Pastor Perry Noble Asks For Prayer As Wife Undergoes IVF with Down Syndrome Embryo
Pastor Perry Noble of Second Chance Church has asked for prayer for his wife Shannon, revealing on social media that she’s had surgery to help alleviate an endometriosis diagnosis so that she can hopefully get pregnant through in-vitro fertilization.
Posting on Instagram, Noble shared that the last remaining embryo (it is unclear if this is their last ever, or the last from their most recent round of IVF) has serious health complications.
(This is our next step in our IVF journey!) After 3 miscarriages the medical team has determined that she has endometriosis. So today she is having surgery to get this taken care of so our next embryo transfer has a greater likelihood of implanting…which is another part of this story
We have one more embryo – a baby boy – and he has trisomy 21, which means that more than likely – he will be born with Down syndrome.
Regarding his child, Noble says while some folks have expressed their sympathies, he is urging them not to, calling the child a gift from God that they are eager to implant.
We’ve told a few people about it – and the reaction has been a bit fascinating. A few people have been surprised that we are going to implant the embryo – knowing his condition… …but @repokis and I both know this embryo is actually a life – and deserves a shot to live as much as any other baby!
Some people have told us, “I’m sorry,” to which our reply has been, “don’t be, this baby boy is a gift!” But – most people have been super excited for us and this next step!!!
Noble has one child with his former wife, Lucretia whom he filed for divorce from in 2017 after 17 years of marriage, despite saying there was no sexual immorality from either party. He married his new wife Shannon Repokis in 2021.
Background: For many people, the last they heard of Perry Noble was back in 2016. At the time he was the founder and lead pastor of Newspring Church, an SBC mega-church with a daily attendance of 32,000, one of the biggest in the country. He was seen as a rock star in evangelical circles, headlining major conferences and sending social media ablaze with every new provocation from the pulpit, of which there were many.
He was also widely known for several minor scandals, such as playing AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ for their Easter service, being rebuked by his denomination for bad theology when he called the 10 commandments “10 promises,” and to a lesser extent being the foil to reformed folk and discernment bloggers alike when he rebuked congregation members in his church who said they wanted to go “deeper” and dismissed them as “jackasses.”
Then the story broke. Perry Noble had been kicked out of his church by his elders for his “posture toward his marriage and increased reliance on alcohol and other behaviors.”
Essentially, he was an alcoholic whose life and marriage were out of control.
Unfortunately, reconciliation did not occur with the church or his wife. After an investigation, the elders at Newspring deemed Noble unfit for ministry. Lead pastor Clayton King told the congregation, “Perry currently does not meet the biblical qualifications of a pastor, teacher, shepherd.” Less than two years after losing his church, he filed for divorce from his wife despite saying there was no sexual immorality from either party.
Not one to be kept down, Noble followed in the footsteps of many disgraced pastors by returning to ministry as soon as possible, following the playbook of the ‘Evangelical Ministry Restoration and Reintegration Process.’
Removed from his church, he spent 30 days in rehab and went through a dark time of depression and doubt, including allegedly having suicidal thoughts at having lost it all.
Then, almost on cue, he made a decision to regain it. Noble started an online church which featured him in his living room giving little mini-sermons/ rambling talks to whatever people still disagreed with the decision to give him the boot out of NewSpring. Slowly by surely, things started to calm down in his life.
With a new church in hand, Noble soon acquired a new family, getting engaged to a woman who would soon become his new wife.
In January 2019 he made the decision to go from an online service to a physical location. Named “Last Chance Church,” it focuses on and is themed around the notion of ‘it’s ok to be not ok” and on “being real” about how messed up you really are, but embracing that because “God wants to give you a second chance” and “The best is yet to come.”
Worried about whether anyone would show up to his church on the big grand opening on January 27, 2019, Perry needn’t have stressed. Over 700 people showed up across two different services, so much so that they had to turn people away.
His church has grown substantially since then.
Now Nearing 3000 weekly congregants, Noble announced last week that the church purchased 8 acres of land in Greenville, SC, and that they were opening up another satellite campus so that the Second Chance Church would have its first multisite, which will feature Noble telecasting the sermon.
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Noble says that “this embryo is actually a life – and deserves a shot to live as much as any other baby!”
Um . . . yeah, but why does he ignore the fact that IVF invariably results in the /destruction/ of the majority of embryos that get produced?
This is NOT a pro-life procedure.
IVF and birth control both need to be banned. They enable the female takeover of society and the homosexualism it entails. Let anyone who argues publicly otherwise be anathema.