“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt link
TWW is closely following four separate stories which are generating lots of interest. Doug Phillips and Vision Forum; Steven Furtick and the "mansion from God"; James MacDonald and "Viva Las Vegas" and the aftermath of John MacArthur's Strange Fire conference. We promise not to drop the ball on any of these stories. Thankfully, we have awesome readers who keep us informed of all developments. Keep those emails and comments coming, folks!
Later this week, we will present a very funny (albeit weird) story from the archives of Vision Forum. We happened upon it by chance and can't wait to see if any of you outside of Vision Forum heard about it.
Today, we present a blog post written by Dr James Duncan of the Pajama Pages. Dr Duncan was the victim of, in our opinion, one of the most despicable instances of intimidation by a church. That church, NewSpring, is "pastored" by Perry Noble who is on the ultra secret Furtick compensation committee. All Christians who follow megachurch nonsense should be aware of this awful story. You can read about it at Holy Rage at the Spring. Dr Duncan, thankfully, won his lawsuit against this contemptible behavior. Thinking Christians might well ask why Perry Noble is on any committee at Elevation.
Dr Duncan is following the kerfuffle at Elevation and wrote a thoughtful analysis on how to turn book deals into mansions. He has given us permission to reprint that post here.
Strap on your boots, folks, and gear up for a fascinating, and detailed, expose of book marketing in the Christian arena. This is one heckuva post! A standing ovation is in order!
Steven Furtick is sticking to his story that his mansion money has come from his books, though his business partner clarified that the house is being built with money from books he has yet to write. Though the continued insistence that the house uses book money reinforces their Walter White problem, don’t you wonder how such a mediocre writer (look at the non-Elevation reviews on Amazon) can parlay a boilerplate inspirational book into such a grand project?
I think I know how he does it, and it’s not because people are reading them.
Weak Sales Performance
With the help of the Wayback Machine, I reviewed the sales ranks of Furtick’s two books over the first year or so of their release. Here’s the rank and date of his first two books:
Amazon Sales Rank for "Sun Stand Still"
|
Date
|
Rank
|
|---|---|
| Sept 24, 2010 | 62 |
| Sept 26, 2010 | 119 |
| Oct 7, 2010 | 219 |
| Oct 18, 2010 | 535 |
| Oct 29, 2010 | 206 |
| Nov 1, 2010 | 497 |
| Nov 24, 2010 | 1,671 |
| Dec 10, 2010 | 2,393 |
| Dec 18, 2010 | 3,556 |
| Dec 20, 2010 | 6,118 |
| Oct 29, 2013 | 3,804 |
After a strong start, sales dropped off quickly. The same pattern is seen in his second book, Greater.
Amazon Sales Rank for "Greater"
|
Date
|
Rank
|
|---|---|
| Sept 7, 2012 | 64 |
| Sept 16, 2012 | 540 |
| Sept 22, 2012 | 374 |
| Oct 4, 2012 | 470 |
| Oct 9, 2012 | 839 |
| Oct 14, 2012 | 1,358 |
| Oct 22, 2012 | 1112 |
| Oct 25, 2012 | 730 |
| July 8, 2013 | 8,423 |
| Oct 29, 2013 | 114,724 |
Although Amazon doesn’t report total copies sold, Amazon authors have calculated the relationship between rank and sales made. Using that data, and using the most generous rank for Furtick’s books in each month, we can estimate how many books he has sold per month on Amazon.
For Sun Stand Still:
- Sept, 2010: 1,000 a day (9,000, released on Sept 21)
- Oct: 500 a day (15,000, running total of 24,000)
- Nov: 100 a day (3,000, 27,000)
- Dec: 50 a day (1,500, 28,500)
- July, 2011: 30 a day (for year 11,000, running total of 29,500)
- July, 2012: 25 a day (for year 9,000, for 38,500)
- Oct, 2013: 25 a day (for 2013 so far 7,500, for 46,000 all time through Amazon)
The numbers for Greater are as follows:
- Sept, 2012: 1,000 (26,000, released on Sept 4)
- Oct-Dec: 100 a day (9,000, 35,000)
- July, 2013: 20 a day (6,000 for 2013 so far, 41,000 total)
- Oct, 2013: <1 a day
We can reasonably estimate that Furtick has sold around 87,000 of his books through Amazon, each one contributing about $1.12 to his mansion fund. The New York Times estimates that Amazon has a 25% share of printed books (though much larger for ebooks), so let’s quadruple the 87k and say that Furtick has sold 350,000 books through all retail channels. If anything, that’s dramatically underestimating Amazon’s share of Furtick’s sales because his book is really only going to be available online for most consumers; it’s not going to show up often in traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores.
