Type to search

Donor Alerts

New Press Reports on Elevation Church and Pastor Steven Furtick’s Manipulation of His Book Sales

“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God …” Acts 20:28

Recently, the Charlotte Observer newspaper published several articles shedding additional light on the situation at the mega-church in Charlotte, NC pastored by Steven Furtick. Additionally, another report has surfaced highlighting how Furtick’s upcoming book will inevitably end up as a New York Times bestseller simply because of how his publisher is manipulating sales. In the past we have written about the controversy that had arisen over Furtick’s new multimillion dollar home, so we thought readers might also find these latest articles of interest as they describe the unusual approaches used at Elevation and the concerted effort to manipulate the sales of Pastor Furtick’s books to make sure the book ends up ever so briefly on the New York Times best seller list. Given the lack of transparency at Furtick’s Elevation church, we cannot know if the church has suffered much from the initial reports about his expensive new home and questionable church governance at Elevation. We stated previously, and still suspect, that any losses in his congregation as a result of these revelations have been initially small as this is the normal pattern in such situations. Church members are naturally allied with their pastor, whom has ministered to them, versus outsiders they do not know who are raising legitimate questions about appropriate church governance and financial accountability. Over time, however, it would not be surprising for Elevation to see its previously rapid growth turn negative as the cumulative concern about substandard church governance, interlocking relationships with other pastors which seem to have a personal financial benefit to them, questions about how Furtick’s books sales reach the levels they do, an absence of appropriate financial transparency and, of course, the problem of Furtick’s large home and how he tried to hide it from the public, continue. Furtick’s preaching, however, is effective and, most would agree, doctrinally sound. In this case, the issue is simply one of whether the church’s financial resources are being used, directly and indirectly, more to pump up Furtick’s notoriety and net worth than is reasonable, something that is illegal under IRS regulations.

For more information on these issues click on these links to access the two articles noted above: