HOUSTON (TX)
MSN [Redmond WA ]
August 31, 2024
By Eric Killelea, Chron
Gateway Church in North Texas has reportedly lost nearly 20 percent of its weekend services attendance since founding pastor Robert Morris resigned two months ago amid accusations of sexually abusing a child.
The nondenominational megachurch based in the Dallas Fort-Worth suburb of Southlake on Wednesday told CNN’s Nicole Chavez that between 17 percent and 19 percent of its weekend services at nine locations in Texas and two others in Missouri and Wyoming. That means roughly 20,000 of the congregation’s 100,000 attendees stopped going to Sunday services.
Gateway critics shared the story on social media and accused the church of low-balling the estimate of lost attendees, and suggesting it might be closer to 30 percent. Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Mac Engel this month reported the church has experienced an exodus of roughly half of its congregation in Southlake. Gateway did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Morris has not made any public statements.
Gateway, founded by Morris in 2000, is one of the nation’s largest megachurches. It’s been reportedly struggling to attract and retain members in recent months amid the child sex abuse scandal. Church leaders have repeatedly claimed they had heard Morris speak about an extramarital relationship in the past but didn’t have all the facts about the victim’s age.
The Wartburg Watch, a digital publication that exposes abuse in churches, originally published Cindy Clemishire’s account in June, which included allegations that Morris, then a traveling preacher and a friend of Clemishire’s family in Oklahoma, began sexually assaulting her on Christmas night in 1982 when she was just 12-years-old.
Morris, a onetime member of former President Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, admitted to the Christian Post back in June that he “was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” when he was in his 20s. Morris, now 63, said the sexual encounters happened on “several occasions over the next few years” and were “brought to light” in March 1987. In September 2005, Morris allegedly offered to pay Clemishire to keep quiet about the fact that he’d sexually abused her.
Gateway in response hired Haynes and Boone law firm, which recommended that four elders with “a potential conflict of interest,” including James Morris, the son of the disgraced pastor, temporarily step down from their positions. Elders Kevin Grove, Steve Dulin and Gayland Lawshe all took temporarily leave from leadership roles. James Morris’ wife, Bridgette, also resigned from the church.
Still, Lawrence Swicegood, a church spokesman, told me in email last month that the church elders “believe that God has placed a desire in both James and Bridgette’s hearts to serve as senior pastors of a church” in the future and that “Gateway will support their desires to plant a church in the future as the Lord leads them.”
Gateway then cancelled an annual worship conference set for August as the law firm continued its investigation into the sex abuse claims. In mid-August, a Gateway Church offshoot in Houston announced plans to change its name to Newlands Church. Senior Pastor Ethan Fisher and his wife, Elaine, had planted the megachurch’s Southeast Texas sites in Katy and Magnolia beginning in 2020 as branches of the megachurch in Dallas-Fort Worth. Fisher has stressed his church’s autonomy after Elaine’s father, Robert Morris, resigned from the parent church.
Last week, Gateway Church elder Tra Willbanks posted a message on YouTube to announce the resignation of former executive pastor Kamtal Glasgow due to a “moral issue,” per CBS News. “To be clear, this decision regarding Kemtal had nothing to with the departure of Robert Morris nor related to those circumstances,” Swicegood told CNN.