Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC, is a 17,000-member multisite campus with 20 locations led by pastor Steven Furtick. Along with being a popular speaker, author, and Grammy-winning musician, Furtick is known for having the term “narcegesis” (narcissistic exegesis) named after him, wearing expensive luxury clothing, and having a generally poor grasp of theology. (see endnotes)
We recently wrote about him after he was accused of using geofencing technology to intentionally target smaller churches with location-based ads. This ensured that as soon as congregants stepped foot onto their own church property, they were pushed advertisem*nts intended to draw them away.
Elevation recently released its 2023 annual report and some of the numbers are telling, reflecting an incongruity and unique challenges about the nature of megachurches.
While numbers vary online as to how many people attend Elevation Church, they themselves monitor attendance very carefully, reportedly using the same technology that big box office stores use. The average weekly in-person attendance across their campuses is 17,061 people, up 21% from last year, which saw an in-person attendance of around 14,100. COVID was still somewhat impacting attendance early on in 2022, which explains the large jump.
However, these numbers have been largely static or shrinking, with Elevation reporting an weekly attendance of 22,036 people in 2016. This matters for the next category.
Despite having a weekly attendance of 17,061 Elevation Church claims an outsized number of ‘decisions for Jesus’, over 65,000 in the last three years. Yet almost none of those people have made Elevation Church a permanent home. Even if some of these ‘decisions for Jesus’ came during online events and are not able to be plugged into their local elevation church, where did the rest of them go? Here are their numbers of new converts over the last three years.
2021: 22,363
2022: 23,251
2023: 21,429
In the same vein, Elevation Church baptized 4,003 people in 2023, which is a record. In 2022, they baptized 3,188 and 1752 in 2021. Elevation keeps a running count of all the people they’ve baptized over the years, and so far, they’ve dunked 30,660 under the water.
Speaking of baptisms, In 2014, Elevation Church came under fire when a document titled “Spontaneous Baptisms – A How-To Guide” was discovered on Furtick’s book’s website, which detailed the ins and outs of the big day. To build a sense of urgency and momentum, staffers were involved in inducing and manipulating people to want to get up and join the baptismal line, with the guide instructing:
“Fifteen people will sit in the worship experience and be the first ones to move when Pastor gives the call. Move intentionally through the highest visibility areas and the longest walk.”
The idea is that it will cause others who never planned on getting baptized that day to join them. We wonder if these sort of sketchy tactics are still being practiced.
But to the point, they’ve baptized more than 7200 people in the last two years, but where did they all go?
Elevation Church had 7,472 volunteers serving in ministries and 21,478 people in eGroups (including online), with over 2125 online leaders and facilitators. These groups range from singles, high school boys, senior citizens, young and married, etc. As a subset, in which churches frequently make children and youth a big focus to rope in the parents, there are 3604 teenagers in these groups and 375 youth leaders, where they recorded 564 salvations.
In a similar vein, eKidz is Elevation Church’s children’s ministry for children six weeks through 5th grade. In 2023, they reported 389 salvations and 364 baptisms within this subset. They also had 461 eKidz salvations in 2022.
Again we ask: where is everyone going?
In 2023, the church added three new franchises: permanent campuses in Belmont, NC, and Orlando, Florida, and a second campus in Toronto, Ontario.
While they’re not growing numerically in through in-person attendance, they are in the media. Elevation church sermons were streamed 93,271,523 across all platforms in 2023, with the most popular one being “The Blessing of Letting Go’ which had 1,558,428 streams in 2023 but now sits at over 3.1M views.
They had 384,621 Sunday live online views, 813,125 weekly sermon views, 549,514 podcast weekly streams, and 962,526 weekly TV viewers. Their social media platforms likewise number in the millions:
Apart from Steven Furtick as the visible face of Elevation Church, they are perhaps best known for their music, where songs they wrote dominate the charts and have become a mainstay in most churches.
In our report detailing how a mere four megachurches were responsible for producing and releasing nearly 100% of all the top worship songs released in the last decade, Elevation Church had five songs in the top 25.
In fact, their songs streamed over 2.14 billion times across all platforms in 2023, and those are only from official sources/channels.
They hosted their traveling worship tour, Elevation Nights, in 19 cities and had a total attendance of 170,887, with tickets in some places being sold for thousands of dollars, both last year and this year. They also received a Dove Award for ‘Worship Album Of The Year’ for Lion: Live from the Loft, and nominated for 4 Billboard music awards (but no Grammy, which they won in 2022)
Elevation Church spent $13M on outreach efforts in 2023, bringing the total amount they’ve given since their inception to $106M. This included 3,395 events utilizing 51,846 volunteers who served 97,193 hours in total. Having their hands in a little of everything, some outreach efforts involve serving at soup kitchens, sorting groceries at food banks, volunteering to help at the local elementary school, or grabbing bags and gloves and cleaning up dirty streets.
One notable example of expanded outreach includes their Prison Ministry, where the church tripled the number of prisons they’ve started ministering in, from 2 in 2022 to 6 in 2023. The notice for the opportunity reads:
“Come out and be part of our prison ministry volunteer team as we bring the Gospel, side by side, to the inmates. Prison Fellowship brings hope and restoration to prisoners, families, and communities impacted by incarceration. We fellowship with inmates at Lake Correctional Institution, watch a message from Pastor Steven, and then break out into small groups led by volunteer leaders.”
Elevation Church brought in $97.2M in tithes and offerings. They also received another $11.1M in year-end offerings, which is where Furtick pulls on the heartstrings in November and December to firm up the books, resulting in a total of $108M.
Of this, a third was spent on personnel ($32M), $11.71M on operating outreach programs, $6.84M on facilities, $21.06M on expansion capital and savings, and $24.71M on central operations and ministries.
The church reports having $305M in assets, or nearly a third of a billion dollars.
The church doesn’t publicly share how much compensation Furtick himself receives, which is reportedly set by external groups and is not even known by church members, but given that he lives in a 16,000sq home that he purchased for $1.7 million (now reportedly valued at $3.9) it’s safe to say it’s a tidy sum.
For more on Furtick, here are some of his best/ worst hits:
Never Forget: The Steven Furtick Coloring Book+ All the Pages We Have Uncovered
Uncovered! 2013 ‘Boot Camp Book’ from Steven Furtick’s Elevation Church. Feat. ‘THE CODE’
Steven Furtick Engages in Rank Heresy: ‘What God is; You Are’
Would you Pay $2480.30 For Tickets to a Steven Furtick/ Elevation Worship Concert?
Steven Furtick’s Son’s New Rap Song Ft. Guns, Sex and Designer Clothes+ Mother Endorses
Steven Furtick Says God Doesn’t Make You into a New Creation
$1090 Sweater? $1990 Handbag? $2720 Coat? Round-Up of Preachers N Sneakers
Steven Furtick Goes on a Wild, Wild, Willllldd Rant about Betas and Blessings
‘Twerking for the Lord?’ Steven Furtick Laughs as TD Jakes Disgraces his Wife
Steven Furtick Screams ‘I Am God Almighty!’ In Wild Sermon
Steven Furtick Promotes Trinity Denier’s Book + Says His Kids Think his Words are Scripture
TNB drops Millionaire Heretic Kenneth Copeland after 40 years, Picks up Millionaire Heretic Steven Furtick
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Tags: 2023 year end report, elevation church, Steven Furtick