It’s quite impressive, though it still “only” puts $392,000 into the Furtick house fund. He’s still $1.3 million short, though let’s assume he’ll write two more books that will have the same kinds of sales, giving him $784,000. He’s still not even half way to paying off the house.
Concerning the books he’s planning to write, if you were a publisher looking at his track record, it’s obvious that Greater was a lesser book than the first, being soundly eclipsed by Sun, especially in how quickly sales declined. What new does Pastor Furtick have to say that the readers of his first two books will want to pay $15 to discover?
Where does the rest of the book money come from, then?
Juicing the Numbers
In the words of a Forbes magazine article on book marketing, it’s legally laundered, probably through massive church purchases of the book. Before we get to how they do that, let’s examine why the church might use a book to goose their pastor’s income.
We know from NewSpring that megachurches are very concerned about being perceived by the IRS as overpaying their pastors, who lead putatively nonprofit organizations, after all. They consult lawyers and accountants to determine a ceiling that will pass muster with the government. Not only do we know that the pastors want to be paid well, they want to be paid in funds that they can use without running into the Walt White dilemma of having their hands tied on how they can spend their fortune. If the church can help the pastor earn a large proportion of his income through selling books, both sides win–the church gets to construct a massive compensation package where the base salary isn’t appalling, and the preacher gets to spend the money freely because it comes from books rather than the collection plate.
As you’ve noticed above, Greater was fairly unimpressive, especially compared with its older brother. Yet, the later and lesser book managed an appearance on the New York Times bestseller list in 2012, whereas the first book didn’t earn such an honor. The brush with publishing glory was narrow and fleeting, though. The list in question, Advice, How-To, & Miscellaneous (Hardcover), is regularly the home to books by Christian authors. Furtick’s book showed up in the printed list for just one week on Sept 24, 2012, in the fourth position. A LexisNexis search of the NYT shows that it made a brief almost-reappearance on October 7 when its 12th position warranted a web listing only. After that, it disappeared.
For comparison, Francis Chan’s Crazy Love, a genuinely popular and influential book, shows up on the same list 116 times.
For a quite different comparison, our friend Perry Noble also makes a brief splash on the Miscellaneous paperback list on October 7 in the number-two slot. It was the only time the book made the list, not even surviving for a last-gasp web listing.
Even though Noble’s NYT placement was better than Furtick’s, his Amazon performance was relatively poor.
Amazon Sales Rank for "Unleash!"
|
Date
|
Rank
|
|---|---|
| Oct 3, 2012 | 629 |
| July 8, 2013 | 58,937 |
| Oct 29, 2013 | 208,048 |
What both Greater and Unleash! have in common is a dagger (†) beside their entry, which points inquisitive readers to the following explanation: “A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.” As Forbes explains, bulk orders are a way for new authors to buy placement on the NY Times bestseller list by simulating high demand for their books and flooding the market with orders from pseudo customers. When the Times suspects such activity is occurring, it places the dagger on the list to warn its readers that the book’s numbers have probably been juiced.
Manipulating the numbers isn’t cheap, and it can happen in a couple of ways.
- Book marketing companies, notably one called ResultSource, will arrange sales of enough copies–usually in the thousands–for the book to be listed in the Times. Forbes estimates that placing a book on the NY Times list this way can cost a quarter million dollars.
- Sales in lieu of fees. For example, the Wall Street Journal reports on an author who asked clients to buy her books instead of pay her cash for speaking fees.
Both Furtick’s and Noble’s book sales were juiced in the first week after their release, probably from a combination of these methods. ResultSource explains why authors might want to use it for a bestseller campaign:
What would a Bestseller do for your brand? Your business? Your future? Publishing a book builds credibility, but having a Bestseller initiates incredible growth—exponentially increasing the demand for your thought leadership, skyrocketing your speaking itinerary and value, giving you a national (even global) spotlight, and solidifying your author brand as the foremost leader in your niche.
