Cross Church Springdale

[upbeat music]

Welcome to The Rise Leadership Podcast, where we're equipping and inspiring the Cross Church leader.

Whether you're a dream team volunteer, a seminary resident, or a staff member at Cross Church, this podcast is designed to help you grow spiritually, lead with confidence, and make a Christ-centered impact in every area of your life.

Each episode aims to guide you to rise in your calling and empower those around you.

And now, here's today's episode.

Luke leads our adult discipleship team.

He's our discipleship pastor at our Fayetteville campus, and honestly, he's shaping how our church is thinking about discipleship right now.

And, uh, he came to faith right here at University of Arkansas, here at Cross Church, served in ministry here.

I could go to the third pastorate.

I could go to the moment even 40 years ago this month I moved to Northwest Arkansas and became the pastor at the First Baptist Church of Springdale, Arkansas, which is now called Cross Church.

It was a great sunrise.

I mean, I'm telling you, I was so fired up and so excited.

And I was this crazy God-believing leader when I was with them, but I would just be tearing up as I would drive back home, saying, what happened to my first five years of work?

Welcome to the Rise Leadership Podcast, where we're equipping and inspiring the Cross Church leader.

Whether you're a Dream Team volunteer, seminary resident, or staff member at Cross Church, this podcast is designed to help you grow spiritually, lead with confidence, and make a Christ-centered impact in every area of your life.

Each episode aims to guide you to rise in your calling and empower those around you.

And now, here's today's episode.

Yeah, I got that from a movie back in the 80s, but we'll talk about that later.

It was actually El Guapo Felipe.

Cross Church family and Rise listening audience, I am so grateful that you've dialed in for this podcast today.

Welcome today and thank you for joining us on this 104th podcast episode of the Ronnie Floyd Podcast.

This past week in my life was very busy as I had an extraordinary privilege of of doing a major breakout session for the Time to Lead Conference at Cross Church.

Over 120 people joined the breakout, and they came from 62 churches across America.

What is amazing is that that 80-minute experience was personal, powerful, And it was a fantastic time together.

And then this is another matter in 2026.

And this just really came to me over the last three or four months.

That 40 years ago, 40 years ago, before many of you were born, on the final Sunday in October 1, Of 2026, I will have been associated for 40 years with Cross Church.

I served as pastor for 33 years, and now my son, Nick, has become the pastor of what was my first endeavor of operating Cross Church.