After being caught up in a legal stoush with the former pastors of the church he has taken over, John Gray will be relocating Relentless Church to a new venue.
The pastor, who took over from Ron and Hope Carpenter in May of 2018, was served an eviction notice, even though the church claimed it is up to date on all of its bills.
The former pastors of the South Carolina megachurch gave Pastor John Gray and his wife Aventer 30 days to vacate the premises, including telling followers that they are excited about taking over the church.
In the interim, an employee has resigned over the saga.
WYFF4 reported that Relentless Church will move to a new campus in Greenville next year and start a new church in Atlanta, Pastor John Gray announced Sunday.
Gray did not share where the new location would be, but did show renderings to the congregation of what the inside of the new buildings in Greenville will look like.
The Carpenters headed to Jubilee Christian Center in San Jose, California, handing the Greenville megachurch, which was founded in the 1990s, to Gray. They re-named their church Redemption Church.
It is alleged that Gray was given full control of the assets, the vision and the future of the ministry. Gray engaged law firm McGowan, Hood and Felder, LLC to act on his behalf. The law firm issued a letter to the Carpenter’s solicitor, dated December 5, 2019.
Redemption, the Carpenter’s new church, authorized their legal counsel, Katari D. Buck, Partner at Asiatico Law, PLLC, to issue the following statement:
“Since The Relentless Church began operating on Redemption’s Greenville campus in May 2018, the two churches have worked toward Relentless taking control and ownership of the Greenville property. Despite nearly two years of negotiations, however, the parties have been unable to fully agree on the terms of this transition.
“Because the parties have not been able to agree on a date for Relentless to vacate the property, Redemption has taken steps to protect its property rights by sending a notice of lease termination to Relentless through legal counsel, which requires Relentless to vacate the property by December 31, 2019. If Relentless does not vacate the property by December 31, 2019, Redemption will begin the necessary court process to have Relentless removed from the property in accordance with South Carolina law.
“Redemption is in receipt of the letter to its counsel from J. Stephen Welch on behalf of Relentless dated December 5, 2019. Redemption disagrees with the legal positions taken in the letter and is preparing a response. Redemption does not believe it benefits either party for this legal battle to be waged in the media, however, and instead will look to the court process for resolution.”
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