- Craig Groeschel
-
Craig Groeschel Born December 2, 1967
Houston, TexasOccupation Author
Speaker
MinisterNationality American Subjects Leadership
Christian GrowthCraig Groeschel (born December 2, 1967) is the founder and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, a church with fourteen locations in five states. He is married with six children and lives in Edmond, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, where LifeChurch.tv is based.[1]
Groeschel was born in Houston, Texas and grew up in southern Oklahoma, attending Ardmore High School. After high school, he attended Oklahoma City University, where he was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Craig attended for four years on an athletic scholarship, and received a Bachelor's degree in Marketing. Shortly thereafter, he met his wife Amy, and the two married in 1991. That same year, Groeschel entered the ministry as an associate pastor in the United Methodist Church. He attended Phillips Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and secured a Master of Divinity degree. He was an associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City when it was damaged in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing.[2][3]
In 1996, Groeschel and a handful of people started Life Covenant Church in a two-car garage. Groeschel later told Business Week that he started by performing market research of non-churchgoers, and designed his church in response to what he learned.[4] Groeschel’s non-traditional style was successful and attendance of Life Covenant grew rapidly, eventually evolving to become (as of December 2009) the second largest church in the United States with thirteen LifeChurch.tv campuses[5] Groeschel began using video to deliver some of sermons when his fourth child was born in 2001 and he was unavailable for the Sunday service; he discovered that the videos were popular with his churchgoers, and his church has continued to use them.[6][7] In 2006 he set up a website called mysecret.tv as a place for people to confess anonymously on the Internet.[8][9] Groeschel also began delivering his services to the Second Life virtual world on Easter Sunday 2007.[10]
Groeschel was named the 5th most influential pastor in 2006[citation needed] and LifeChurch.tv was named America’s Most Innovative Church by Outreach Magazine in 2007[11][12] and 2008.[13]
Bibliography
- Chazown: A Different Way to See Your Life (2006) ISBN 1-59052-547-7
- Confessions of a Pastor (2006) ISBN 1-59052-720-8
- Going All the Way: Preparing for a Marriage That Goes the Distance (2007) ISBN 1-59052-938-3
- It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008) ISBN 0-310-28682-4
- The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn't Exist (2010) ISBN 0-310-32789-X
- Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working (2011) ISBN 0-310-32790-3
References
- ^ Leadership Team at LifeChurch.tv official website (retrieved February 20, 2010).
- ^ Emily M. Bernstein, "Terror in Oklahoma: The Displaced; Its Building Is Shattered, But Church Survives", New York Times, April 24, 1995.
- ^ Julie DelCour, "Public Chapel to Open At Site of OC Church", Tulsa World, June 22, 1995.
- ^ William C. Symonds, "Earthly Empires: How evangelical churches are borrowing from the business playbook, BusinessWeek, May 23, 2005.
- ^ Cathy Lynn Grossman, "Multi-site churches mean pastors reach thousands", USA Today, December 17, 2009.
- ^ Cathy Lynn Grossman, "Pastors debate video's pros, cons", USA Today, December 16, 2009.
- ^ Bill Sherman, "Message in the medium", Tulsa World, August 21, 2004.
- ^ Neela Bannerjee, "Intimate Confessions Pour Out on Church’s Web Site", New York Times, September 1, 2006.
- ^ "Thousands of evangelical Christians confessing on-line", Catholic News Agency, September 4, 2006.
- ^ Stephanie Simon, "It's Easter; shall we gather at the desktops?", Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2007.
- ^ Lillian Kwon, "LifeChurch.tv Named Most Innovative Church", The Christian Post, January 16, 2009.
- ^ Lillian Kwon, "Innovative Church Leaders Move Into the Neighborhood", The Christian Post, June 29, 2007.
- ^ "America’s 25 Most Innovative Churches of 2008" at Churchrelevance.com.
External links
Categories:- 1967 births
- Living people
- Oklahoma City University alumni
- People from Edmond, Oklahoma
- Christian religious leaders
- American Methodist clergy
- American Christian clergy
- 21st-century Methodist clergy
- United Methodist clergy
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