Noble and Furtick will be New York Times bestselling authors for the rest of their lives. Perry Noble’s promotional blurb for an appearance at Saddleback, which would have been written by him or NewSpring, highlighted it, as does his Facebook page, which lists his two claims to fame: pastor and bestselling author. Furtick promotes Greater as a bestseller, too.
We and the editors at the NY Times suspect that the bestseller status of these pastors’ books was achieved by selling to people who didn’t intend to read them. Maybe they’ll tell us how they did this, though in the meantime we have to guess. Are book sales attached to conference and speaking fees? Is Elevation Church sitting on a roomful of Furtick’s books that they purchased to get on the NY Times list?
Some of those books seem have been repackaged with other topical supplements into packs that are sold to churches for $69 or $99. Furtick probably cuts the church a small slice of those sales (this would be the money he claims to give back to the church), then pockets the rest as pure profit, especially since the books have already been paid for by the church when they made the initial bulk purchases. He earns his $3 author’s commission on the initial bulk sale, then collects 20-30 times that much when he sells these packs on Elevation’s website. The church (that’s unfair–his pastor friends, mainly) can funnel big money to Furtick but characterize the transaction as book purchases, not salary. The IRS, the compensation folk and Pastor Steven are all satisfied.
We know that Furtick says his $1.7 million has come from books, both past and future. We also know that, in the words of the WCNC report, “Furtick arranges for the publisher to sell the books by the thousands to Elevation Church at his author’s discount.” The report says that the church then sells the books at a profit, which, according to Chunks Corbett, Furtick’s business partner, “help[s] the church tremendously.” Corbett didn’t say whether the money from the sale stays with the church or goes to Furtick. Corbett would characterize all the money going to Furtick as helping the church. It is Furtick’s church, after all.
Furtick is the one who is on record as saying the money has come from his books, yet there’s no way to reconcile that claim with the evidence we can see from Amazon and the New York Times. There are three possible explanations for Furtick’s statement:
- Furtick has sold a million books outside of Amazon, but in stores and websites that don’t report sales to the Times.
- The church is buying books in bulk to funnel the money to Furtick, and the data provided to the New York Times is based on a fiction. (†)
- He is lying.
You decide which one or two are most likely.
If you watched the WCNC story, did you notice the curious video of Furtick hawking the book on television, promising to donate a backpack of school supplies to local kids for every book sold? Watch the section from 5:38 to 6:30.
Tue Oct 22 19:37:41 PDT 2013
I-Team: How a pastor built a multi-million dollar home
Elevation Church’s Steven Furtick is building a $1.7 million dollar home in Weddington. He says the money came from the sales of his books. But he and his church aren’t giving specifics. view full article
Steven weakly refutes the charge that it’s a gimmick because, well, giving stuff to needy kids can’t possibly be gimmicky. (Let’s ignore the cruelty of making your help for the needy contingent on someone else’s commercial activity. How many full backpacks did Furtick and Elevation have left over in their warehouse that weren’t distributed? He’s holding a full backpack, so you know they pre-ordered everything in it.)
More relevant to this discussion is how they could afford to do that. As calculated here, the author’s commission on these sales is going to be $3 to $5, depending on what kind of discount they negotiated with the publisher. If these are first-time sales, the backpack eats up the commission, and we know that didn’t happen, because Furtick has been saving the profits from these books for his house; this is not a charity project. If, however, this is the church selling its boxes of bulk orders that got the book on the bestseller list, then everything it collects over shipping costs is pure profit.
(The church actually does seem to sell boxes of books directly to people wanting to place large orders. Why does it want such buyers to deal directly with them rather than the publisher unless they’re sitting on a warehouse full of books they’ve already paid for?) If they sell the book for $15, deduct $5 for the backpack, they’re still making bank.
And Steven is building mansions.
Addendum: Since this is a question that is bound to come up when reading this post, TWW has reprinted one comment and Dr Duncan's reply.
I happened on to this article by someone who posted a link to it on Facebook. With all due respect, I don’t think you understand the book business, and so there is a material flaw in your reasoning. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but anyone who understands the business would understand that your missing a key component to how authors are compensated. Authors (much like recording artists and songwriters) typically get an advance against future royalties. That’s just how the book business works. Depending on how well a book is expected to sell, a contract advance, particularly if the contract is for multiple works, certainly can be 7 figures. For an extremely high profile work, the advance could even be 8 figures. Not trying to defend Furtick. I don’t think that pastors should live in mansions either. And Furtick may be lying. But your premise that he must be lying because he couldn’t have generated enough royalties to pay for the house represents a flawed analysis.
