COLORADO SPRINGS (CO)
KKTV [Denver, CO]
June 22, 2025
By Brianna Leonard
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – New Life Church confirmed Sunday that they believe their previous senior pastor was aware of the alleged sexual abuse of a child by a former colleague, and was hired despite leadership knowing he was aware.
At a Friday evening service, New Life Church informed attendees that Brady Boyd had resigned as senior pastor.
In court documents filed by attorneys for Robert Morris, the founder and former pastor at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, Morris was told to resign or be fired in June 2024, when the church’s Board of Elders said it became aware of the “full extent of facts” regarding the “relationship” between Morris and a 12-year-old girl.
According to a representative for New Life, Morris began sexually abusing the victim in 1982 when she was 12 years old and he was 20 or 21 years old. Morris was Senior Pastor of Gateway Church from 2000 to 2024, and Boyd served there from 2001 to 2007.
A representative for the church said New Life’s pastoral search committee was made aware of details regarding this alleged sexual abuse while considering Boyd for Senior Pastor in 2007.
New Life representatives allegedly contacted the Board of Elders of Gateway and were informed that Morris’ past abuse was known to the victim’s family, the Gateway elders, the news media and legal counsel.
Gateway also informed New Life that Morris had been through a “restoration process” and that the victim and her parents had supported Morris’s return to ministry, church representatives said.
According to representatives, New Life believed that the victim’s abuse was known by the relevant persons, and the committee concluded that Morris’s conduct did not involve Boyd, nor impair his ability to serve as senior pastor.
The search committee recommended Brady for the role, and he became senior pastor in August of 2007. Boyd would later go on to make Morris an overseer of New Life, a decision that he defended during one of his final church services.
In a recent church service, Boyd claimed that he was unaware until 2024 that the victim was 12 at the time of the alleged abuse. The church says this is inaccurate. The church also claims that Boyd made statements in his public address to the congregation on June 8 that the Board of Elders believes to be inaccurate.
The Board of Elders then asked Boyd to resign on Wednesday.
… This is a time of mixed emotions. We are grieving as a church. We are grateful for Brady’s service, we pray for justice and healing for [the victim], and we deeply regret our association with Robert Morris. At the same time, we are filled with hope for the future and believe God will continue to do great things at New Life Church. Most intensely, we long for a world of justice and peace, a world where God’s Kingdom comes, “on earth as it is in heaven.”