Pastor John Gray returned to his Relentless Church in South Carolina with a defiant message in the face of the landlord’s intention to evict the congregation.
The landlord, Redemption Church, filed papers on Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, to legally evict Relentless Church after accusing Gray of failing to consistently make the required monthly payments. Last week, Redemption Church demanded Gray explain why Relentless Church should not be evicted. A court-sanctioned meeting is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 31, to give Gray the opportunity to defend himself and Relentless Church’s finances.
“God bless you, Relentless,” Gray said the congregation, according to NewsOne. “We love you so much, and I’ll see you this week coming and the next week after that and the next week after that and the next week after that and the next week after that.”
Gray’s sermon on Sunday, “Friend Request,” touched upon the subject of betrayal without actually mentioning the current controversy.
“We have to be careful with who we call friends. I’m not allowing everybody to speak into me … In 2020, you have to set up some boundaries,” Gray said. “There are people who take my checks but don’t have my heart.”
He also mentioned that he and his wife had already planned to take that Sunday to spend time with one another long before “there was a setup with a camera to serve papers to our church” by Redemption Church.
Redemption claims that Relentless Church breached its lease on the sports and fitness complex on the property and that Redemption had to incur those costs in order to avoid going into foreclosure.