James Duncan
Literary Attorney, thank you for the clarification, but I do understand how advances work, and in the post I even give SF credit for having already banked the advances for two more books. I also happen to know how much other bestselling pastors just like SF have received for advances for their work, and there’s no way that he’s getting advanced more than $200k per book. Even if he did get that much, he would still be in arrears, meaning he hasn’t received any further royalties from them since. After the weak performance of the first two, whatever he gets advanced for future books is going to go down, not up.
Advances could explain his fat wallet, but most publishers aren’t that reckless. As a writer or celebrity, Furtick is no Warren or Osteen.
(If you know publishers who advance what you theorize SF got, please contact me. I’d like to retain you for my own book.)
*********************
We have given you all a lot to chew on. We look forward to your comments.
Lydia's Corner: Job 40:1-42:17 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 Psalm 45:1-17 Proverbs 22:14
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First comment!
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Ok, seriously, after hearing the “Not that great of a house” sermon, my red flags went up very quickly. I hadn’t even heard of him until about a year ago, and I’m only 1 state north! He couldn’t have sold that many books to generate that income. I would expect J.K. Rowling to have a house of that cost. But she had millions of books sold and lines out the door at midnight when they went on sale. Never saw that with Furtick. Thanks to Mr. Duncan for putting up some numbers for us to put it in perspective.
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Might I say Dr. James Duncan is definitely one smart cookie. I would put his doctorate up against any and all evangelical pseudo-doctorates any day. An interesting and precise summary of the image conscious evangelical movement that seems to float more on fluff than stand on substance.
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Pastor Steven did not write any of those books. He told us and I quote “God wrote my books!” That’s why I bought 25 “Sun Stand Still” books for Christmas 2 years ago, those are God’s books. Is 55:11 tells us, “my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
God tells us that “His Word” will not return “empty”. “His Word” to Pastor Steven has built our faith and built Pastor Stevens home.
We have a God who does not leave us Empty!
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“…buy placement on the NY Times bestseller list by simulating high demand for their books and flooding the market with orders from pseudo customers…
Manipulating the numbers… …Forbes estimates that placing a book on the NY Times list this way can cost a quarter million dollars.
Both Furtick’s and Noble’s book sales were juiced in the first week after their release”
++++++++++++++++
Velveeta Christianity.
getting more synthetic by the week.
this can’t go on much longer — consumption of this much artificial junk simply feels gross, then brings on disease, & untimely death.
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@ Tim Lawing: Are you any relation to the Rogers family-both living and deceased? If not, you need to get to know them. You guys would have so much fun.
Tim Lawing wrote:
This is one of the funniest comments I have read on the subject!
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Maybe Furtick’s mansion is just fancy storage space for his unsold books, and future unsold books.
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Evie wrote:
you have solved the mystery as to what he is doing with the other 8,000 square feet!!!!A book depository! Wish I had thought of that!
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@ Wade Burleson: I was super impressed! There is a reason he won his lawsuit against the “Spring.”
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@ Lola: Yay, Lola! Hope it was worth being first in line!
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James Duncan said:
If you know publishers who advance what you theorize SF got, please contact me. I’d like to retain you for my own book
Dr Duncan, I will be first in line to purchase any book you write!
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Dr Duncan is one smart cookie. Making known how this stuff works is one step toward showing what it is really all about. Building their brand. They are a “brand”. That is what passes for Christendom today, folks.
Something similar was done with “The Story” at a mega church here. They made tons off of “gifts” since it was not for resale as we already know Max Lucado has made a ton off his books/conferences.
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elastigirl wrote:
LOVE. THIS.
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@ Tim Lawing:
LOL!!! There are many people who really believe this, sadly.
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.
Dee,
Kudos for an awesome piece of research.
If all your writing was compiled into a dissertation, you could vie for an honorary, or real, Ph.D. from one of the Ivy League schools, I am sure.
