NORTH CAROLINE
WCNC
by STUART WATSON / NBC Charlotte
Posted on November 4, 2013 at 11:31 PM
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — 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.
Those numbers are revealed in a confidential internal report obtained by the NBC Charlotte I-Team. The chief financial officer of the church confirms the numbers are accurate, but says they represent potential deals which may not materialize.
Elevation is the largest megachurch in North Carolina, and one of the fastest-growing churches in the United States. The church has kept its finances secret even from donors, asking staff and some volunteers to sign a confidentiality agreement which threatens to sue them if they disclose internal numbers.
The NBC Charlotte I-Team is withholding some numbers contained in the confidential report to minimize any harm to Elevation’s pending real estate deals.
Elevation’s founding principles called “The Code” state “we are all about the numbers”, and emphasize a reliance on numbers as metrics for growth and success. In one promotional film for Elevation, congregation members identify themselves by the “number” of the order in which they joined the church.
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