy, during his time at Angola, Paul became a formally educated pastor earning three degrees including a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. God put what the world would call an unobtainable dream on his heart to start a fully constituted church inside the walls of the prison. Being inside a maximum-security prison, this was from all reasonable accounts, an impossible dream. The good news is that Jesus specializes in nevers.

Although the church had been active for many years, the official process of starting Grace Baptist Church began in 2014 when Paul was duly ordained at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Franklinton, Louisiana. The next year, an executive committee went into Angola and unanimously approved for Grace Baptist Church to become an official member of the Washington Parrish Baptist Association. Grace Baptist is still in existence today and maintains its good standing as part of the Southern Baptist Convention.

In September of 2018, Paul received a unanimous recommendation for clemency by the Louisiana Pardon Board. Then in December of that same year, he suffered a massive heart attack and was rushed out for emergency, triple bypass surgery. They discovered that he suffered from the same genetic heart condition that his Pop Pop died from so many years before. Paul likes to tell people that his heart now runs strictly on gratitude.

On August 17, 2020 Governor John Bell Edwards signed Paul’s official Clemency and commuted his life sentence. Paul was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary on December 11th, 2020 and married his bride Amy on Christmas Eve that same year. Together, they formed Paul Will Ministries in 2023 to provide a worldwide platform for Paul to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.