Steven Furtick

Steven Furtick is the young man who is Senior Pastor at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. I have written about Furtick and Elevation several times in the past. This is one of the fastest growing churches in the United States and is pretty traditional. One of Pastor Furtick's heroes is the Rev. Billy Graham.

The following is from Pastor Furtick's blog today. I think it has a lot of legitimacy for all of us not just his church. Think about it!

Don’t Back Down

October 9th, 2008

God has been speaking to me a lot about the economy recently.
The sense of what He’s been impressing on my heart is: don’t back down.

Every time I’ve turned on cable news in the last 3 weeks I’ve been tempted to scale down and back away from some of our God-sized, faith stretching initiatives.  And I do want to be responsible…exercise wisdom…employ restraint…

But this is NOT the time for the church to huddle up in the bunker and wait for the end of the world.  In Joshua 3, God led His people across the Jordan during the flood stage.  Practically speaking, it was the worst possible time for them to cross over.  But from the standpoint of faith, why not cross over during flood season?  Flood season and harvest time go hand in hand.  And the higher the waters, the greater the opportunity for God to show off when He brings us through.

So Elevation Church is not backing down in this time of economic crisis.  We’re forging ahead, believing that God knows how to feed His children, even in a time of famine.
We’ll be committing hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to our local outreach partners in the coming months.  We are in the process of making the most expensive facilities decision we’ve ever made.  We just sent over 700 couples on date nights-paid for by the church.

We can’t back down.  It’s harvest time!  People are more ripe than ever to embrace the certainty of Christ, as the earthly things that seemed so certain are shaking and quaking. And God will resource us to reach them with the Gospel as we keep our eyes on Him.

I may sound naïve.  But I’d rather be naïve than faithless.
God’s faithless children are confined to wandering in the wilderness of intimidation.
Those who look to Him in times of scarcity and press ahead will see His provision, His favor, and His miraculous, abundant supply.

Don’t back down!