Gateway Church removes elders, employees who knew of Robert ...

Max Lucado, interim teaching pastor for Gateway Church, told congregants Nov. 2 that the Saturday service would be a “demarcation point,” or a “mile marker,” for the church.

“There are necessary endings. There are necessary beginnings,” Lucado said during Saturday service. “We’re at a time like that. We’ve been waiting all summer to know where we are, and it’s brought us to this service.”

Gateway Church elder Tra Willbanks took to the pulpit to share a summary of the findings from law firm Haynes and Boone LLP. The firm was hired by the church in June, following the resignation of Gateway’s founder and then-senior pastor Robert Morris. Morris founded the Southlake-based megachurch in 2000.

Morris’ departure followed accusations from Cindy Clemishire, who told The Wartburg Watch that the pastor sexually abused her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, starting when she was 12 years old. Since the allegations were revealed, attendance at Gateway campuses has dropped by more than 20%, from about 25,000 people each weekend to about 19,000, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Clemishire previously criticized Gateway for hiring a firm that specializes in crisis management to conduct the inquiry into allegations against Morris.

“This does not appear to be an independent investigation, and this deeply concerns me,” Clemishire said in June.

The law firm’s report looked into the conduct of Morris, not limited to Cleminshire’s allegations, as well as what was known, and when, by church leaders, Willbanks said.

He was accompanied by church elders Kenneth Fambro and Dane Minor. The trio made up the subcommittee that Haynes and Boone shared its findings with.

The law firm did not learn of any other sexual assault allegations against Morris during the course of their inquiry, Willbanks said.

Haynes and Boone collected 780 gigabytes of data, reviewed thousands of pages of documents and emails, and interviewed over two dozen individuals, Willbanks said. Morris was one of the six individuals who refused the law firm’s request for in-person interviews, Willbanks said.

Willbanks asked attendees and those watching the church’s livestream to contact the church’s elders via email to report any sexual abuse by a current or former Gateway leader.

“To anyone out there, if you are a victim of sexual abuse as a child, please know that you cannot have consented,” Willbanks said. “No child can consent to sexual abuse.”

Gateway removes elders, employees who knew about abuse prior to June 2024

There were two groups who knew of the abuse, Willbanks said. One group knew Clemishire was 12 years old when the abuse began. Another group knew of sexual abuse allegations against Morris, “but failed to inquire further.”

“Both groups are fundamentally wrong and cannot and will not be tolerated at Gateway Church,” Willbanks said.

As a result, individuals who fit into either group are no longer elders nor employed by the church, he said.

During the investigation, church elders Kevin Grove, Gayland Lawshe and Steve Dulin were asked to take a temporary leave of absence from Gateway’s board. All three were on the church’s board of elders between 2005-2007. Clemishire and Morris engaged in a series of messages from April to October of 2005 in which Clemishire asked Morris to compensate her for the trauma she experienced from the alleged abuse.

The church formally parted ways with Dulin, who was a founding elder, in July. Gateway Church’s statement did not specify reasons for the decision, but spokesperson Lawrence Swicegood previously told the Fort Worth Report that Dulin’s departure was not connected to the investigation.

Willbanks, Fambro and Minor are the only elders listed on Gateway Church’s website as of 7 p.m. Nov. 2. Grove, Lawshe, Thomas Miller and Jeremy Carrasco were no longer listed.

Gateway elder addresses lawsuits against the church, financial demands

Over the past several months, a number of lawsuits against Gateway Church have come to light. The church is also rejecting financial demands from Morris, Willbanks said.

He added that Gateway also is facing an ongoing criminal investigation. Willbanks did not offer further details during the Nov. 2 service.

Two separate families filed lawsuits against the Southlake-based campus in the last decade. One, in 2016, alleged that a disabled child was assaulted at the church’s day care center. The other, filed in 2020, alleged a child was sexually abused during a sleepover.

In August, the church was hit with a lawsuit alleging child sex abuse of a youth group member.

A group of Gateway congregants filed another lawsuit In October, alleging the nondenominational megachurch engaged in financial fraud when church leaders falsely promised members that a portion of their tithes would go toward foreign missionary work.

Through their lawsuit, congregants alleged that this promise wasn’t upheld and that they don’t know where those tithes went.

During an Oct. 5 service, Willbanks said the church was in the process of joining the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which requires churches to have an independent, governing body that would review annual financial statements. A copy of the statements would be available upon written request.

Willbanks said the church intends to work with an accounting firm that would “go through a forensic effort that all the accounting done correctly” in response to the allegations.

Gateway Church has completed audited financial statements for the past 19 years, Willbanks said Nov. 2.

The church has averaged approximately 19% of financial giving to global missions, he said. The global missions department includes local, regional, national and international ministries, amounting to nearly $200 million over the past 19 years, Willbanks said.

Gateway Church updates bylaws, looks ahead to more changes

The events of the last several months have demonstrated that there was a “massive governance and accountability failure” at Gateway Church, Willbanks said. He told attendees that the church’s culture had a part in allowing the “truth to be buried for too long.”

“Unfortunately, we have come to the realization over the last several months that at some point in the past, the culture at Gateway became one where power was centralized and the leader at the top was surrounded by people who wanted to protect him,” Willbanks said, “some of them at all costs.”

Willbanks said that the church is making revisions to its bylaws, including removing its apostolic elders office. And the church will no longer permit staff members to also serve as elders.

One exception involves its future senior pastor and, potentially, an executive senior pastor; the two roles could only serve as elders at a “non-voting capacity,” Willbanks said.

“We must learn the mistakes of the past or we will be doomed to repeat them,” Willbanks told congregants.

He sees the next steps as an “opportunity to reset and return” the church’s focus to God.

Editor's note: The story was updated Nov. 4 to reflect 780 gigabytes of data collected by Haynes and Boone, LLP.

Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at [email protected] or @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.