“Apparently the “NewSpring board of directors” missed this memo. “
No. You are the one confused. The NewSpring Board of Directors is PART OF the church. It is internal to the church, not external. Thus “No one in the SBC, external to the congregation, can remove a pastor.”
This is like watching the media trying to discuss guns. The very concept of a gun is so foreign to them that they cannot imagine it.
He was replaced IAW the church bylaws (http://ns.downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/newspring/editorial/NewSpring%20Church%20Statement.pdf). The SBC denomination has nothing to do with it. Nothing. The denomination has no control over its member churches, other than a church can be thrown out at an annual convention by vote of the convention.
If that is not the case, then this church isn't using a "bottom-top" model as the SBC claims. An elite few board members at the top are telling the thousands of rank-and-file church members that they can't keep their pastor.