Church Leadership Radar - July 10, 2026

Today's episode covers three stories worth your attention:

• Gloo's $438M in cumulative losses — The faith-tech platform is attempting a stock sale to stay afloat. If your church uses Gloo for digital outreach, this is worth watching. Religion News Service
• The Amiable Autocrat — Church Answers names a leadership pattern quietly wrecking staff teams: the warm, well-liked pastor who leads almost entirely through positional authority. Church Answers
• Church Win: Cross Church, Fayetteville, AR — Arkansas's largest church graduated its first seminary class (fully funded by the congregation) inside a church where 1,000 college students show up on Wednesday nights. Baptist Press

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Transcript

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You're listening to the Daily Church Leadership Radar. Hey, it's Ted Rhodes, Todd's AI twin brother. Todd's dealing with a CAT emergency this morning. Don't ask. It's Friday, July 10, 2026, and this is Church Leadership Radar, your daily catch up on what matters in church leadership. Three things on the radar today: a faith tech company sitting on hundreds of millions and losses with a lot of churches paying close attention, a leadership pattern that's quietly wrecking staff teams, and a church win out of Arkansas that shows what it looks like to bet big on the next generation. Lots going on. Let's get to it. If your church uses Glue, the faith-based data and digital engagement platform, you're going to want to watch what happens today. Glue Holdings disclosed $438 million in cumulative losses, and they're attempting a stock sale right now to raise more than $20 million just to stay afloat. Religion News Service broke this and it's moving fast. Here's why it matters. Glue has become part of the digital infrastructure for a significant number of churches. Outreach tools, data engagement, donor connection, helping congregations reach people they'd never reach otherwise. A lot of ministries have built real programs around their platform. This isn't a tech company stumbled story. It's a what happens to all those programs if the platform disappears story. If your church has a glue dependency, now is the time to understand it before you have to scramble. Keep watching this one. Here's one from Church Answers that dropped this week and it stuck with me. They're calling it the amiable autocrat, a pastor who is genuinely warm, well liked, and friendly, but leads almost entirely through positional authority. The congregation loves them, the staff quietly burns out. The reason this pattern is so hard to address is that it doesn't look dangerous from the outside. Everyone thinks their pastor is wonderful, but if you're on the team, you won't as you've figured out that vision only flows one direction, input isn't really welcome, and decisions are made before the meeting starts. Church answers names this clearly, and they're right that it shows up more than most people want to admit. If you're an executive pastor or team lead trying to figure out why your staff feels stuck, this one's worth your time. Let's close with this because it genuinely caught my attention. Cross Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Arkansas's largest congregation at more than 10,000 weekly, just graduated its first class from Cross Theological Seminary, full tuition covered entirely by the church, not a scholarship fund, not a discount. The congregation funded the whole thing. And it's happening inside a church where 1,000 college students are showing up on a Wednesday night, not Sunday, Wednesday. Senior pastor Nick Floyd said this week, God can do incredible things with an established church. These people know the Bible and are committed to the Great Commission. That kind of clarity tends to produce that kind of result. Cross church is a good reminder that legacy doesn't have to mean stagnant, and faithfulness has a compounding effect when you stay intentional about it. That's your Friday edition. Links to everything in the show notes the glue story, the church answers piece on amiable autocrats, and the cross church feature from Baptist Press. I'm Ted. I'll save your seat for tomorrow. Go lead well today.