Art TerKeurst has run Chick-fil-A restaurants in Charlotte for nearly 35 years, yet most people meet his name inside someone else’s story. So who is the man behind the counter? This biography sticks to what’s documented, what he said in court papers, and what reporters found.
In brief: Art TerKeurst is a Charlotte Chick-fil-A operator, reportedly born in February 1966 in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. He married author Lysa TerKeurst in the early 1990s, and she filed for divorce in December 2021. He’s given no interviews we could find, so his story rests on court filings and family accounts.
Art TerKeurst’s Early Life and Background
Art TerKeurst’s early years are thinly documented. Profiles, including our own net worth analysis, place his birth in February 1966 in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. That would make him 60 in 2026, but no primary record confirms the date.
Vestavia Hills is a suburb south of Birmingham. The same profiles name his parents as Dudley and Sharon TerKeurst and describe a home built on work, faith, and community. We couldn’t confirm the names or the upbringing in named-reporter coverage, so treat both as reported only.
Education follows the same pattern. He reportedly attended West Morris Mendham High School and then Winthrop University in South Carolina. Neither school is confirmed by a primary source.
What’s firmer is where he landed. By the early 1990s he was working in the Charlotte area, and he’s stayed there since. The city was growing fast then, and its suburban restaurant market was growing with it.
Art TerKeurst’s Chick-fil-A Career in Charlotte
Business listings tie Art TerKeurst to two Charlotte restaurants: Chick-fil-A Arboretum and Chick-fil-A Waverly FSR. Both are reportedly free-standing units, not mall stores. He reportedly joined the Chick-fil-A operator network in December 1991, which puts him at nearly 35 years in the system.
Many owners spread across brands and cities. He picked one company and one metro area. That choice is the steadiest thread in his public story.
One family account suggests his footprint may have been wider. A profile of his adopted son Jackson says Art owned several Chick-fil-A franchises and employed Jackson at one of them. Public listings name only two, so the exact count over the years stays unclear.
Chick-fil-A’s model also matters here. Corporate owns the real estate and the equipment, and operators earn from each restaurant’s income. That’s why wealth builds slowly in this system, and our [INTERNAL LINK: Chick-fil-A operator income → chick-fil-a-operator-income] breakdown walks through the numbers.
Under the company’s 2024 franchise disclosure figures, operators pay 15% of gross sales to corporate plus half of the remaining pre-tax profit. They keep roughly 5% to 7% of sales. On the reported $9.3 million average for non-mall units, that’s about $465,000 to $651,000 a year before taxes. It’s an income average, not his personal number.
What Art TerKeurst Has Said About His Work
Nothing on record. We found no interview, podcast, or verified post in which he discusses the restaurants. That silence fits a private operator who lets the business speak, and we won’t fill it with guesses.
Art TerKeurst and Lysa TerKeurst: How the Marriage Unfolded
Most searches for Art TerKeurst lead to Lysa TerKeurst, the author and Proverbs 31 Ministries president. How and where the couple met isn’t documented in the on-record sources we reviewed. Lysa put the marriage at almost 25 years in 2017 and 29 years in 2022, which points to the early 1990s.
The public timeline runs like this:
- About 18 months before June 2017: Lysa learned of infidelity and substance abuse, by her own account.
- June 2017: She announced a separation and said she’d pursue a divorce.
- October 2017: She received a breast cancer diagnosis, and a double mastectomy followed that November.
- June 2018: A Father’s Day post showed the family together, including Art.
- December 11, 2018: The couple renewed their vows near their home in Waxhaw, North Carolina.
- December 2021: Lysa filed for divorce a second time.
- January 1, 2022: She announced the end of the marriage publicly.
- February 2022: Art filed a response asking for support, alimony, and a property division.
- April 11, 2022: Lysa filed a motion to dismiss his counterclaims and compel arbitration.
- By early May 2022: The Christian Post had reported on the filings.
- January 2024: Lysa remarried.
North Carolina requires a continuous year of separation before a divorce case can begin, MinistryWatch noted. That fits Lysa’s own words about a year of waiting before she announced the split.
What This Relationship Means to Them, In Their Own Words
Art hasn’t discussed his marriage in an interview. His voice appears only through his court response, as relayed by MinistryWatch, The Christian Post, and Crosswalk. Even there, three statements stand out.
First, he said that after finishing treatment and renewing the vows, he believed the post-nuptial agreement no longer applied. He described the renewal as a “fresh start,” per The Christian Post. Second, he said he signed the agreement under duress while preparing to enter treatment for alcoholism.
Third, he admitted illicit sexual behavior before the agreement. MinistryWatch reports he also asserted he “has been a faithful and dutiful spouse.” Those two claims sit side by side in the same response.
Lysa’s words are far more public. In 2017 she asked followers to keep Art in their prayers, writing “please, please pray for Art,” according to CBN. After the December 2018 ceremony she called it “a marriage restored,” per Baptist Press.
She later told ChurchLeaders that facing the broken marriage in public felt “excruciating.” In January 2022 she said she’d keep most details private out of respect for their children and grandchildren.
What Reporters Found That Wasn’t in the Interview
Because Art gave no interview, reporters leaned on filings. The Christian Post obtained one that spring. It alleged he spent at least $118,000 of the couple’s money on an affair with a woman he met online.
The filing also included text messages between Art and the woman, whom it doesn’t name. ChurchLeaders added that the spending allegedly covered a ring and the cost of moving her near Charlotte.
Lysa’s April 11 reply added financial detail. She said the couple kept separate accounts under the post-nuptial agreement, even after they reconciled. She also said the agreement carried an arbitration clause, and that she’d proposed arbitrators three times without agreement from Art.
