“What distinguishes the greatness of a man are not his accomplishments as much as how he responds and recovers from adversity along the way of life – which ultimately gives him opportunity to do great things.”
Todd Murner often speaks about a phrase that was written on a placard that his twin brother, Scott Murner, received on a football trophy in High School. It simply read, “All I have to give is whatever it takes!” In a statement, “Todd Murner is a man who desires to live his life as a change-agent for the Kingdom of Christ-empowered by Yahweh’s Word and Spirit.”
Todd Murner presently serves as the founder (2001), president and apostle of The Rock of Northwest Arkansas, an ecclesia (church) that is characterized by apostolic reform, prophetic vision, strategies and resources for establishing strong Kingdom ecclesiae (churches), marriages, families and businesses.
Todd’s Early Years
A cursory look at Todd’s path to where he is today would begin with his Pentecostal roots in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) and travel a scenic route that includes many destination points and doctrinal belief shifts. Todd Murner’s early years began in Louisville, Kentucky, the largest city in Kentucky. That is significant because at age eight his parents and two siblings moved to southeastern Kentucky, a small coal mining camp deep in the Appalachian mountains. Todd lived there until he left to attend Lee College, now known as Lee University, where He ultimately met his bride to be, Autumn Lea Hyde. Upon Todd’s graduation, he and Autumn married in 1984 and lived in Harlan, Kentucky, Hamilton, Ohio, Alton, Illinois, Bloomington, Illinois and Cleveland, Tennessee respectively before finding an apostle, F. Nolan Ball, and a people, The Rock of Panama City, that would forever change their lives in Panama City, Florida. Ultimately, Northwest Arkansas would become their ‘promised land’ and that is where they live and serve the body of Christ today, along with their daughter, Katelyn “Joy” Murner.
Guided Faith
Todd’s personal transformation began with a frustration with the religious environment in which he so desperately desired to flourish. His entire life he lived with a nagging notion that there had to be more than what he was observing and receiving in the ‘church’. Ultimately, this frustration began to influence his prayers to Yahweh that he needed a father figure in the faith, just as his natural father had led him in his personal life, to teach and demonstrate for him a more effective approach to being a husband, future father, minister and eventually an apostle. These prayers were answered through a miraculous process that led Todd and Autumn to Apostle F. Nolan Ball and The Rock of Panama City where the school of personal and ministry revelation and development would begin.
Today, after twenty-one plus years of such development, Todd and Autumn Murner would confess that they are continuing to develop and don’t expect that process to cease in this lifetime. However, they are gladly planted and flourishing in a land, Northwest Arkansas, with a people, The Rock of NWA, tracking toward a maturity in Christ that they desperately desired all along.