Elevation Church, a multi-site megachurch in Charlotte, N.C., pastored by Steven Furtick, has donated $300,000 to its home city in an effort to fight homelessness and assist residents who earn less than 50 percent of the area’s median income. According to The Christian Post, the city’s mayor “can’t thank them enough” for their generosity.
“I can’t thank you enough for hearing my cry on the trail as I talked about how important this subject matter is to me,” said Mayor Patrick Cannon to Furtick in a video interview. “$300,000, that’s a big deal and you do it with humbleness and without asking for anything back. Charlotte will be set up as a place for best practices, where we can be looked upon by other places in this country, if not the world.”
“From day one, our motto was partnership,” said Furtick, in the video. “We never wanted as a church to create our own ministries but partner with people…Our church is a generous church and the thing I always teach when we hear of needs that are happening in our city, down the street or across the world, [is that] there seems to be three basic responses and the first one is greed then guilt…but generosity is God’s answer.”
Since Elevation was founded in 2006, they have given over $11 million to 84 outreach partners. During LOVE week in 2013, a community initiative to help the underserved, Elevation gave away $400,000 to charitable causes and throughout the year, they gave $2.5 million to efforts across North Carolina and the world.
“Out of what God has given me and has given the church, we hope to live in such a way that if Elevation Church died, the city would cry at our funeral,” said Furtick.
