John Gray’s Relentless Church Files Motion Against Redemption Over Property Rights Dispute
Relentless Church of Greenville, S.C. has filed a court motion seeking the enforcement of a private agreement reached last year with Redemption World Outreach Center settling an ongoing property rights dispute, asserting that Redemption has not upheld its end of the deal.
An attorney for Relentless declined to disclose exactly what the issue is, only that the church is asking Redemption to comply with the terms of the agreement, The Greenville News reported.
“Relentless seeks only to enforce the clear and unambiguous terms of the Agreement which is now being met with resistance by Redemption,” the court filing says.
The initial dispute arose when Redemption, led by founders Pastor Ron Carpenter and his wife Hope Carpenter, in January 2020 filed a suit calling for the eviction of Relentless, led by Pastor John Gray and his wife Aventer Gray, alleging that the church had failed to make some required lease payments.
Gray had taken over the church in 2018 when the Carpenters left to run Jubilee Christian Center, now called Redemption, in San Jose, California. Gray rebranded the Greenville church as Relentless, but Redemption retained ownership of the 17-acre property and buildings, which the Carpenters and Redemption agreed to lease to Relentless Church during a transition period.
The call for eviction came amid scandals plaguing Relentless and as Gray was teasing that Redemption planned to return to a presence in Greenville. Relentless denied at the time that it was behind on payments.
The churches reached an agreement on the issue in October 2020, but the terms were not publicly disclosed.
Relentless spokesperson Anne Torres said in a statement to WYFF-TV that Relentless has “made every effort to be a partner in faith” under the agreement but it had become a “distraction to the work the church has done in the Greenville community and beyond.”
Torres said the hope is that Redemption will honor the original agreement “so that we can all move forward.”
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