Leading a Growing Church: A Dialogue with Thom Rainer and Ronnie Floyd

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to be a guest on Thom Rainer’s weekly Rainer on Leadership podcast. We have provided the edited transcript below, or you can listen to or download the podcast for free on Thom Rainer’s site, here.

 Transcript:

Hello, welcome to today’s episode of Rainer on Leadership for the local church and the workplace.  I’m your host Jonathan Howe, and always, I’m joined by Thom Rainer, the President and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources.

TR:      I am always amazed when I look at this podcast title when it says Rainer on Leadership because I’m saying what do I know about leadership?  And every now and then we get a guest that comes in that really knows a lot about leadership and Jonathan I’m not talking about you, I’m not talking about me.  I’m talking about our special guest, Ronnie Floyd.

Jonathan, you’re going to introduce Ronnie a little bit more.  He’s the President of the Southern Baptist Convention; he’s the pastor or Cross Church.  There’s so many things that he is leading, so many initiatives, books he’s reading, written.  Ronnie, thank you for being here.

RF:      Thank you Thom.  It is a great to be with you and Jonathan.  I am a chronic listener of this podcast, so I’m really, I’m really honored and humbled to be here with such great men.  Thank you for the privilege.

TR:      Thanks Ronnie.  Give us a little broader introduction, Jonathan.

JH:      Dr. Ronnie Floyd has been the pastor for over 36 years at Cross Church.  He teaches principles from the Bible that encourage and uplift thousands of people all over the world via TV, the internet, podcasts, radio, speaking engagements, and books, and since 1986, like we said, he has served as the Senior Pastor at Cross Church Northwest Arkansas.  In 2014 Dr. Floyd was elected the President of the Southern Baptist Convention.

TR:      Ronnie, this past Monday I was in your territory and I was visiting at Walmart, and visiting with some of the executives there, and I just looked around at houses that had been built, and houses that were built, the leadership is not only at that organization, but you’ve got Tyson, you’ve got other corporate headquarters and you’ve got so many that have been attracted as a result.  You have become a church that is a leader of leaders, and you are the leader of that church.  Give us a little background of your journey at Cross Church, and tell us some of the things that have happened there.

RF:      28 years ago, I went to what was then First Baptist Church of Springdale and the Lord really blessed the church immeasurably.  It moved into a new worship center in 1988 that God seemingly used to ignite us forward in a way that was unprecedented in our history.  And then it was probably in 1995 when God really did a powerful work in our church spiritually, which really ignited us into a real missional vision of reaching Northwest Arkansas, America, and the world for Jesus Christ.  13 years ago we went to multi-site.  That changed everything, and what most people don’t understand about Northwest Arkansas, Thom and Jonathan, is that it is the home of Walmart, it is the home of J.B. Hunt, it is the home of Tyson Foods, and also the home of University of Arkansas. There servicing Walmart  areabout 12 to 14 hundred national and international companies.

TR:      Wow.

RF:      Because it is their largest account.

TR:      Yea.

RF:      And so with that I just always tell people, eat more chicken, use trucks more, and go to Walmart a lot, and every now and then if you have anything in you, root for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks.

TR:      Hey, 3 out of 4, 4 out of 5 ain’t bad.  [LAUGHTER]

RF:      For Alabama boys I understand fully.  I know that’s a stretch for both of you brothers.  I know.

TR:      That’s great.  Now, tell, tell us a little bit more about this move to multi-campus you said it just changed everything.  Give us a little more insight into that.

RF:      Well 13 years ago we began a campus we call Pinnacle Hills, and it just exploded.  It is about seven or eight minutes from the Walmart headquarters, about four minutes from J.B. Hunt headquarters.  Springdale is right down the road, our Springdale location is right down the road, probably half a mile from the Tyson Corporation.

TR:      Wow.

RF:      And and we’re about 15, about 20 minutes from Springdale to the University of Arkansas.  So 13 years ago we moved to the Pinnacle Hills area, which was a new, emerging area that the Lord just really brought in the region.  It changed the whole face and the front door of Northwest Arkansas in many ways.  The airport began to really take hold.  We just were there when nothing was there, Thom.  And God just put us at the right place at the right time, and I mean it just has blown up.  And so that campus took off, and then right at four years ago we started Fayetteville congregation, where my son, Nick is the pastor.  And so we began that process, and when that happened, that thing has just, it’s five minutes from the University of Arkansas, it has just exploded!  And so that is encouraging and that is when we changed our name to Cross Church because before that we were First Baptist Church of Springdale, and the Church at Pinnacle Hills, and you can only do that so long.  [LAUGHTER]  And so we really had to do that, and then we had a revitalization project that came to us out of another area of Fayetteville, and then we just started a campus in Neosho, Missouri.  Really the answer of the call of a few faithful folks who really asked us to come and help.

