After revealing Pastor Steven Furtick’s plans to build a $1.7 million mansion under a trust’s name, NBC Charlotte has uncovered more news about Elevation Church.
The news outlet obtained a 34-page confidential document that reveals some of the church’s inner workings, including how much it gathers in offerings a week.
Hopefully, publicizing the report puts even more pressure on Furtick to reveal numbers he’s stubbornly withheld from even members.
According to NBC Charlotte’s story:
Elevation Church, led by pastor Steven Furtick, has doubled its average weekly offering in the last two years to more than a half-million dollars a week, and plans to open up to five new locations costing up to $86 million in the Charlotte area, three of which it has not made public.
The report is limited in what it reveals, however. The largest megachurch in North Carolina does not disclose audited financial statements to even members and donors, opting instead to release a “glossy, full-color annual report” full of frivolous information, including how many breath mints a pastor eats and whether a campus pastor wears a V-neck.
Furtick’s salary and benefits are not included.
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This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2013.
The gullible rubes gave him that money of their own free will. He is entitled to wallow in it any way he likes. My only complaint is that it’s tax exempt.
Isn’t it odd that these charlatans can quote every Old Testament reference about giving money but never the passages about Jesus throwing the money changers from the Temple?
Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-46; and John 2:13-17.
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
I tire of what seems like a witch hunt being perpetrated upon Pastor Steven.
Why does he have to make the compensation that the officers of Elevation received public? He probably is very well compensated, but he deserves it. YOU try to build a church from humble beginnings to an entity that collects almost half a million dollars every weekend and then distributes that money to those that need it.
YOU try to attract the apathetic youth in our culture to the Lord and bring them to Jesus. Try it, its not easy.
Our culture not only venerates money, but its a jealous, snarky one. If the numbers were made open to the public, no doubt other, less monied churches would claim righteous indignation….and the news media would descend like vultures.
The congregation at Elevation would most likely approve Pastor Steven’s compensation, even if it approached or surpassed 7 figures….and you know what? He deserves it…but he neither connived or stole to get it – its just the Lord’s favor for a proactive individual who is doing good works.
Don’t hate.
– Grace