Venue Church ‘pastor’ Tavner Smith spent several minutes during yesterday’s church service addressing the rumors surrounding the foreclosure and sale of their property. The church, led by the ‘WISH’ version of Steven Furtick, has been hemorrhaging members and money for nearly a year after being exposed for carrying on an illicit affair with his worship leader/ personal assistant.
Pastor Smith and worship leader Lexi were filmed sharing a kiss and were caught in a compromising situation involving a bowl of chili and some boxer briefs. With his wife divorcing him on account of ‘extramarital relations’ and most members of his church leadership team quitting, Smith took six weeks off personal reflection and healing and then was back in the saddle again, only to far fewer people.
Venue Church used to be among the fastest-growing churches in the nation, at one point topping 1500 people spread across four services and two locations. Now, they’re running anywhere between 90-120 people at one location, by the last estimate.
Five days ago, when news of the impending foreclosure and sale was made public, that the building was being sold and the church shut down, Smith took to social media to deny the claims, writing on Instagram: “I wanted to say it’s absolutely not true. Venue church is not shutting down. Number two, our legal team, who is amazing, has assured me that I can tell you with confidence, our Chattanooga location is going nowhere” and said he would address it at the next service. And he did, sorta.
Addressing what sounds to be a less-than-enthusiastic crowd, he begins the spin, admitting that the church is in a tough spot but that even if they lose the building, they’ll just gather at his house because the church isn’t a building- they are. He explains:
Before I jump into my message, I would just like to briefly address the mess, address everything that’s been going on that maybe you’ve seen on social media, or read or heard or seen comments and those type of things. I wanted you to hear from your pastor, personally.
You probably read in the paper saw in the paper that the bank put a notice of foreclosure on our building. Which is absolutely true. We’ve gone through a hard season, it’s been no lie, we we’ve not hidden that. It’s been pretty public, the season that we’ve gone through as a church. And we have had hard times and fallen on hard times. And we’ve done our best, not just as a staff, but as a whole church we’ve all come together.
Tavner at no point mentions the reason they’ve lost 95% of their congregants is because the scandal that erupted from him cheating on his wife and then refusing to step down from the pastorate like a man.
And I just want to applaud and celebrate your generosity, your faithfulness, your kindness, your patience, your willingness, and just say ‘thank you’. It is a scary situation when you’re navigating through things like this, and you know you’re not just going through it alone, but you’re going through it with a group of people, that affects lots of people.
And so when we found out and saw the notice, just like you, we were scared as well. But we also knew that God’s not done with us. Are you with me? The Bible says it this way, it says that ‘you can know the truth and the truth will set you free’. I’ve always said it this way, there’s a difference between facts and truth. Facts happen. Truth prevails.
Here’s some facts and truth: the reason that giving and attendance is down is because he is shameless in his sin and disobedience.
And I just prayed and the Lord gave us wisdom to seek some really amazing legal counsel and they’ve really helped us and they’ve, I just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to go home and you don’t have to worry, number one I just wanted to say it this way; that Venue Church, we are a church no matter what. Are you with me?
If we walked in tomorrow, and an earthquake happened and this building was swallowed up and gone, we’re still a church. The church is not a building, never was a building, never will be a building. Are you with me? We are the church. All right?
If y’all got to all come to my house will pile in there, In the cul de sac down the street, wherever we go, we are a church, but that’s not where we stand. We’ve sought our legal counsel, and they have assured me that I can stand up here and tell you that there are multiple options that they are providing for us to stay here and make it through. And I’m excited about that.
Tavner concludes this portion by saying that when he said the church was “debt-free,” what he actually meant was that they did not take on debt to renovate the church, even though they did sign a lease, and then years later and bought the building, at which point they took on good debt. At no point does he explain how they will get out of the foreclosure or why they haven’t been paying their bills for months.
The second thing I just wanted to address, and I’m not going to spend my whole time talking through this, I’ve really got a word from God for us today about our next season. But what I really wanted to address secondly was the thought out there that’s going around that I claimed we were debt free, and we really had a mortgage, I just wanted to clear that up.
Because I want you to know that your finances are cared for so much with the utmost integrity at this church. I did say in 2017, through the Promise Campaign, I stood on the stage and I said “let’s celebrate, we are debt free, we did this debt free”, because at that time we were 100% debt free through the Promise Campaign.
And I don’t know if some of you were here or not, but just to catch you up; that was a that was a giving campaign when we got this building. We didn’t buy it at the beginning, we leased it. Okay? We didn’t have the ability to buy it when we first came here, but we signed a lease to be here. We didn’t know if we were going to be able to buy it, and that was a lot of money to put in and go get financed for to renovate a building that you hope you’re gonna stay in and believe you’re gonna stay in, but you’re just leasing it and you don’t own it.
So we felt like the Lord said, ‘raise the money’ and whatever amount you raise, that’s what you put in to do the renovations to remain debt free on the renovations. So we did. We took up all of that money and debt free, we renovated this entire building. And when I made that announcement, we didn’t have a mortgage. We didn’t own this building. We leased this building, and we were debt free through our renovations. It was a true, honest celebration, it was where we were.
It wasn’t until two years later that we got an amazing opportunity. We got an opportunity that when we leased the building, we leased 38,000 square feet. But we got an opportunity to buy not only that 38,000 square feet, but 10,000 extra square feet next door and five acres of land, and in purchasing that save over $5,000 a month in payments.
So our board, every one of them approved that, signed off on that, we purchased this land, and I just want to celebrate right now that we’re not renters anymore, we’re owners of this entire property. And so now we do have debt. But it’s been a good debt. It’s actually saved us a lot of money in seasons where we were able to give that money away to ministries nationally, internationally and locally and help families and people right here in the community just like we still do every single day.
That dirty business done, Tavner preaches a sermon telling the congregants that God gave him a word, that the Lord wants to take their foreclosure and use it ‘for closure.’ That the time is now “for closure” on all the areas that have divided the church and caused disunity, putting them to bed and burying them for good. He intones, “without closure, we’re in chaos” and “there has to be closure of an old season and the beginning of a new season. Nobody wants it to be summer all year round.”
By ‘closure,’ we can only assume he wants people to stop talking about his deep and abiding sexual sin and his refusal to repent and make it right.
No, there will be no such “closure” for a man such as this.