JH:      So you’ve got five different campuses now?

RF:      We really do, yea.

JH:      And the campuses are probably more unique in their style?

RF:      Very, that’s right.

JH:      You mentioned the Fayetteville campus, that’s a in a strip mall.  That’s like an anchor space in a strip mall in Fayetteville.  A really large space, but not it’s own self-sustaining campus like Pinnacle Hills or Springdale.

RF:      That’s correct.

JH:      And then you mentioned the College Avenue is a small revitalization project and Neosho, probably very similar type thing.

RF:      Yea, yea.  It’s just, it’s really amazing you know, church has so changed and I’ve heard y’all do a podcast relating to church worship centers, and the building usages, and you know, I saw all that happening, and I began to really study before we started Fayetteville what could happen.  And what’s really remarkable is that we have  this space that we lease.  It’s 15,000 square feet, and, and I’m telling you that campus last week had just under 2400 people on it.

TR:      Wow.

RF:      And it’s all about multiples, and it’s about where you’re located, and it’s about who’s teaching the Word, and God is using of course, Nick in a phenomenal way.

TR:      Man, just to hear that sends chills down me.  Now if you ever listen to Ronnie Floyd, and if you listen to Ronnie Floyd or read Ronnie Floyd for five minutes, 10 minutes, pastors and other leaders are going to hear about spiritual awakening.  You’re going to hear about prayer and fasting.  Give us a little bit about your story, where that has become your heart and your passion and the message I think I hear more frequently from Ronnie Floyd than anything.

RF:      Well thank you.  There’s no question, probably in college, God really began that in my heart, and developed it through the years of course through life and through challenges and through pastoring and through leadership, through hurt, through rejection, as a pastor periodically.  And then my wife had cancer in 1990, in fact she’ll be a cancer survivor, Thom and Jonathan, for 25 years this January.

TR:      That is a story I did not know about.

RF:      It’s been 25 years ago.  She had breast cancer and God has used her in so many ways around that, and obviously we were young at that point, very young, and God just really moved dramatically in our lives.  Fasting has been a part of my life since college.  It obviously has developed through the years to being all kinds of things. I’ve talked about it.  I’ve written about it. I’ve testified about it, and, and God has just put deeply on my heart that the greatest need in the church is a spiritual move of God that with the manifested presence of God is just permeating the church.  And then the need of America today is a spiritual awakening, a time when God so comes on the country where millions of people come to Christ.  It’s happened before in our history.  It’s time for it to happen again, and that’s my heart.

TR:      Wow.  This is airing in the middle of December, and we look back a little over a month ago and there was this pivotal election and yea, we can get very political on it, we can talk about the Republicans gaining the majority and what the message was, but what I heard through all of this, Ronnie, was that our nation has a hunger for something different.

RF:      That’s right.

TR:      Our nation has a hunger that is, there’s a void, to use a double metaphor, there’s a void and any politics cannot fill that when it’s all said and done they want to see not just America make a difference, but God make a difference through us, so, keep that message going.

RF:      Well thank you.

TR:      I don’t think I could stop you.  [LAUGHTER]

RF:      Well thanks Thom, but I tell you what the thing that’s so encouraging to me is, and I think what you just mentioned, the most recent election, it shows that people are desperate and it also shows that, of what I have said for a couple of months now, everywhere I go people are understanding we can’t fix ourselves.  Something’s going on and we can’t fix ourselves.  You look at the crises in the last 120 days in this nation and world, and I’m telling you, it shows dramatically our great need for something new and something fresh.

TR:      Wow.  To change the subject and just shift just a moment you have had a heart for the millennial generation, different boundaries of what those dates are, mine are 1980 to 2000, but these young adults that are now becoming leaders in different places, what do you see on the horizon for millennials, specifically as it relates to local churches?

RF:      Well I believe that local churches had better get ready for a new kind of leader.  I think they have to get ready to do what they can within our own churches to become more friendly to that generation, whatever that may mean.  Y’all talk about that quite often.  I think also that we have to always keep our commitment in the local church of being a New Testament church as multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic.  I think that’s real critical to me.  I don’t ever see in the book of Acts anywhere that there was a one kind of people church.

TR:      Right.

