#Pastor steven furtick church location free#

Smith traveled to give guest sermons at other prominent megachurches, such as Steven Furtick's Elevation Church in North Carolina. On a given week, the church might attract more than 1,500 people between its multiple services at two locations. The pastor had tattoos.Ī 2015 report from Outreach Magazine and LifeWay Research listed Venue as one of the fastest-growing churches in America. Worship music and the surrounding atmosphere felt more like a rock concert than a church service. The church appealed to many turned off by the buttoned-up, old wooden pew kind of Christianity offered at nearby churches. Smith, an understudy of the California-based Ron Carpenter, moved his family to the Chattanooga area from Greenville, South Carolina, in 2012 to start Venue Church.

#Pastor steven furtick church location free#

In that time, the Times Free Press has interviewed a dozen former church members, volunteers or staff, who described an organizational culture focused on growth and money with little patience for dissenting views. Venue Church and Smith have declined or failed to respond to repeated requests for comment from the Times Free Press since December. But the church is not a man, not a woman. 'And I began to pray, and the Lord made a covenant partner for me to pray for because I knew that the enemy was gonna try to take this church down. 'I saw all that God was doing here,' Phillips said. He told congregants to not always believe things they read on social media and said he partnered with Venue Church years ago when the megachurch was a rising star in American Christianity because he knew demonic forces would try to attack Smith's ministry. Phillips, a Venue board member and overseer of the church, preached about the blessing of Abraham on Jan. The alleged infidelity and fallout from the staff leaving, first reported by the Chattanooga Times Free Press, spurred sometimes mocking national and international media coverage, along with a flurry of online criticism as former church members discussed their experiences. The Abba's House pastor filled the preaching void left by Venue's charismatic lead pastor, Tavner Smith, who remains on sabbatical a month after nearly all staff at his church quit before Christmas over concerns about Smith's leadership and an alleged affair with a staff member. A similar awkward silence filled the auditorium between worship songs. A video introducing volunteer opportunities at the church played for nearly 40 seconds without sound. in the nearly 47,000-square foot building. Ushers with flashlights still directed people to available seats, despite two-thirds of the roughly 150 cushioned chairs being unfilled at 9 a.m. A church that years ago was among the fastest-growing houses of worship in the nation now struggles to attract a few dozen people to a service on a given Sunday.

'Venue Church needs to begin to pray for what's next, not for what's been,' Phillips told the congregation.īut the sins of the past appear to be undoing the Chattanooga megachurch. Ron Phillips Sr., a pillar of the Chattanooga religious landscape and pastor emeritus of Abba's House, stepped onto the Sunday morning stage of a church in crisis.