You said:
Well, tomorrow kicks off the Elephant Room buddies, back-scratchin’, book-endorsing, real big he-man macho guys lovefest in Seattle. Tickets at $300 each are sold out (but you can still get pay-per-view seats at video venues (otherwise known as “churches”) all over the country for just a paltry $99 each. A pantheon of megachurch superstars and their wannabes will be there to sit in raptured awe before their “General”, M. Driscoll, and in judgment of all others. And, books, CDs, and DVDs a plenty will be available at the moneychangers’ tables.
There is still time to register.
HERE: https://theresurgence.com/conference
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@ TedS.:
Great comment!
THE MONEYCHANGER$ ARE IN THE HOU$E!
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The local NBC affiliate in Charlotte is having another segment on Elevation tonight at 11PM per their website titled “Where is money from Elevation church members going?”
Here’s the link:
http://www.wcnc.com/home/Elevation-Church–230470671.html
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Pastor Steven is an anointed Man of God and in fact His Anointing is so great that He can write the scriptures. His books are Scripture and God say he will bless his the Bible! Pastor Seven can do what you haters can’t and he can multiply loaves and wine. He only needs to sell one BOok and God will make it buy him a house.
That proves he is the Anointed Man of god and if you haters can’t handle that kind of glory then you should go and take your hate somewhere else. Your all arrogant and prideful sinners.
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Sorry – just wanted to jump on the bandwagon! Was that any good?
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@ Nick Bulbeck:
Just a minor editing note…
The correct spelling for the Almighty in this context is GAWD. 😆
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@ Olivia:
Thanks for alerting us. So much to keep up with, so little time…
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@ Deb:
Actually there were quite a few deliberate typos there..! 😉
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@ Nick Bulbeck:
Loved your comment!
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But the REAL Master of Juicing a book remains L Ron Hubbard, Founder and Bridge of Scientology. Elron even was able to Juice his books onto the NY Times Best Seller List after he shed his body (i.e. died)! Here’s how he did it (Furtick & Noble, take notes):
1) Command Intention LRH from Flag to ALL Scientology Orgs (i.e. command from the pulpit) for all Scientologists to buy the book — multiple copies preferred.
2) Scientologists then turn in the books at their Orgs, where they are shipped back to the publisher (Bridge Publications, owned by Scientology).
3) Bridge Publications inspects the returned books; those still in mint condition are shipped to the bookstores as new books.
4) Repeat steps 1-3 until sales figures (as if they didn’t sell the same book multiple times) land Elron on the Best Seller List once again.
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Dee,
What a great title for this post!
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Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Another Fourth Person of the Trinity. Latest in a long line.
I would really like to see the Celebrity Deathmatch/Steel Cage Smackdown between Furtick and Ayn Rand for that title.
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Tim Lawing wrote:
I call Poe on this one! 😀
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Vanity Pressing that you then have to sell out of your car trunk?
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That was the first I’d heard about that particular story regarding NewSpring “church”. That is one of the most disgusting things I’ve read in a long time. There is no Christ there at all.
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@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
It is despicable what was done to him. Downright cruel and very immature. I am so grateful Dr Duncan stood up to Noble and his bully boys.. But Noble is still in business with his blind bully followers. It is truly scary what attracts people to these churches like Noble and Furtick’s.
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Lola wrote:
She also had movie contracts that were VERY lucrative. Not to mention all of the other income sources that her books and characters generated. Wonder how Furtick is going to further milk the merchandise cow? Theme park anyone?
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Wow….I get the feeling that before one becomes a Pastor one should get a MBA in marketing. It compliments this kind of junk quite well.
So it leaves me to ask…what’s coming next from Stevieboy! 😛 He could write a book on humility….that is desperately needed. And who better than to teach humility than a narcissist! 😛
If that happens Stevieboy….please no talk and forcing a pregnant wife into sex. I still can’t digest that “humble” act. (Eagle headed to bathroom to heave….)
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TedS. wrote:
My mother would be so excited. Dr Dee has a nice ring.
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Steve D wrote:
WAIT!!!!! 😯 We already have the happiest place on earth! Its called Sovereign Grace! 😛
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Steve D wrote:
I think it is already an amusement park. It rates highly on the entertainment scale.
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Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
Me, too! I want this story to get out and will do everything in my power to make sure people hear about this. It truly sickens me that such activities could go on in a church and the lead pastor continue as if nothing has happened.
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Eagle wrote:
Here’s how it goes when it comes to theme parks….
