A church with 19 physical locations, including one in Canada, run by Pastor Steven Furtick, took $108 million in tithing last year according to financial records.
Elevation Church headquarters is in North Carolina. The well-known worship band just recently nominated for GMA Dove Awards, Elevation Worship, was also born out of this church. Before 2024 there were 16 other branches of Elevation, including in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Florida. This year, the church expanded three more locations, including Belmont, North Carolina, and Orlando, Florida, and a second campus in Toronto, Canada.
In-person attendance grew at the church in 2023 by 21 per cent. Last year Elevation also announced that they were leaving their affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention.
"We end every year with an appreciation for what God has done and expectations for what He’s going to do. Our year-end offering season is a tradition for our church," Elevation officials said. "If you’re tithing, this is an offering above and beyond the tithe. Or maybe this is the season when you take the step to begin giving."
The church operates two not-for-profits, EC Winston LLC and Million Little Miracles, LLC. According to the ministry, Million Little Miracles was formed to allow licensed church staff to serve as the general contractor on internal construction projects with a budget of $500,000 or less.
Elevation also owns a for-profit company called EC Property Corp. to which it invested $1.5 million to 1,000 shares of the common stock.
While it is unclear how much money Furtick made with the church, in their expense report over $31 million were the expenses for personnel. Furtick and his family live in a mansion valued at over $1.7 million.
Elevation Worship goes on tour with its songs and has received much popularity. Just under 180,000 people bought tickets and attended their concerts last year.
Furtick is listed as one of the songwriters for the band. They recently released a new album, When Wind Meets Fire, on July 12, 2024. The album has 28 new songs on it.
"It is an amazing church to be a part of that releases songs into the world," said Furtick in his most recent Sunday sermon at the headquarters. "Have you thought about the fact that the songs we release from this place might end up helping somebody in the most difficult season of their life? Maybe a year from now, maybe in several years, they'll need those words at just the right time. That is what I love about Elevation Church."
With the millions tithed, the church website shares that 12 per cent of every dollar goes "towards outreach efforts on a local, national, and global level."