Gateway Church Faces 35-40% Tithing Decline Amid Leadership Scandals
Financial Impact: Tithing Reductions and Impending Staff Cuts
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Gateway Church outside of Dallas is facing more issues after the church was shaken by allegations of sexual abuse by founding pastor Robert Morris. According to a video leaked on social media, elder Kenneth Fambro said the church’s tithe receipts are down 35-40%.
Gateway Elder Tra Willbanks / Video screenshot
“As a result, we really need to go and start looking at the ministry itself and looking into some staff reductions,” Fambro said in the video meant for the church staff.
He assured listeners the leadership at Gateway wants to be as “clear and transparent” as possible.
In June, allegations of Morris’s sexual abuse of Cindy Clemishire, 54, in the 1980s starting when she was only 12 years old led to his resignation. The church announced that Max Lucado would be stepping into an interim teaching pastor role.
Since then, Gateway has faced other challenges and resignations.
The church hired law firm Haynes and Boone to conduct an independent and comprehensive inquiry related to the recent events. Some of the results of that investigation were provided on Sunday, November 3.
Elder Tra Willbanks said the Haynes and Boone investigation had discovered that all but three elders were aware of Morris’ history with Clemishire and her age at the time of the alleged abuse. The four elders whose names were removed from the church website are Jeremy Carrasco, Kevin Grove, Gayland Lawshe, and Thomas Miller, according to ChurchLeaders.
James Morris, son of the founder, was expected to take over as the next senior pastor, but resigned from his position and is now founding Passage Church.
The church canceled its annual Gateway Conference as the “congregation and staff are in the midst of navigating Robert Morris’ resignation and the emotions surrounding it.”
In August, a lawsuit was filed in Tarrant County, Texas, alleging a member of the Gateway Church youth group sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl also attending the church youth group.
Gateway recently settled another lawsuit that accused church leadership of covering up the alleged sexual abuse of a child by a member of the congregation in March 2018. The lawsuit, filed in 2020, also claimed that Gateway pastors encouraged members of the congregation to ostracize her and failed to inform law enforcement about the abuse.
Executive Pastor Kemtal Glasgow was removed in August from his position for a “moral issue.”
Elder Tra Willbanks said in a YouTube video statement that church leadership was “informed…of a moral issue” which the elders believe “disqualifies [Glasgow] from serving in the role that he had at Gateway.”
The sexual abuse scandal surrounding Robert Morris is not just impacting the Dallas-area Gateway church campuses. Gateway Church in Houston, led by Morris’s son-in-law Ethan Fisher, is changing its name.
A video on the Houston-area church’s website says the church will now be called Newlands Church.
Gateway’s leadership also announced in July that Pastor Robert Morris Ministries would cancel all future radio and television broadcasts. Gateway Media Executive Director Lawrence Swicegood told The Christian Post that Morris did not receive any kind of severance package from the church.
However, according to reporting by ChurchLeaders, Willbanks said Morris has made “financial demands” that the church is rejecting.
In an effort to increase transparency and accountability, Gateway is conducting a comprehensive financial audit and is “making significant changes to its bylaws” so it can become a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
Some of the changes Willbanks mentioned include eliminating the office of “apostolic elder” and not allowing staff members to serve as voting elders in the governance of the church.
“The truth is,” Willbanks said, “the events of the last few months have demonstrated that there was a massive governance failure and accountability failure here at our church.”
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He added, “It was a failure of culture, and we must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that our culture allowed the truth to be buried for far too long. When a church becomes centered around one pastor alone, it’s lost its way.”
A class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in October by members who are concerned about the stewardship of the money they contributed.
The lawsuit alleges that Morris and Gateway’s leadership represented that “15% of all tithe dollars would be distributed to global missions and Jewish ministry partners, encouraging church members to generously give toward these ends.”
Willbanks addressed a few points about the church’s finances in his remarks, noting that Gateway has audited financial statements covering the last 19 years.
He said that Gateway has given an average of 19% to global missions, explaining that global missions includes local, regional, national, and international mission efforts and also administrative overhead expenses.
“If you total all of the dollars that have gone out the door from Gateway Church over the last 19 years to missional efforts, the number is approximately $200 million,” Willbanks said.
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