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Pastor Craig quarantined for Ebola… wait… Swine Flu… wait… the Corona one!

10:09 AM EST on March 5, 2020

Thoughts, prayers and tithings go out to Craig Groeschel – the popular Christian capitalist behind LifeChurch.TV.

According to reports from just about every media outlet around town, the hip, happening and relatable Groeschel is in a self-imposed quarantine after he attended a conference where a speaker was diagnosed with the media's newest pageview-generating boogieman – Coronavirus.

Via NewsOK.com:

Two high-profile leaders of an Oklahoma-based megachurch — one of the largest churches in the country — are under quarantine after they attended an overseas conference where a scheduled guest speaker was diagnosed with the coronavirus called COVID-19.

The Rev. Craig Groeschel, founding senior pastor of Edmond-based Life.Church, and the Rev. Bobby Gruenewald, Life.Church pastor-innovation leader, attended the Willow Creek Deutschland Leitungskongress 2020 Feb. 27-29 in Karlsruhe, Germany. Groeschel was a featured speaker at the event which drew about 7,400 people.

Before we get started, let's first agree the Coronavirus is scary and bad; our hearts go out to people affected by it; nobody wants to catch it; we should try to stop its spread; and it was probably created in a government lab in China. But let's be honest – I don't think any of us truly know whether or not to buy the media hype around this thing. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 10,000 times, you're the for-profit American media.

Here's what Pastor Craig had to say about the quarantine:

In the video, entitled "Something Different This Month," Groeschel discussed the response to a recent sermon series and his related book before explaining why he taped his video from his home instead of the church's Edmond headquarters at 4600 E Second.

"If it looks like I'm shooting out of my bedroom, the reason is it's because I'm shooting out of my bedroom," he said.

Groeschel said he and Gruenewald were already on a plane headed home when they learned that someone at the conference had tested positive for COVID-19. He said they shared this news with a flight attendant and met with health authorities once they landed.

"We decided to isolate ourselves for the full 14 days, no contact with anyone whatsoever," Groeschel said.

You get to hang out around your house for 14 days, sleep in, watch Netflix, eat cereal, smoke weed, surf the Internet, play video games, and not have to interact with another human in real life, including the Postmates driver? Outside of mom coming downstairs to change the laundry, I guess Craig Groeschel finally gets to experience what life is like as a blogger!

In all seriousness, I bet the quarantine gets old after a couple of days. Day 14 would have to be the most gut wrenching. I bet it makes you feel like a longtime patrol officer going out for his final shift before retirement.

Anyway, we wish Pastor Craig the best of luck in quarantine and hope he doesn't come down with Coronavirus. We can't wait to see how he sews this experience into all the books, videos and sermons he sells.

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Patrick is the proprietor and publisher of The Lost Ogle. He's aware he's going to catch Coronavirus now.

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