1. SGM
2. North Korea
3. Yemen
then way downnnnnnnnnnnnnn in the bottom you have Disneyland and Magic Mountain! 😉
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@ dee:
LOL…Like minds think alike. That’s funny that we latched on to the same comment! You’re scaring me Dee! 😛
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dee wrote:
Maybe he’ll give tours of the house? The $5 basic version includes the unheated areas…$30 deluxe includes the heated and unheated areas of the house…
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Eagle wrote:
Creation Museum? TBN Broadcast center?
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I’ve noticed that the Pajama Pages aren’t part of the blog roll.
As long as we are talking finances this classic from the Pajama Game is a must! 😛
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w4mVycaC_o
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Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Resubmit it under a pseudonym sans photo, and it’s a go. 🙂
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@ Eagle: Thank you. They are now. Great minds and all that!
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@ Steve D: And books-you will buy books.
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In the land of Ago and long before the world had moved on,
W.C. Fields had this to say:
“…If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull…”
Providence guide and guard the ladies of TWW in exposing chicanery wherever it rears its venal head in Christendom.
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Wow. Reading Dr. Duncan’s account of the harrasment. For the first time, I am grateful that my former pastor is so “church image” conscious. They would never commit anything to writing – to a form that could be brought back to bite them. They did enough damage just by word of mouth….
I have a mix of emotions on this – sadness and anger. Sadness at the people who are being damaged, whether be being sucked into the criminal charade or being turned off to Christ by it; and angry at people claiming the name of Christ and acting like they were born in the pits of hell. Hmm….words are completely inadequate to describe the emotions this stirs….
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Jeannette Altes wrote:
Russian Bureaucratic Tradition: NEVER WRITE ANYTHING DOWN. Plausible Deniability — if nothing was ever written down, It Never Happened And You Can’t Prove A Thing.
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@ Muff Potter:
you have such a great way with words, muff.
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@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
HUG, I know you are well aquainted with the narcissistic tactic of “I never said that!” Even if it was only 5 minutes ago in front of witnesses. My mom’s favorite, when confronted with something she had done was, “I would never do something like that.” End of discussion. The scary thing is, it’s hard to tell if they really believe that….
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@ Deb:
Thanks… The one thing I forgot to mention was that I don’t live near Charlotte and am not a member of Levitation Church.
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The latest report on WCNC is another eye-opener.
Thanks Olivia.
http://www.wcnc.com/home/NBC-Charlotte-obtains-confidential-Elevation-Church-report-230557491.html
The Toronto Elevation Church numbers are not available, since the church was recently registered with Rev Can, and as a Canadian I’m not amused.
From WCNC:
“But when it comes to money, Elevation and its pastor, Steven Furtick, refuse to disclose audited financial statements, salaries, tax-free housing allowances and contracts with for-profit publishers. The confidential report shows that for the first 35 weeks of 2013, Elevation’s average combined operating and expansion offerings, excluding its Toronto location, stood at $550,775.50.”
Elevation church brags about giving 10 mil to charities since it opened, with projected possible expansion plans of 86 mil? It collects 1/2 mil a week.
Revenue Canada operates a bit differently than the IRS, but having said that, I wonder if Canadian attendees have to sign a confidentiality agreement, how much money Charlotte put into this plant, what training John Bishop has etc.
The Toronto Elevation FB page is quiet, the twitter feed is still full of Pastor Steven this, Pastor Steven that…
I wonder if the ongoing fallout from the publicity around the house that Steven built in the Charlotte area is being felt here in Canada.
I’m tempted to write TO planter John Bishop (part of the original inner circle) and ask.
Think I’ll get a response?
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The WCNC report says: 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.
Is this like the bragging rights of Rhode Island (I think, or perhaps Connecticut) where it’s more prestigious to have a lower number auto plate? (Forgive me if I got the state wrong, I meant no offense 🙂 )
@Dee It’s fun to be the first in line – just happened to be at the right place at the right time!
@Steve D I completely forgot about all J.K. Rowlings’ movie deals and such. Just had books on the brain!
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Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Count your blessings!
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Trying to keep track of where the money comes from and goes to in these book dealings is like watching 3-card monte.
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The symbolism of building their house in the woods and also hiding the source of their wealth reminds me of Genesis (a lesson to us all of course):
Then the man and wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man. “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; So I hid”
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Jeannette Altes wrote:
I think they do. When you always redefine reality in your mind so I Am Always Right, the only thing left to do is to force others into your reality. Doublethink, comrade, doublethink.
