CrossWalk Church was launched out of a love for Jesus and for the Laveen and South Phoenix communities. Back in the days of flowers, corn, and cotton this now vibrant and dynamic urban area was a prized farming community. The year 2004 brought a change of scenery as developers began to eye the available land and purchase tracts for housing development. A group of dedicated and enterprising Christ-followers immediately saw and seized the opportunity to launch a church in September of 2004, with the goal of sharing Jesus Christ with the up-and-coming people living in this area. CrossWalk began as, and today continues to be “a church for unchurched people."
In March of 2004, Pastor Jeff Gunn accepted the call to become CrossWalk’s founding pastor. Weekly worship services began in September of 2004. From 2004 through 2010, CrossWalk Church conducted Sunday services at Arizona Lutheran Academy at 27th Ave. and Southern. Worship was held on the gym floor, and CrossWalk Kids was conducted in the classroom area at ALA. All of this meant a lot of weekly “re-arranging” as carpet tiles went down to protect the gym floor, and portable chairs were brought in for worship seating. The classrooms also had to be completely rearranged each week to create an inviting, fun, and safe environment for the children. This was not always easy, but it developed a deeply-held “servant-mentality” in the hearts of our CrossWalk family members. Several staff members were also added at this time, including Jonathan Favorite, our Director of Worship Arts, Katie Floyd (Behm), our first Director of Children’s ministry, Phil Bischoff, our Director of Outreach and Youth Ministry, and Doug Farnsworth, our Director of Operations.
In the summer of 2010, CrossWalk was presented with the opportunity to move to Cesar Chavez High School. This new site offered a more central location in our community, one that would require less set-up and take-down, and one that, being along Baseline Road, also offered greater visibility. Following the move, many new ministries blossomed at CrossWalk. We also really wanted to take some next steps in developing our discipleship ministries, so several additional staff positions were added, including Krystal Taylor as Director of Fellowship and Service Ministries, and Pastor Dan Solofra as our Discipleship Pastor/Teaching Pastor. Kristi Sebald became our second Director of Children’s Ministry during this same period of time as well. These were somewhat challenging years for CrossWalk, as the burst of the real estate bubble also drastically affected our community and our church. Out of this challenge, however, was born a very active and dynamic set of ministries at our church: Compassions Ministry and RESILIENT ministry. Today, CrossWalk continues actively searching for and developing new ways to serve our South Phoenix and Laveen communities with the grace and peace of Jesus Christ.
In 2015, CrossWalk is moving forward in its next steps to become a more effective community partner in South Phoenix and Laveen by embarking on the purchase of its own piece of land. Our dream is to build our very first permanent facility with an auditorium that will house 400-500 people, as well as ample space for the vision of our CrossWalk Kids and Youth Ministries, Ignite and Radiate, and our Outreach, Discipleship, Compassions and RESILIENT ministries.