COLORADO SPRINGS (CO)
KOAA News 5 [Colorado Springs, CO]
June 16, 2025
By Megan Cloherty
The leader of New Life Church in Colorado Springs knew that a pastor at his previous church in Texas sexually abused a child, according to court documents.
The documents also allege that leadership at New Life hired Boyd as senior pastor despite knowing he was among those who were informed of the abuse.
New Life is one of the largest churches in Colorado Springs.
Boyd denies knowing anything about the abuse and is not accused of any crimes in the court documents. However, a motion filed in a Texas lawsuit specifies that Boyd knew a fellow pastor at his last church had sexually abused a “young woman” several decades ago.
During Sunday service on June 8, Boyd told some 15,000 New Life Church congregants and 1,700 viewers online about who he calls his former mentor, Robert Morris.
“I was deceived. I was lied to,” Boyd told his congregation.
He says Morris hired him to help build Gateway Church in Dallas-Fort Worth where Boyd became associate senior pastor and a church elder. Seven years later, Boyd was hired as senior pastor at New Life.
“I worked alongside him. I had no reason to believe he had any kind of character issues. He did confide in me he’d had a moral failure when he was 20 years old. That’s really all the details he shared,” said Boyd at the service.
But there was more to the story. Last summer, Morris was indicted on five felony counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child in Oklahoma where the victim, Cindy Clemishire lived.
According to charging documents, the alleged four years of abuse began in 1982 when Clemishire was between 12 and 16 years old. Morris was in his 20s. He’s now 63.
Last year, some 43 years after the initial abuse allegedly occurred, the senior pastor at Gateway Church lost his job shortly after charges were filed.
Now, a year later, Morris has filed to get the retirement benefits he says he was promised. Morris is demanding $1 millon upfront and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year until he and his wife pass.