What is Sketching Floor?

Sketching Floor is a discipleship initiative to aid churches in building and sharpening their own unique orphan care ministries.  Church teams consisting of staff and lay leaders will gather over the course of 18 months to strategically build the vision and direction of the ministry with their church, launch and grow their ministry to make an impact on the 140 million orphans and waiting children in local communities and around the world.

What's with the name?

Due to the size limitations and expense of papyrus in the middle ages, sketching floors were used as a medium for large architectural drawings.  The floor was a thin layer of plaster poured into a shallow wooden frame.  Once the plaster was set, stone masons, architects and artists could hash out the broad strokes of a design with the chalky stones, then inscribe the final sketch with a sharpened length of iron wire.  From towering cathedrals to mighty citadels, many structures still standing today began as faint sketches on a sketching floor.