In his memoirs, Reichsminister Albert Speer wrote of “arranging his mind” to remove all doubts about whether he was really doing the right thing as he rose in the Nazi regime.
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Jeannette Altes wrote:
Don’t forget the narcissist’s Reality Distortion Field that makes EVERYONE except for you Agree Completely with the Narcissist and Remember EVERYTHING Exactly Like The Narcissist.
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@ TedS.:
Wow. You can get a DVD of last year’s conference for $80. And Rick Warren’s still going strong looks like. I guess the show must go on. It just doesn’t seem right to me.
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Tim Lawing wrote:
If this weren’t so heartbreaking it’d be hysterically funny. But cold chills ran down my back when I read this post. I don’t know Furtick, but I’m pretty sure that he did not intend for his audience to take his attribution to God literally enough to equate his book with scripture.
I have no idea how long Mr. Lawing has been a believer, or how long he’s been going to church. But I’m shocked to think that there may have been such light teaching on the subject of scripture that this misguided soul would make the huge leap from crediting God with influence and inspiration to saying that it is God’s word.
There is no doubt that God inspires people to create books, poems, music, & works of art. Sometimes we humans look at something we’ve created and realize that without God’s inspiration, without the spiritual gifts that God gave us, we could never have completed such a project. There are times that inspiration feels absolutely supernatural. But it does not mean that what we’ve done is on the level of scripture.
Oh, Mr. Lawing — God’s Word is the Bible. What your pastor or any other normal, ordinary person wrote may have been inspired. It may honor God. It may help you to understand and apply the actual Word of God in your life. But it is not the Bible. It is not Scripture. It is simply a book. Maybe a good book, maybe a bad one — the only real Good Book is God’s holy, inspired, inerrant word. It is “the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” I hope you will be led by it, and receive joy, inspiration, & truth from it — but please don’t think it can be replaced by a book written by a mere mortal.
When you elevate a pastor to the status of infallibility, or expecting his words to equal those of God, you’re erecting the diving wall of hostility, the false division between clergy and laity. That’s the wall that Christ, who loves you and Steven Furtick as much as he loves anyone else, died to destroy.
I have a friend who is a pastor who writes. His version of Christian writing looks so different. He says, ‘I belong to God. Everything I write or do belongs to Him; therefore, it is for me to give away at cost, as he freely gives His grace to me. He provides my needs. ‘
I’d much rather listen to a guy like that than a man who has the gall to say of a sixteen-thousand foot edifice, ‘it’s not that great of a house.’ What an ungrateful thing to say.
When it comes to money, God cares about it in different ways than we do. There are hundreds of references to it in the Bible. But what does God use gold for in heaven? It paves the streets. It’s nothing more than asphalt. Sometimes, it appears that he cares so little for money that he gives huge wads of it to really awful people. We’ve really gotten a skewed view of money when we think that receiving it means we’re doing great things for God. If that were true, everyone in the world who is rich would be a Christian. And all of us Christians could live in bigger houses than we already have.
Lord, help us.
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Speaking of the mega church buying the pastor’s books. I remember being at Fellowship Church in Grapevine where every attendee received a copy of Ed Young Jr.’s book “Kid CEO” for free. I can’t believe I actually went to that church – how embarrassing for me.
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Furtick’s publisher, Waterbrook (a division of Random House) felt they had a sufficient hit on their hands with Sun Stand Still and committed what I would consider a tactical error by releasing Greater only in hardcover. (Americans love first edition hardbacks, but this is a tight economy.) In addition to both books is the rarely mentioned Seven Day Miracle DVD and Participant guide released on February 5th this year. Plus there is the added income from audio books of the other two titles.
But add it all up and it doesn’t account for the type of revenue necessary to support the claim that the books ‘paid’ for the house, though I will accept ‘are paying’ for the house if one wishes to be optimistic. ‘Slowly paying,’ perhaps.
February 11th, 2014 will mark the release of Crash The Chatterbox in hardcover, DVD, and Participant Guide. It will be interesting to see if all the recent publicity helps or hinders sales. The Christian bookstore market may shun Furtick, but the big box stores seem to embrace authors who can grab headlines.
