{"id":10671,"date":"2010-04-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/2010\/04\/01\/pastoralpractical\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T22:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T22:29:18","slug":"pastoralpractical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/pastoralpractical\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Groeschel: Pastoral Practical Atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Craig Groeschel is often praised as an innovative pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the country. But in this video he confesses his bent toward &#8220;practical atheism&#8221; &#8211; ministering as if &#8220;it&#8217;s all up to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"is-style-article-source\">This video clip is from our friends at Catalyst. You can view all their videos at the <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/channels\/catalysttv\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"source\" rel=\"noopener\">Catalyst Vimeo Channel<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Craig Groeschel is often praised as an innovative pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the country. But in this video he confesses his bent toward &#8220;practical atheism&#8221; &#8211; ministering as if &#8220;it&#8217;s all up to me.&#8221; This video clip is from our friends at Catalyst. You can view all their videos at <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/pastoralpractical\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[1177],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[174],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[413],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[156],"tax_ctp_tags":[3458,3761,3865,4012,4164,4498,4679,5042,5046,5065],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-10671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-craig-groeschel","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-authenticity","tax_ctp_tags-dependence-on-god","tax_ctp_tags-endurance","tax_ctp_tags-formation","tax_ctp_tags-honesty","tax_ctp_tags-motivation","tax_ctp_tags-prayer","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-direction","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-formation","tax_ctp_tags-spirituality"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Craig Groeschel: Pastoral Practical Atheists - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It was a chronic problem for the people of Israel. 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