Nationality American Spouse Amy Groeschel (m. 1991) | Role Pastor Name Craig Groeschel | |
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Occupation Minister, Author, Speaker Subject LeadershipChristian Growth Books Soul Detox: Clean Living in, The Christian Atheist: B, Fight, Altar Ego: Becoming Who God, Chazown Similar People Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, Judah Smith Profiles | ||
greater influence pastor craig groeschel
Craig Groeschel (born December 2, 1967) is the founder and senior pastor of Life.Church, the largest church in the United States with twenty seven locations in eight states. He is married to Amy and has six children. They live in Edmond, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, where Life.Church is based.
Contents
- greater influence pastor craig groeschel
- Seeking Approval Chasing Carrots Part 4 with Pastors Craig Groeschel Chris Beall
- Personal life
- Pastoral career
- Leadership
- References
Seeking Approval - Chasing Carrots Part 4 with Pastors Craig Groeschel & Chris Beall
Personal life
Groeschel was born in Houston, Texas and grew up in southern Oklahoma, attending Ardmore High School. After high school, he attended Oklahoma City University on a tennis scholarship and was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity 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 earned a Master of Divinity degree. He was an associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City during the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing.
Pastoral career
In 1996, Groeschel and a handful of people started Life Covenant Church in a two-car garage. He later told Business Week that he started the process by performing market research of non-churchgoers and designed his church in response to what he learned. Groeschel’s non-traditional style was successful and attendance of Life Covenant grew rapidly, eventually evolving to become (as of September 2016) the largest church in the United States with twenty five Life.Church campuses. Groeschel began using video to deliver some of his sermons, when his fourth child was born in 2001, and he was unavailable for the Sunday service, discovering that the videos were popular with his churchgoers. In 2006, he set up a website called Mysecret.tv as a place for people to confess anonymously on the Internet. Groeschel also began delivering his services to the Second Life virtual world on Easter Sunday 2007.
Life.Church was named America’s Most Innovative Church by Outreach Magazine in 2007 and 2008. Life.Church innovations include its free resource library with sermons, transcripts, videos, artwork, and a digerati team that develops free software like ChurchOnlinePlatform.com and YouVersion the Bible app, which has been downloaded over 200 million times by December 2015.
According to Newsmax website, Life.Church is listed on the top 50 churches of America in 2015, being the largest church with approximately 100,000 people attending weekly.
Leadership
Craig Groeschel started a free podcast in 2016 about leadership; he believes that a person does not have to know it all to become a great leader. In his podcast, he focuses on helping people reach their maximum leadership potential.