Steven Furtick and Maturity

Those of you who have followed my blog in the past know that I haven’t been a huge fan of Steven Furtick. Furtick is pastor at Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina and has been on my radar since he appeared on The Elephant Room 1. Yesterday he participated in the Elephant Room 2, and I’d like to share my thoughts about the role he played with you all.

You know how someone who acts like they know it all says that if they are wrong they will admit it, and you secretly don’t believe that they ever will. This is my moment to prove that.

Now, I don’t necessarily recant of my previous post dealing with Furtick specifically, or that have referenced him in a broader context. However, I think that I was mistaken in the finality and definitiveness of my tone. In watching him yesterday, I was seriously impressed by him, and discovered that I have a lot to learn from this young pastor.

Let me set up the context of this for you. The Elephant Room is an event where several (in this case 7) prominent pastors from various places in the country, backgrounds, and theological persuasions gather and discuss several (in this case 7) topics. Furtick was among the following group.

• James MacDonald – MacDonald is the executive pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel, director of Harvest Bible Fellowship (a network similar to Acts 29), and hosts a successful radio ministry called Walk in the Word.
• Mark Driscoll – Driscoll is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, was on the ground of the Emerging Church movement but abandoned it when it began to slide into relativism with the Emergent Village, and is the director of the Acts 29 network. He is also a successful author and his new book Real Marriage, albeit controversial, just hit number 1 on the NY Times best seller list. He and MacDonald also founded and organization called Churches Helping Churches that assists Churches around the world rebuild in the case of natural disasters.
• TD Jakes – Jakes, often called “The Bishop” is an influential Pentecostal pastor who leads The Potter’s Hand, a 30,000 member strong mega-church and humanitarian organization. Jakes was controversial on the panel because he is a member of a Oneness Pentecostal denomination and has espoused modalistic theology in the past (his views appear to be changing based on yesterday’s discussion, but that’s another post).
• Jack Graham – Graham hosts a successful radio ministry called PowerPoint Ministries (not sure how they managed that without getting the C&D hammer from Microsoft), and has severed two terms as President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
• Crawford Loritts – Loritts is the pastor at Fellowship Bible Church and has served as both a traveling speaker and associate director for Campus Crusade for Christ.
• Wayne Cordeiro – Cordeiro is pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship, a mega-church with 14,500 members in attendance. He is also the Chancellor of New Hope Christian College in Eugene Oregon (Formerly Eugene Bible College).

Now, I don’t just give you that list to show off how great the event was. I want you to recognize that Furtick is the youngest of these men (with Mark Driscoll a decade older at 41). Graham, Jakes, and Loritts have been doing ministry longer than Furtick has been alive.

What impressed me most about Furtick’s interactions yesterday was the respect, deference, and honor that he treated these men with. He had a posture of learning and submission that I rarely see. There are two quotes that I think exemplify this (they’re not exact quotes… I wasn’t taking as good of notes as I should have been) stance and I want to share them with you.

When asked why he chose to place his church under the Southern Baptist Conference umbrella he said “I was educated at Southern Baptist schools in both my undergraduate and masters. I wanted to honor that tradition.” I was absolutely floored. This man who I thought had no connections to tradition, no respect for Church History, and no desire to be under the authority of anyone… was submitting himself and his church to the Southern Baptist Conference out of a sense of honoring the tradition from which he received his education.

The next quote happened at the end of the day. The panelist gathered for the speed round in which they would each answer questions with short answers. When the question “Where do you see the Church in 20 years?” was posed Furtick quietly thought for a second, smiled and said “I’m really not old enough to speak to that… I’ve only been around for 31 years and I just don’t have the experience to answer that question.” He then went on to add that he is hopeful for the future of the Church and that he believes that we build the future, and that he would do his best to serve and honor God to the best of his abilities.

I think I owe Steven Furtick an apology… I judged him harshly and quickly. As I said, I don’t disagree with what I wrote in content, I still think that his Hey, Haters video was impetuous and ill-advised… but perhaps the tone of my response was a little impetuous as well. At the very least, he has matured significantly over the last year and on the trajectory that he is on I can see him becoming an extremely influential force in the American Church.

If he ever reads this, which I doubt that he will, I want to say this

Steven: I’m sorry that I moved too quickly in my assessments of you. You are sharing the Gospel in the way that God has led you to and I shouldn’t be so quick to discount that. We all have a lot of growing to do, and neither you nor I are exceptions to that, but I was much to quick to think that you didn’t realize this as well. If you’re ever in Boston look me up, I’d love to buy you lunch and pray with you as God blesses your ministry.