# Elevation Church **Summary.** Charlotte, NC-based multi-site megachurch founded in 2006 by Steven Furtick. Technically affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention but operates charismatic-adjacent worship with Elevation Worship (its in-house music brand). Flagged in both Reformed and progressive critiques for staged "spontaneous" baptisms and for Furtick sermon content that reads as modalist to Reformed ears. ## Facts - **Founded.** 2006. - **Lead pastor.** Steven Furtick. - **Size.** Multi-site megachurch. - **Music brand.** Elevation Worship (and Elevation Rhythm, Elevation Youth). - **SBC affiliation.** Technically affiliated but not operationally confessional. ## Critique Vectors 1. **Staged "spontaneous" baptisms.** The 2014 coaching leak and subsequent reporting document a "spontaneous baptism" model where baptism candidates were pre-recruited and staged to make the altar call appear impulsive. 2. **Modalist-adjacent sermon content.** Aniol cites Furtick sermons that collapse the persons of the Trinity into roles or modes of a single divine actor. 3. **Celebrity-pastor model.** Furtick's public persona, compensation, and lack of accountability to a denomination are frequently-cited concerns. 4. **CCLI presence.** Elevation Worship is a major CCLI catalog; the same funding-flow critique that applies to Hillsong and Bethel applies here. ## Songs in Frequent Rotation - "Graves into Gardens" - "Do It Again" - "The Blessing" - "Means of Peace" These require individual evaluation against [[Worship Songs Evaluated]]. ## Tradition Charismatic-adjacent, megachurch, technically SBC. ## Open Threads - A dedicated source ingest of the 2014 "spontaneous baptism" coaching document. - Furtick's own teachings on modalism require careful reading — distinguishing pastoral rhetoric from formal heterodox claim. - Elevation's relationship to the broader NAR/apostolic-prophetic network — adjacent but not formally NAR. ## Related - [[Steven Furtick]] - [[Hillsong]] - [[Bethel Church]] - [[NAR Worship Critique Traditions]] - [[Worship Songs Evaluated]]