Elevation is the largest megachurch in North Carolina, and one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. Every weekend, about 14,000 people attend Elevation Church’s nine locations in and around Charlotte, North Carolina.
Recently, in Furtick and Noble Want Your Tithe, we covered how NBC Charlotte obtained a confidential Elevation report. It was noted that when it comes to money, “Elevation and its pastor, Steven Furtick, refuse to disclose audited financial statements, salaries, tax-free housing allowances and contracts with for-profit publishers.” The confidential report showed that “for the first 35 weeks of 2013, Elevation’s average combined operating and expansion offerings, excluding its Toronto location, stood at $550,775.50.” Furthermore, volunteers are required to sign a confidentiality agreements forbidding them from divulging any church information.
In a recent article, Elevation Church: A different kind of church, it was noted that attendants give a total of about $400,000 a week. “But these participants – Elevation prefers that word to “members” – have little say in how the megachurch is run or in how it spends its millions,” say CharlotteObserver reporters (source). They continue,
And except for the church’s chief financial officer and its controller, no one who’s made Elevation their spiritual home has any idea how much money Pastor Steven Furtick makes.
This lack of local oversight by members, and the transparency that traditionally comes with it, sets Elevation apart, say many who study and run houses of worship. . . .
Elevation does have a five-person governing board. But it offers none of these seats to those who actually fill up the church’s theater-like sanctuaries every Saturday and Sunday.
Instead, Furtick and four out-of-town megachurch pastors direct the church’s $25 million budget, its ambitious building program, its debt and a host of other matters.
This “board of overseers” also sets the salary and housing allowance for the 33-year-old pastor, using a compensation study of a range of churches that’s conducted by a law firm the church won’t identify. Furtick doesn’t vote on his own compensation, the church says.
Ministers who lead megachurches of Elevation’s size are paid as much as $500,000 a year, according to the Leadership Network, a think tank that advises large churches. (source)
Other questions about Furtick’s compensation have arisen due to “reports by the Observer and WCNC-TV that he was building a 16,000-square-foot gated estate on a large wooded lot in the Weddington area of Union County.” In Steven Furtick’s Multi-Million Dollar Home, I said certainly this is not what Jesus had in mind when He spoke about losing one’s life for the sake of the Gospel, forsaking all to follow Him and taking up the cross? Certainly this not what Paul meant when he determined to Jesus Christ and the fellowship of His suffering?
Furtick has labeled any critics of his church as “haters.” “Hey, Haters, I hate to break this to you,” Furtick says in a video called Hey Haters! posted on YouTube two years ago, “but your day is done.”
It is also reported that, “At least one of the pastors overseeing the church has had close ties with Furtick for years.” Who could that be? None other than South Carolina celebrity pastor Perry Noble. “In the latest issue of the church’s magazine, the Elevation board’s longest-serving member – Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, S.C. – is described as “one of Pastor Steven’s closest friends.”
We would understand these institutions much better if we stop calling them churches. The Charlotte Observer reports how the megachurch movement has become a competitive marketplace:
Some observers of megachurches say they operate in the religious equivalent of the market economy.
In rapidly growing churches such as Elevation, worshipers are considered spiritual consumers or seekers, and pastors are widely referred to as spiritual entrepreneurs who must be free to act quickly in the increasingly competitive marketplace, said Dave Travis, CEO of the Dallas-based Leadership Network, which works with megachurches. Elevation is not a current client of Leadership Network.
In this scenario, congregational decision-making is sometimes dismissed as a thing of the past.
“Everybody who goes to Elevation votes with their feet and wallets every weekend,” Travis said. “They know they don’t get a lot of input like they would at a small neighborhood church. But there’s something there (at Elevation) that has become part of their lives.”
On the other hand, said megachurch expert Thumma, there’s a danger for large churches that downplay membership and local input and instead stress the worship experience.
“The idea of membership means I have some commitment to this place,” said Thumma, who co-authored a book about megachurches with Travis. “If you do away with membership, then they’re there because they’re caught up in the excitement. … That can quickly turn into ‘Am I getting my money’s worth?’ If you don’t create that level of commitment to the organization, it’s easy for that 15,000 to go to 5,000 overnight.”
But there doesn’t seem to be clamor for change among the thousands of people who flock to Elevation every weekend.
Chad Burmeister, 40, of Waxhaw loves Elevation so much that, when he can’t be there in person, he’ll watch the service on his iPad or iPhone.
“I like the message the pastor gives – it’s so relevant to this day and age,” said Burmeister, a sales manager. It’s one he doesn’t believe he can get at traditional churches.
As for all those questions about how Elevation is run, Burmeister said, “I think it’s fine the way it is.”
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/01/25/4640218/a-different-kind-of-church.html#.UuhNu1GttBL#storylink=cpy
If you have not yet seen our film, Church of Tares, we document how these megachurches are all about the numbers. Furtick says that if you have given your life to Jesus, then Elevation is “not for you.” This is not how the church was meant to be. There is nothing more relevant for our day than the offensive and foolish Gospel of Jesus Christ. But this simple message of Christ will not generate millions of dollars and megachurches.