Rev. David Lee Floyd

Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance

1887 ~ 1982

Rev. David L. Floyd was born in a house on December 10, 1887 in Crock County, London, Arkansas. His father was a cotton and corn farmer. He was raised in the Baptist church and converted in the Methodist church in McCloud, Oklahoma. David attended school in London, Arkansas but never finished. At the age of 14 he met the holiness people and experienced sanctification. His occupation as an adult was farming. He also became a wholesale grocery salesman. In his early days he traveled mostly by covered wagon and then by train. Floyd's mother died in 1901.

Floyd recalled being called into the ministry in 1892 at the age of 5 1/2 years. In the summer of 1907 while selling newspapers (the Saturday Blade and the Chicago Leader) he first heard about the Holy Ghost. The Saturday Blade ran an article about people receiving the Holy Ghost. While Floyd remembered the article, it didn't stick with him at that time.  In his early ministry he preached to his sisters and sometimes to himself. His first real encounter with Pentecost came in the spring of 1910 at Bald Hill, Arkansas. It was there that he met Rev. E.R. Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had received the Holy Ghost in 1907 in Doxie, Oklahoma under the ministry of Rev. Tom McAlister.

In 1909 at the age of 21, he moved to McAlister, Oklahoma, where he met Rev. Tom McAlister, who asked David if he had the Holy Ghost. Brother McAlister invited him to pray. David received the Holy Ghost in October 1910 in London, Arkansas. In 1912 Brother Floyd met Rev. Howard A. Goss in Hot Springs, Arkansas, during a camp meeting held on St. Louis Avenue.  Brother Goss was the Bible teacher. On April 14, 1914 he was present at the formation of the Assemblies of God. He worked with Rev. E. N. Bell on the Pentecostal periodical The Word and Witness.  In October 1915 David Floyd came into the Jesus' name movement. He was baptized in Jesus' Name in 1915 in Houston, Texas. Soon afterward he began preaching revivals. He attended the Elton Louisiana Bible Conference (where he taught the Oneness of God) with Charlie Smith. 

He turned in his Assembly of God credentials in October 1916 at the St. Louis convention where 156 Oneness ministers were voted from their ranks. Upon their expulsion, these men and others met in December 1916 at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to form a Oneness organization - the General Assembly of the Apostolic Assemblies. On January 2, 1917, David Floyd was elected secretary of the new organization.  In 1916 Brother Floyd started the periodical Blessed Truth. This paper was published in Kinder, Arkansas. It was one of the first papers to defend baptism in Jesus' Name and the Oneness of God. He remained the editor of Blessed Truth until October 1917, when he turned it over to D.C.O. Opperman of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This transition was to help Opperman with his ailing Bible School in Eureka Springs.  

After the General Assembly of the Apostolic Assemblies ceased to exist in 1918, Floyd became a member of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. In 1920 a PAW convention was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, where Brother Floyd served as Chairman of the Resolution Committee. When the Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance was formed in 1924, Brother Floyd became a member of this group, and served as General Secretary.

David Floyd knew and worked with many key figures of early Pentecost., including, Charles F. Parham, Howard Goss, Charlie Smith, A.G. Garr, Mary Woodworth Etter, E. N. Bell, Joseph R. Flower, G.T. Haywood, D.C.O. Opperman, and many others. Though he had never mey William J. Seymour personally, he did correspond with Frank Bartleman who was instrumental in the early Azusa movement.

David Lee Floyd pastored in Texarkana, Arkansas; Dewar, and Wayfare, Oklahoma. He evangelized in many other states including Texas. After serving his generation well, David Lee Floyd fell on sleep in April of 1982 at the age of 95. Audio and Video Interviews of Rev. David Lee Floyd are available in our Audio and Video Library.