RF:      And so while we really lift up the need for that, I think that’s important.  I tell you what I really believe is the great need for training up leaders, especially these millennial pastors, millennial staff members, millennial leaders in the church to become true men and women of God who are real churchmen, who have a strong commitment to theological balance, but to an acceleration towards the completion of the Great Commission.

TR:      That’s good.

RF:      And if we can do that, then I’m telling you we’re going to make a difference.

JH:      I know you’ve done that and started the Cross Church School of Ministry, and that’s kind of something that’s coming from your heart for millennials.

RF:      Right.

JH:      Tell us a little bit about how that works, and I know that’s the sponsor we’ve had along before.

RF:      Well thank you.

JH:      Thank you for sponsoring the podcast, the Cross Church School of Ministry that you guys are doing out of the church up there.

RF:      We started it a little over a year ago; in fact we’re in our second year. We called a man who had been with me before, has an earned doctorate who was pastoring a church just under a thousand; his name is Dr. Jeff Crawford.  Jeff is highly gifted.  He’s been with me before, great teacher of God’s Word, great leader, and he came on to help formulate this with me.  The vision is this, to give and to provide a one-year residency to prepare leaders for life, ministry, and gospel advancement globally.  That’s where we stay.  That’s what we talk about.  So really we believe just like doctors have a residency, pastors are one of the few groups who don’t ever have residencies, that’s why there’s such a high failure rate.

TR:      That’s exactly right.

RF:      And that’s a real tragedy, and so we’re not competing with academia, we’re complimentary to academia.  We can do what academics, academia cannot do, and academia can do what we really cannot do, nor do we choose that we want to do, but what we do is we’ve established partnerships, relationships with universities, seminaries that are university-driven, or Christian-driven, and these guys and girls can come to us and they can gain academic hours at their bachelor’s level, master’s level, we’re even talking about another level in relationship towards getting it, just by them coming to be with us they can fulfill a church planting internship with us.  They determine their own track of ministries.  They say, let’s say, I want to be a student pastor, I want to be a worship pastor, I want to be this or this and we establish customized tracks.  Our first graduating class had 10; right now we have 18 in our second year.

TR:      That’s great.

RF:      Two are international.  We have five that are married.  The rest are single.

TR:      Well the good news not only do they sponsor, but for those who have come to the podcast via my website, we have all the link information so that we can find out a lot more about it.

RF:      Thank you for that.

TR:      You cannot leave this podcast until I ask you some things about that, which is dear to my heart and to yours, and it’s a relationship with your sons.  You’ve talked about Nick, just tell us, tell us about your boys.  Tell us what’s going on. I’m an introvert so this isn’t social time.  This is something that is really a passion to me about making family that kind of priority.  Tell us about them.

RF:      I understand.  Thom, I can remember the very day, I can remember where I was; I was about to return to church on an afternoon to go to a deacon’s meeting.  I went home to see my children, they were young, and I was in another church.  God was blessing the church immeasurably, but there were always challenges too, just like in every church.  And I determined at a certain stop sign, I will never again from this point on, sacrifice my family on the altar of ministry success.

TR:      Wow.  What age were your children at that point?

RF:      My children were like really young.  I would say probably, I think when we moved Josh was in kindergarten, and Nick was 3 or 4.

TR:      Wow.

RF:      And so with that you know we started doing things, every Friday I take off with Jeana.  We have done that for all these years.  Obviously, I never missed certain things for the boys.  I still try not to.  Very challenging now. I’m a grandfather of six, so that’s a little hard to keep up with that group.

TR:      I understand.

RF:      And so, but I do my best. But anyway Josh is the head football coach at Hewitt Trussville High School in the greater Birmingham area, just took that job.

TR:      I know it well.

RF:      And a great school, going to the playoffs for the first time, so we’re grateful.  And, he has three sons, and then Nick  has been on our team now for a little over five years.  He has his bachelor’s, master’s doctorate degree, and is a teacher and preacher of God’s Word.  Very gifted leader, humble leader.  Both of my boys have had enormous success.  Josh has won state championships, Nick has this booming church, probably preaches to as many college students as, I don’t know who else preaches to that many more around the country.

TR:      Right.

RF:      And so with it, the Lord’s just blessed them.  And it really comes back to a commitment to the Lord, a commitment to family, and not letting that be interrupted by anything.

TR:      That’s a good word.  I, boy I hope that is heard well by the pastors and the church staff members, and by anybody who has family as a priority.

