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

“There are necessary endings. There are necessary beginnings,” Lucado said during Saturday’s service. “We are in a moment like this. We’ve been waiting all summer to know where we stand 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 the law firm Haynes and Boone LLP. The firm was hired by the church in June following the resignation of Gateway founder and then-senior pastor Robert Morris. Morris founded the Southlake megachurch in 2000.

Morris’ departure followed accusations from Cindy Clemishire, who recounted Wartburg clock that the pastor sexually abused her several times in the 1980s, starting when she was 12 years old. Since the allegations were revealed, attendance at Gateway campuses has dropped over 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 crisis management firm to lead the investigation into the allegations against Morris.

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

The law firm’s report looked at Morris’ conduct, 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 with which Haynes and Boone shared their findings.

The law firm learned of no other allegations of sexual assault against Morris during their investigation, Willbanks said.

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

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

“For anyone out there, if you are a victim of childhood sexual abuse, please know that you would not have consented,” Willbanks said. “No child can consent to sexual abuse.”

Gateway removes seniors, employees who knew about abuse before June 2024

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

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

As a result, people who fit into either group are no longer elders and no longer 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 from aboard Gateway. All three were on the church’s board of elders from 2005-2007. Clemishire and Morris engaged in a series of messages from April to October 2005, in which Clemishire asked Morris to compensate her for the trauma she suffered as a result of the alleged abuse.

The church officially parted ways with Dulin, who was a founding elder, in July. Gateway Church’s statement did not give reasons for the decision, but spokesman Lawrence Swicegood did previous said the Fort Worth Report that Dulin’s departure was unrelated to the investigation.

Willbanks, Fambro and Minor are the only elders listed on the Gateway Church website as of 7:00 p.m. Nov. 2. Grove, Lawshe, Thomas Miller and Jeremy Carrasco were no longer listed.

Gateway Elder Addresses Lawsuits Against Church, Financial Claims

Over the past few months, a number of lawsuits against Gateway Church have come to light. The church also rejects financial requests from Morris, Willbanks said.

He added that Gateway also faces an ongoing criminal investigation. Willbanks did not provide additional details during the Nov. 2 service.

Two separate families filed lawsuits against the Southlake campus over the past decade. One, in 2016, alleged that a disabled child was assaulted at the church’s daycare center. The other, filed in 2020, alleged that a child was sexually abused during a slumber party.

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

A group of Gateway congregants submitted another process In October, alleging that 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, the congregations claimed that this promise was not kept and that they do not know where those tithes went.

During an October 5 serviceWillbanks said the church is in the process of joining the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability, which requires churches to have an independent governing body that reviews annual financial statements. A copy of the statements will be available upon written request.

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

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

The church averaged about 19 percent of the financial giving for 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 bylaw, more changes expected

Events in recent months have demonstrated there has been a “massive failure of governance and accountability” at Gateway Church, Willbanks said. He told attendees that church culture had a role in allowing “the truth to be buried for too long.”

“Unfortunately, over the past few months, we’ve realized 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,” Willbanks. he said, “some of them at any cost.”

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

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

“We must learn from 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 bring back” 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 member of the Report for America Corps, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at [email protected] or @marissaygreene. At Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently by our board members and funders. Read more about our editorial independence policy Here.

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