She argued, too, that Art had ratified the agreement by signing property deeds, and that his challenge came too late. Art, for his part, claimed Lysa had disposed of property without following the arbitration clause.
Separate accounts matter for any wealth estimate. That detail is worth holding onto whenever you read a net worth figure for him.
What’s Confirmed vs. What’s Alleged
Some points are firmly on the record. Lysa announced both the 2017 separation and the 2022 divorce herself. The couple renewed their vows in December 2018, and Art’s own response admitted illicit sexual behavior before the agreement.
Other points are alleged or disputed. The $118,000 figure comes from a filing, not a ruling. Art said he finished treatment, while Lysa said he left the program without completing it.
The validity of the post-nuptial agreement is also contested. We found no reported ruling on it. Neither side’s version should be read as settled fact.
Art TerKeurst’s Family: Five Children and a Wider Circle
Art and Lysa raised five children: three daughters and two sons adopted from Liberia. The sons, Mark and Jackson, joined the family as teenagers. Mark was 13 and Jackson was 14, according to a TODAY interview.
The story began at a concert. Lysa attended a Liberian boys’ choir performance with her daughters. She told TODAY the boys sang beautifully, yet “they had nothing.”
Her daughters pushed the idea, American Essence reports. She and Art then began discussing adopting Jackson and his friend Mark. Within ten years, 45 other children from the same orphanage had joined families in their community.
Jackson later caught up on schooling and graduated from high school at 21. American Essence says he worked at one of Art’s restaurants. By January 2022, Lysa described herself as a mother of five and a grandmother of three.
The adult children keep their own lives private, so we don’t profile them further.
Art TerKeurst Net Worth, in Brief
Our estimate for Art TerKeurst is $3 million to $5 million. It rests on more than 30 years of operator income. It’s a benchmark inference, not a disclosed figure, and no verified financial record exists.
Two details sit outside any estimate. Lysa said the couple kept separate accounts, and Art asked a court for alimony and a property division. Neither point shows what he holds today. Both explain why we give a range and label it an inference.
The divorce likely changed his finances, but settlement terms aren’t public. For the full method, read our art-terkeurst-net-worth] article. It explains why figures online trace back to the same unsourced range.
Life After the Divorce
Lysa filed in December 2021 and announced the split on January 1, 2022. The exact date a court finalized the divorce isn’t in the reporting we reviewed. By January 2024, she’d remarried.
She told followers she met Chaz Adams in January 2023. The couple married in the French Alps, per ChurchLeaders. For more on her side, see our [INTERNAL LINK: Lysa TerKeurst divorce timeline → lysa-terkeurst-divorce].
Art has stayed quiet. We found no public confirmation that he’s remarried. Reports about a public social media account conflict, and we couldn’t verify an active one. We also found no reporting that he’s left the business.
Separating Fact From Internet Noise
Search for Art TerKeurst and you’ll land on pages that get the basics wrong. Some call him an author or a ministry leader. Others refer to him as “she” or give birth dates that match nothing on the record.
Those mix him up with his former wife or invent details outright. Lysa is the author and ministry president. Art isn’t. A few pages even invent a “new wife” for him, and we found no confirmation of that.
We built this biography from named-reporter coverage, court-filing reports, and family accounts instead. Anything unconfirmed carries the word “reportedly.”
What We Still Don’t Know
Several basics remain open, and we’d rather say so than guess:
- The terms of any settlement or alimony ruling.
- The exact date the divorce became final.
- Whether arbitration happened, and how a court treated the post-nuptial agreement.
- His confirmed birth date, parents, and schooling.
- Which restaurants he runs today.
Those gaps matter because each one changes how readers should treat the story. Until a ruling or an interview fills them in, the careful move is to report what’s filed and leave the rest open. We’ll update this biography when new on-record material appears.
Art TerKeurst’s Story, in Short
Art TerKeurst’s life splits into two stories. One is public and painful, told mostly by his former wife and by court papers. The other is quiet and steady, a Charlotte operator who has worked under one brand for nearly 35 years.
The honest picture sits between them. We know the dates, the filings, and the family he helped raise. We don’t know his own account of the marriage beyond a few lines in a response. Until he speaks, that silence is part of the Art TerKeurst biography.
More on This Topic: Art TerKeurst Net Worth: What Three Decades of Chick-fil-A Actually Built
Frequently Asked Questions About Art TerKeurst
Who is Art TerKeurst?
Art TerKeurst is a Charlotte Chick-fil-A operator and the former husband of author Lysa TerKeurst. He reportedly joined the operator network in December 1991.
How old is Art TerKeurst?
He was reportedly born in February 1966, which makes him 60 in 2026. No primary record confirms the birth date.
What does Art TerKeurst do for a living?
He operates Chick-fil-A restaurants in the Charlotte area. Listings name the Arboretum and Waverly locations.
How many children does Art TerKeurst have?
He has five children with Lysa: three daughters and two sons, Mark and Jackson, who were adopted from Liberia.
Why did Art TerKeurst and Lysa divorce?
Lysa said he broke the vows they renewed in 2018 through behavior that dishonored their marriage covenant. Art’s response disputed parts of her account and asked for support, alimony, and a property division.
Is Art TerKeurst remarried?
We found no public confirmation that he has remarried. Lysa remarried in January 2024.
Disclaimer: These details reflect publicly available reporting and records — not confirmed statements from the individuals involved. This article reflects publicly reported allegations and legal filings; no claims of guilt are made or implied.
Sources: The Christian Post: divorce filing coverage · MinistryWatch: Art’s response to the petition · The Christian Post: vow renewal. Also cited by name in the text: Baptist Press, ChurchLeaders, CBN, Crosswalk, American Essence, and TODAY.