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@ Nickname:
The received wisdom is that “Tim Lawing” is a satirist, not an actual member of Levitation Church. That being the case, the comment was a parody.
There’ve been a few here lately, including “Bill Rogers” and “Sharon Long”. It’s possible they’re all the same person – Deebs and GBTC might have a clue as to that, since WordPress shows you the IP address each comment is sent from. Though commenting from more than one physical location would get around that, of course.
Pingback: Steven Furtick’s Royalty Claim: A $1.7M House | Christian Book Shop Talk
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Nick Bulbeck wrote:
But in an Age of Extremes like the present, it’s hard to recognize a parody. Because as over-the-top ridiculous as a parody can get, there’s some True Believer out there twice as over-the-top ridiculous and Dead Serious.
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Paul Wilkinson wrote:
“Crash the Chatterbox”?
Sounds like the title of a kids’ book or the name of a cartoon character.
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It is the third Furtick book, per google and Amazon.
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I attend Elevation Church and trust Steven Furtick with my life. While I dislike the lack of financial transparency, I still trust him.
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Brady Shackelford wrote:
This makes no sense to me. Why would you trust someone who is not transparent? Do you believe that he is a lesser sinner than anyone else?
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A very different approach to a pastor’s salary, compensation, and book sales: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/11/07/piper-on-pastors-pay/
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@ David T: Thank you. I just tweeted this.
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@ David T:
My comment on the website where Piper’s remarks about pay were provided:
As one who has sat on church personnel and finance committees, I commend Piper for this approach and for his teaching on it. I disagree with him on many, many things, but this shows an honesty and a servant heart that I had not expected to see from a famous modern pastor of a sizable church.
On the other side of things, I was often asked (usually by the wife of a pastor) how much time should he spend on church matters every week. My answer was, add a typical work week for employed members of the congregation (say 40 hours) plus the amount of time you would expect a deacon or non-paid elder to spend (committees, attendance, visiting, etc.), and treat that as a target for the pastor (and staff), since they are paid for Sunday attendance and the laity are not.
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@ Brady Shackelford:
Do you still give him/Elevation your money?
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@ Nick Bulbeck:
Thanks for letting me know. I know of someone with a similar name who goes to that church and it would not be a stretch at all for this to be a real comment.
After seeing one of Furtick’s copycat mega-churches in action, seeing people get baptized over and over again, and seeing their general lack of Bible knowledge, it sounded far too real to me!
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Steven Furtick: “If You Know Jesus, …Elevation Church Is Not For You…”
Elevation Church is not a true New Testament “Church”, in the ‘biblical’ sense, as outlined in the New Testament Book of Acts, but a christian outreach ministry that requests that the un-saved give this 501c nonprofit corporation money citing the bible as the source of the request. Once the individual makes a profession of faith, they are strongly encouraged to attend religious services elsewhere in the community, as this is a 501c non-profit who’s stated purpose is to seek and save the lost. Once ‘saved’ this church is not for you, is the saying. This ministry is akin to the old tent ministries where a traveling evangelist would set up a tent for a season, and preach the message of salvation to all those of the community in attendance. Only Steven Furtick is acting as a “stay in the community” evangelist, electronic media notwithstanding . The long term results/effects of this 501c religious not-for-profit corporation, is yet to be determined.
Christians are to be forewarned: “If You Know Jesus”, Steven Furtick says that his church is not for you.
____
Notes:
Video: Steven Furtick – What is the purpose of this church? Here the Pastor of Elevation Church, in Charlotte NC. expounds upon ‘why’ his church exists…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wILPzCyWYk&feature=youtube_gdata_player
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevation_Church
The church description here does not include stating the intended purpose of this 501c religious non-profit ‘church’.
–-
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http://www.worldmag.com/2013/11/the_house_that_steven_built
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@ TedS.: Wish I could access it. He interviewed me for the article. He was the guy who said “You don’t look like a troublemaker.” So, I am curious as to what he said.
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@ dee:
I don’t know if it’s still available or not, but if you type the word “Janet” into their promo code box somewhere on their site, you get a 3 month free trial subscription to their site. (Unless this offer has expired)
The URL to getting a free trial run (promo code Janet) was getworldnow.com
I meant to sign up for it but did not.
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dee wrote:
You can sign up for a free trial access. It’s worth it.
Here are some highlights: