Mega-Pastor Steven Furtick Faces Examination

Elevation Church Pastor Steven Furtick has attracted some unwanted attention.  WCNC reporter Stuart Watson recently uncovered Furtick’s large $1.7M house tucked in the woods away from public scrutiny and doubly hidden in a specially created trust. The expose asks a lot of questions about how mega-pastors with a ready-made audience can profit from book royalties.  It also raises questions about the suitability of compensation committees comprised of fellow pastors with a vested interest as contrasted with a long-held church tradition of elders and deacons having decision-making authority.  Take a look at this 3-part story by WCNC News of Charlotte, NC. (part 1 above, parts 2 and 3 below).

In the 3rd and final part in this series, WCNC reporter Stuart Watson also illustrated the connection and similarities between Pastor Steven Furtick and North Texas Pastor Ed Young. Take a look:

Other news outlets have picked up the story as well and interviewed our Trinity Foundation president, Ole Anthony:  “What happens is these pastors are on television or on radio and they write a book, and it’s based on their sermons,” Anthony told The Christian Post. “But then what happens is the church is paying for the time and the place to write the book, and then the church is paying for the airtime to advertise the book. And it’s just unseemly.”

And Anthony wasn’t done there.

“The idea of being a servant is lost. It’s just a job and they try to make more and more money, and the congregations are losing out,” he said. “It just infuriates me. It’s the opposite of the pastor being the servant and feeding the sheep, the pastor’s eating the sheep.”