The Christian Post caught up with multi-site church pastor Craig Groeschel as LifeChurch.tv launches a new version of their leader resource website, OPEN.LifeChurch.tv. The new version offers the church’s sermon support materials, kids’ and students’ materials, sermon transcripts, and videos, most of it at no cost to the user. In addition, Groeschel told CP in April that LifeChurch.tv was developing a way to give away their much-admired church online platform.
When asked why he continues to give away their church’s high-quality (and at times expensive to produce) resources for free to the church community, Groeschel simply says it’s part of the church’s identity and vision. “I’ve got family members who say why would you do that. I’ve got mentors that I respect and love that say we should charge something for the resources because people will value it. You’re criticized if you sell it. You’re criticized if you give it. I’d rather be criticized for giving it.”
The CP article said more than 70,000 church leaders have downloaded more than two million resources from the OPEN.LifeChurch.tv site in the past five years. LifeChurch’s YouVersion Bible app, created by innovation leader Bobby Gruenewald, has been downloaded over 22 million times since it was first created in 2008.
