Posted on 07/10/2016 12:21:58 PM PDT by Gamecock
ANDERSON, SC
The Rev. Perry Noble, who started NewSpring Church nearly 20 years ago, is no longer its senior pastor.
Early in Sunday’s 9:15 a.m. service, Executive Pastor Shane Duffey announced that Noble had been removed as pastor on July 1, after the NewSpring board of directors had “made a difficult and painful decision” to make a change.
Duffey said the termination by the state’s largest and richest church came after Noble “had made unfortunate choices,” and that the board members had confronted Noble on numerous occasions regarding his use of alcohol.
The announcement came three days after a closed-door, unscheduled meeting of church officials that fueled rumors throughout the community that the 45-year-old Noble was at odds with church hierarchy.
Noble, in a statement read by Duffey, said “I wish this were a joke, and part of a sermon illustration, but it is true.”
He also confirmed an “overuse of alcohol,” in the statement, adding that he has “come to depend on alcohol instead of Jesus.” He also said that there was no infidelity or abuse in his marriage.
“No one is more disappointed in me than I am in myself,” said Noble, the only senior pastor in the 16-year history of the church.
Noble also manages a personal blog/website (perrynoble.com) that he once used to convey frequent messages about his personal life and Christian topics. The blog has grown quiet in recent months. Noble made 51 posts in the first three months of 2016 but made only nine in April, six in May, and none in June or July.
Duffey announced that Clayton King will serve as interim senior pastor. Cooper delivered the primary message Sunday morning.
Noble was one of 22 pastors listed on the church’s website. In addition to the 17 campus pastors, including three in the Midlands, Noble led a staff that includes Brad Cooper as executive pastor of ministries, Duffey, Howard Frist as executive pastor of campuses, and Michael Millikin as executive pastor of operations.
NewSpring unofficially began in 1998 when Noble, an Anderson native, began holding Bible study on Wednesday nights at his apartment in Anderson. Eight people came to the first meeting. Within six weeks, the crowd had grown to 150.
The next summer, Noble was at a restaurant when a friend asked him: “What would you do for God if you knew you could not fail?”
Noble’s answer: Start NewSpring Church.
The church’s first service was held on Jan. 16, 2000, in the Sullivan Building at Anderson University. About 115 people showed up.
The congregation grew tremendously after that, and by 2004, NewSpring was building a campus near Concord Road and S.C. 81 North in Anderson.
The congregation moved into the 2,460-seat auditorium there in 2006, and the church’s membership soon doubled from 4,000 to 8,000 people.
Now, NewSpring has 17 campuses across South Carolina and more than 30,000 people attend its weekly services. In 2015, NewSpring’s income was more than $64 million, according to an annual report posted the church’s website.
NewSpring is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but leaders of the organization have criticized Noble over the church’s use of secular music. Noble’s messages have also been controversial at times – including one last year in which he stated that the Ten Commandments were not commandments.
A similar controversy erupted in 2009, when the NewSpring band opened the Easter service with the rock song “Highway to Hell.”
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Glenn Beck effect?
In 2005, he wrote that he had been a addict of pornography. This time, he said that porn was not the problem; it is alcohol addiction.
Hopefully he can come to a complete restoration.
“All men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Never heard of this guy.
Noble rescinds the Ten Commandments for 2015
When Tithing Comes With a Money-Back Guarantee
Indeed.
And pastors are held to a higher level than those of us in the pew.
Me too.
They have a hard life, even when that life is,on the outside, comfortable, If they are faithful to Christ.
Hope Noble chooses Christ over addictive root soon.
All of us, at one point or another, struggle with addiction in one form or other (emotion, action, habit etc etc)
As God would have it, not a one of us are immune.
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Hopefully he can come to a complete restoration.
He can.
He needs our prayers and God's loving grace.
That’s too bad. I hope he recovers.
For some of us, an adult beverage is not an option. I can’t speak for others, but for me its not.
I could be injured, dead or lose my job like this pastor if I ever went back to it.
By whom?
I believe compulsive and addictive behavior crosses substances.
Even the AA Big Book aimed at the alcoholic speaks of a disordered sex life for drunks that needs to be rearranged by the drunk themselves in a way that works for them.
I have been drunk and I have lusted after women and had the wrong attitude towards them, that’s for sure.
There are men out there who sober up from booze, then switch over to porn and rely on it to carry them at the substance of choice hurting themselves and others.
That's really amazing. They managed to keep it quiet for 10 days. When we had to remove a senior pastor, the action happened on a Friday, the deacons found out on Saturday, and it was announced to the congregation Sunday morning. Of course, a large number of the deacons' wives figured it out when the invites to the emergency meeting went out Friday evening, and word had leaked out to the informal leadership.
By God. It is in the Bible.
But we are totally saved if we believe that Jesus as the Son of God ( not David) and we are all joint heirs with Jesus. And we should absolutely not judge others!! “Word of God” right?
Alcohol is a liquid substance present in varying degrees of concentration in many forms of adult beverages.
Intake of alcohol is therefore quantifiable and I would like to know just how much of it constitutes misuse in this pastor’s case. Should be easy to calculate.
Not much on particulars here except for downfall & sinfulness.
God.
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