Answering one more of the questions you texted to me on the January 3rd & 4th "Ask Anything" weekend is GCC's Executive Pastor (and my good friend) Tim Stevens. Tim's leadership is vital to the success and growth of GCC. Here you'll see his answer to your question, “What is the history of WiredChurches.com?”
In 1997, the pastors and leaders of Granger Community Churchmade a very significant decision. You see…at that point we were a young church that had grown very quickly. We were ten years old and had just moved out of rented space and into our own facility on University Drive. We took some time as leaders to consider the amazing ten-year run and asked, “How did we get here?” There were a lot of answers to that question, but one that we couldn’t deny was the help from other pastors and church leaders around the country. Every time we had a question, we could pick up the phone and find someone else who had faced the same issue. If we needed vision, we’d jump in our cars and visit with the staff of another church.
We determined at that time—twelve years ago—that we were going to offer the same help to other churches they had offered to us. If God taught us something, we wouldn’t keep it to ourselves—we’d pass it along. If we found something that worked—we would make it available for other churches. If we did something that failed—we’d tell other pastors to avoid that path.
And so we began a journey that eventually led to the launching of WiredChurches.com. This web presence has become GCC’s hub for resources, tools and training to help equip church leaders outside our walls for spiritual and church growth. Through conferences, workshops, online tools, message downloads, series graphics and more—we have served over 13,000 church leaders in recent years in all 50 states and 25 countries around the world. It is an amazing ministry that financially supports itself and contributes to the ministry of the church. And now thousands of leaders have traveled to Granger for learning, and hundreds of thousands have experienced Granger online (including more than 1.3 million who have viewed this GCC video).
The post makes it sound a little bit like you're giving something away at 'wiredchurches.com' but I couldn't find anything freely given (although I didn't go through every item).
Posted by: Mike | February 01, 2009 at 04:24 AM
Tim... I agree with the previous comment. Your post does make it sound like you're giving away some of your resources. You may actually be doing this in some way but you definitely haven't taken the approach that Craig Groeschel and the staff at Life Church has. They truly do make their resources open and available. Maybe not to the same extent as Life but I would love for GCC to do something similiar. I totally understand the reasons behind charging for something. As you state, the ministry financially supports it'self. That's wonderful but to me it sounds more like a business than a ministry. Since you're reflecting back to GCC's humble begins and all the help you received... did you pay for everything? What did it feel like when someone said, "Here's something we did, if it will help you in your ministry - take it no strings attached." I think what you guys are doing at GCC is wonderful but you don't have to make a buck on everything.
Posted by: Ken | February 03, 2009 at 03:29 PM
I have been able to use several of the resources that GCC offers through their wiredchurches website and at a lot smaller cost then some places I have looked for info for our church. Thanks for a peek into your ministry. Some don't even offer that (as if it was some big goverment secret). I have also been able to get info just by reading the staff's blogs (and that cost me nothing but a little time).
Posted by: Cyndi | February 04, 2009 at 08:17 PM