Megachurch Pastor Fired for Viewing Porn Talks About Overcoming His Addiction, New Pastor Job – Bible Says This Dude is Permanently Disqualified from Ministry
The Bible has some pretty straight forward guidelines on the type of people who can or should hold ministry positions in a church – something like viewing porn is a permanent disqualifier, yet this guy, in spite of being found out as a porn user or porn addict, is once more working as a church pastor.
Some Christians still claim to be against sexual sin, but they’re not – when you watch them in action, they will excuse and excuse and justify sexual sin. This guy sexually sins up, down, and sideways, and he is given yet another ministry job. Meanwhile, honest to god celibates – people like me who are sexually abstaining because we are single – get no support from Christians.
I see headlines like this, and I don’t see it as a beautiful, nice testament to “God’s grace” but I only see how the contemporary church has sold-out and become very lax about sexual ethics.
He says that technology was his downfall – was it? I use the internet quite a bit but don’t make a habit out of viewing porn or visiting porn sites.
I believe this article says that this guy is married – contrary to what many Christians teach, especially Baptists and evangelicals, marriage does NOT make adults more godly, ethical, or responsible. Being married didn’t stop this guy from viewing porn, after all.
By Samuel Smith , CP Reporter | Nov 11, 2018 8:43 AM
Pastor Scott Crenshaw said he felt like a rock star when he was senior pastor of the multicampus New River Fellowship Church based in Weatherford, Texas.
After helping Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston grow its young adults worship ministry, Crenshaw went onto become New River’s senior pastor and helped expand the congregation from one campus to three and from about 500 members to over 2,500.
But that all came to a crashing halt in 2016 when his departure from the church for “viewing inappropriate images” on his church computer made national headlines.
It was then that Crenshaw and his family were forced to seriously address a problem affecting their family that data show a majority of Christian men have some sort of struggle with — an addiction to pornography.
“Technology was my downfall but now technology is helping my restoration process,” Crenshaw told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday.
A little over two years removed from his fall from grace, Crenshaw is now serving full-time as an interim pastor at Lake Country Church in Fort Worth, Texas, a role he began about six weeks ago.
Crenshaw’s return to full-time ministry follows the nearly two-year journey that he and his wife, Renee, have been on in their quest to liberate Crenshaw from the grips of sexual addiction and heal the emotional harm that Crenshaw’s addiction has caused to his wife of 31 years.
“When all this came down, I had three overseers. These were the men that were there for me in case of emergency,” Crenshaw explained. “One of my overseers was on staff at a megachurch in Dallas. They pointed us to a ministry called Pure Desire and they pointed us to a man named Dr. Ted Roberts.”
The road to recovery
The Crenshaws flew out to Portland, Oregon, to meet with Roberts, a former megachurch pastor who founded Pure Desire Ministries along with his wife to provide “hope and freedom from sexual addiction” with a biblically-based and clinically informed approach to recovery.
“I hurt my wife. I betrayed her. I stole from our marriage,” Crenshaw said. “It is not just me that needed healing. She needed to learn how to trust me again and learn to deal with the wounds that were inflicted on her.”
…Return to preaching
After leaving New River, the Crenshaws searched for a church community where they could heal. Crenshaw was reached out to by Bishop Gary Oliver, the pastor of the Tabernacle of Praise in Fort Worth.
“He reached out to me and brought me in and said, ‘Scott, I want you and your wife to come and worship here anytime you want,” Crenshaw recalled. “We want you to be able to heal here. We got to that church and the church embraced us and loved us.”
About six months after the Crenshaws began worshipping at the Tabernacle of Praise, Oliver asked Crenshaw to come on board as a pastor on a part-time basis.
During this time, Crenshaw reflected on ways he erred in running his ministry at New River.
Christian Pundit 
Thank you for writing this. Amen! I am a member of Lake Country Church. There is so much more about this entire situation that a book could be written. Please keep our church in your prayers as we are trying to protect the flock from those that are blind to some very ugly things.
hi from Sharon :
I haven’t posted on your blog in a while. I just wanted to say that most institutional churches are corrupt. There has been a growing movement of true Christians leaving the organized church. Most leaders in the organized church are apostate and corrupt. I also read your post dealing with the lady named Gladys. You handled that very well. She was very, very cruel and insensitive towards you. I don’t attend any church services, but I listen to certain Christian programs on the Internet. There is too much bad doctrine, immorality and corruption in most churches.
Would the writer of this article contact me please. I have further information regarding Scott Crenshaw.
Hi leann74.
I am the blogger, but the article I was quoting from that is in the blog post was written by someone named Samuel Smith, and he was writing it for the The Christian Post web site.
I don’t know if you can try contacting him through the CP site. I don’t see any contact information listed for him on their site.
I sure would like to know what that info is!