South Carolina Ping 
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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.”
It was leaking out here SC, heard something was up on Tuesday.
That’s still a week out from the event. They should have announced it on the 3rd, and dropped a letter in the mail either Saturday or Tuesday.
Right
And we should absolutely not judge others
Bad liberal theology, but not really relevant to the present discussion.
South Carolina Ping
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1 Timothy 3
1. Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
8 In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain.
I was thinking more of James 3:1 “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” (ESV)
Funny thing, I've talked with numerous Southern Baptist FReepers who have "explained" to me that Southern Baptists DON'T operate this way.
They have "informed" me that "all pastors have EQUAL power in the SBC" and there's "no such thing as an executive pastor -- the SBC President is just a powerless symbolic office with no authority". It's a "bottom-top" model rather than the Catholic Church's "top-bottom" model where the senior pastor of a congregation has the absolute authority to do whatever he wants with HIS church.
According to them, if the pastor of a congregation "went rogue", then the congregation THEMSELVES would vote to remove him and elect a new pastor. In the event he blatantly defies SBC rules/teachings, there's "nothing they can do until the next annual national conference", at which point the SBC nationally can simply vote to "disaffiliate" the local church if the congregation refuses to remove their pastor, and thus kick the church out of the SBC for having an embarrassing pastor that is not in line with the rest of the SBC -- but this is ONLY done as a "last resort" and is "extremely rare but it does happen once in a blue moon"
But, silly me, this article says the "NewSpring board of directors" got together at their regular meeting and voted to remove the "Senior Pastor" of that congregation, and "Executive Pastor Shane Duffey", who outranks Duffey, then fired him.
Who should I believe -- this article, or what Southern Baptist freepers claim about their church?
I ve seen him on TV.
I am relieved to hear that!
A white guy, with a mostly black congregation I think.
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8
A Greenville online news source adds this much:
A pastor named Duffey (of NewSpring) said “Noble is now being treated by a psychiatrist.”
Not the best possible place to get lasting help other than the medicated kind.
No mention of alcohol there
If you will follow the exchange back to its start, you will see that it dealt with the issue of pastors being held to a higher standard, not the particular sin that this pastor committed this time.
It appears that you don’t know what an “Executive Pastor” is. In a large or megachurch, it’s the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the church. Generally, personnel, finance, and facilities would report to him. He may or may not serve as media spokesman. He generally will rarely, if ever, preach, although he is ordained. (An un-ordained person in the same role might be titled ‘Executive Director’.) Missions and Ministries may, but generally won’t, report through him.
It's a good thing that there's an elder board (or whatever it is in this case), that has the authority and gumption to discipline their famous (infamous) pastor, and that he submitted to it.
“But, silly me, this article says the “NewSpring board of directors” got together at their regular meeting and voted to remove the “Senior Pastor” of that congregation, and “Executive Pastor Shane Duffey”, who outranks Duffey, then fired him.”
It depends on the church constitution. Some require a pastor be removed by vote of the congregation, others require a vote of the deacons. I assume a mega-church might have different rules, although I’ve never been in an SBC church that had a Board of Directors.
“the SBC President is just a powerless symbolic office with no authority”. It’s a “bottom-top” model rather than the Catholic Church’s “top-bottom” model”
True. No one in the SBC, external to the congregation, can remove a pastor. That is done internal to the congregation (church). There is no “Southern Baptist Church” - only 40,000+ churches joined for the purpose of seminaries and supporting missions. The “SBC President” has no authority over any individual church.
Apparently the "NewSpring board of directors" missed this memo.
“When Tithing Comes With a Money-Back Guarantee”
I thought I’d heard him and his church connected to some other questionable practice recently but I couldn’t recall what.
From what I read about that, it sounds like a prosperity Gospel message, and it sends the message that God should give us what we want or think we need, rather than what He knows is best for us. I know that Malachi 3:10 gets cited, but instead it sounds more like tempting God.
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