JH:      You mentioned earlier the multi-generational and multi-ethnic churches and the need for that, but one of the ways churches can do that and facilitate that is by hiring and raising up multi-ethnic leadership.  And I know that’s something that you guys have done at Cross Church.  Tell us a little bit about that and how important that is to creating that multi-ethnic, multi-generational atmosphere.

RF:      Well we really went and hired whom we felt was the best that God was leading us towards, and, our worship pastor is Julio Arriola, and…

JH:      We were with him at an event earlier this year.

TR:      I’ve been with him a few times and he is incredible!  Yes, phenomenal.

RF:      He really is phenomenal, and you know what’s really amazing is, guys, 12 years ago he couldn’t speak the English language.

JH:      Wow.

RF:      I mean he’s got a story that is just unbelievable.  And, the Lord brought him with us, and now that I’m president of the Southern Baptist Convention he was elected to be the first Music Director, is what the actual terminology is, of the Southern Baptist Convention…

TR:      [Laughing] Maybe you could to change that…

RF:      I would love to see that changed, but anyways, the first Music Director of the Southern Baptist Convention that is a Mexican-American.  That’s never been done.

TR:      That’s incredible.

RF:      And so, it’s one of the many things, as you know out of our just under 50,000 churches over 10,000 are multi-ethnic, and…

TR:      Right.

RF:      And you know our church has a very big commitment to that.  You know we’re seeing that, obviously the region’s changed now completely with all that’s going on in our region.  So many people have moved in and with that we’ve had a real commitment to try our very best to lift that up.  And I am very committed to try my best to say okay, how can I do that?  How can I increase doing that?  I think a New Testament church has got to be a multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and, and we just let the love of Christ, and the power of God come upon us among all generations.

TR:      One of the, I can almost anticipate the questions coming from the listeners on this, how do I do that?  And I shouldn’t be answering the questions for you but I am, it begins with leadership.  You model it.  You emphasize it.  You make it a priority, and the church makes it a priority.  If you do, if you’re a church for example, that is all Anglo, and you have representation in your community that is significantly another, that leader has to be intentional.

RF:      Yeah.

TR:      That’s why Cross Church is so multi-ethnic, multi-language, whatever you want to call the multies, it is that.

RF:      Yea, well, the main thing is that is that we’re faithful to reach our community.  You know, the church needs to look like the community, and, and we’re trying to do that.  I’m not saying we’re doing it any better than anybody else, but we’re trying.  We’re very intentional.

TR:      Absolutely.

RF:      We’re getting more intentional.  I know when, when we had our recent appointment service of the International Mission Board, the president then, Dr. Tom Elliff, said when I walked around the worship center of Pinnacle Hills, I felt like I was at the United Nations.  That’s a big statement.  That’s probably an overstatement, but he probably wasn’t used to seeing that in a typical church like ours.

TR:      Exactly.

RF:      I’m really grateful that’s happening.  May God let it happen, and that is a major question, how can you do that?  There’s a lot in that I don’t know of full answers.

TR:      Thanks Ronnie.

JH:      The Cross Church School of Ministry is a one-year residential ministry experience hosted by Cross Church and Dr. Ronnie Floyd.  It is uniquely designed to prepare leaders for life ministry and Gospel advancement globally.  For more information about the Cross Church School of Ministry, visit crosschurchschool.com.  That will do it for this week’s episode of Rainer on Leadership.  Any final closing thoughts, Dr. Rainer?

TR:      I want to close by not making this Rainer on Leadership, but Ronnie Floyd on leadership.  Ronnie indicated at the beginning of the podcast as we were having informal discussions, that about one-third of the listeners are pastors and another one-third are staff members, and then one-third lay leaders.  I want to ask you to speak to that one-third who are pastors because you have been a pastor, you are a pastor, and you are a pastor to pastors.  Wide open, what would you like to say to the few thousand who might be listening at this point?

RF:      I would tell every pastor today that the greatest thing you can do for your life, for your family, for your church, is to have a deep walk with God.  And to get yourself alone with the Lord every day and ask the power of God to fill your life and overflow your life.  And from that, let ministry burst forth within you.  And you do all you can with all God has gifted you to be, to be the leader you need to be in that church.  Take the needed risk, but be extremely wise.  And beyond that, you give your life to the fulfillment of taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in your community, every person in your state, and every person around the world.  And if you’ll do that, and you have your heart in that, God will seemingly bless you immeasurably.

TR:      I can’t add to that.  Thank you Ronnie Floyd.

JH:      That will do it for this week’s episode of Rainer on Leadership. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, visit us online at thomrainer.com.