SOUTHLAKE (TX)
Dallas Morning News [Dallas TX]
November 2, 2024
By Adrian Ashford and Matt Kyle
Church elder Tra Willbanks said the church is also cooperating with a criminal investigation.
Update:
This is a developing story.
Gateway Church removed four of its elders after receiving a report from a law firm hired to conduct an internal investigation into its founder’s alleged sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl, a church leader announced Saturday.
Church elder Tra Willbanks said during service that all but three of the church’s elders either knew former senior pastor Robert Morris had sexual contact with a 12-year-old, or received some information about the situation and “failed to inquire further.”
“We have decided to draw a very bright line here based on Biblical and moral values and the values of our church family, and we can report to you that as of today, no individuals in either group serves as an elder, is employed by or works at Gateway Church,” Willbanks said to claps from the audience at the megachurch’s Southlake campus.
The removal came after Haynes Boone, a law firm the church hired to investigate the allegations, delivered a report to a subcommittee of elders including Willbanks, Kenneth Fambro and Dane Minor. Willbanks gave a summary of the report to church congregants at Gateway’s Saturday service.
Willbanks said the church is also cooperating with a criminal investigation.
“I can share that neither the church nor its current leadership are subjects of this criminal investigation,” he said.
EldersThomas Miller, Gayland Lawshe, Kevin Grove and Jeremy Carrasco were not shown on Gateway’s elder page on the church’s website as of 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
Willbanks came on stage about 10 minutes into Gateway’s service Saturday to deliver the summary. Willbanks also praised Cindy Clemishire, the woman who came forward in June to report that Morris had sexually abused her in the 1980s. He said she was brave for coming forward, a statement that was met with applause by congregants.
He condemned Morris in the strongest words the church has used so far. Willbanks said that on the day Clemishire came forward with allegations that Morris had abused her in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 years old, Morris directed church staff to release a statement intending to minimize her claims.
“Robert Morris directed Gateway employees to release a statement that intended to minimize the severity of Cindy’s claims in one final attempt to hide the truth,” he said. “Cindy was not a consenting adult, but rather a child of 12 and a victim of sexual abuse.”
Willbanks said elders were able to independently verify elements of Clemishire’s story and asked to meet with Morris, who resigned without meeting with elders.
Morris also declined to meet with Haynes Boone during its investigation, Willbanks said.
The church will be revising its bylaws and governance structure, Willbanks said. In the past, the church was controlled by a group of elders made up of both those on staff at the church in other roles and those with full-time jobs somewhere else. Going forward, all voting members of Gateway’s elder board will be non-staffers, Willbanks said.
“We must bring this level of independence and objectivity to our eldership, and it has been lacking in the years past,” he said.
Willbanks said staff will no longer serve as elders, with the exception of the church’s future senior pastor or possibly an executive pastor. Willbanks said both of these positions would be non-voting elders.
“The truth is, the events of these last several months have demonstrated that there was a massive governance and accountability failure here at Gateway Church,” Willbanks said near the end of his remarks. “It was a failure of culture, and we must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that our culture allowed this truth to be buried for too long.”
Willbanks also said the investigation revealed no other incidents of sexual abuse by Morris.
“To our knowledge, there are no other victims of Robert Morris other than Cindy Clemishire,” Willbanks said.
Willbanks said Gateway’s culture had become centralized around Morris, which allowed the truth to be hidden for years.
”When a church becomes centered around one pastor alone, it’s lost its way,”Willbanks said. ”Unfortunately, we have come to the realization over the last several months 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 it, some of them at all cost.”
In June, Clemishire told Christian blog The Wartburg Watch that Morris sexually abused her from 1982 through 1987, starting when she was 12. Morris founded Gateway Church in 2000.
The News has attempted to reach Morris at multiple phone numbers and has mailed letters to four addresses listed for him in public records but has not heard back. The News mailed a letter requesting comment to a registered address for each of the church’s seven current elders listed as of Oct. 31 but did not receive a response.
On June 28, Gateway Church said in a notice posted to its website that four of its elders were stepping aside temporarily at Haynes Boone’s advice. Three of them — Kevin Grove, Steve Dulin and Gayland Lawshe — were elders between 2005 and 2007, when Clemishire said she contacted Morris to confront him about the alleged abuse and possibly sue him. Steve Dulin was later let go.
“As Haynes and Boone begins their work, they have recommended that any Gateway Church Elder with a potential conflict of interest take a temporary leave of absence from the Board of Elders,” a statement on Gateway’s website said at the time. “This includes any Elder with a relational conflict and those Elders who were on the Board from 2005–2007.”
Since June, the church has been named as a defendant in multiple lawsuits unrelated to the Morris abuse allegations.
The most recent suit, filed by former members of Gateway on Oct. 4, accused the church and its former leaders of failing to follow through on a commitment to donate 15% of the church’s tithes to foreign missionary work.
The lawsuit names four Gateway Church leaders as defendants: Robert Morris, Thomas Lane, Kevin Grove and Steve Dulin.
It also accuses Grove of telling a certified public accountant hired by the church to “quit reconciling the accounts” after being allegedly made aware of financial irregularities.
On Oct. 5, a church elder said during a Saturday service that the church is in the process of joining the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. That group requires churches to share audited financial statements with the public upon written request, according to its website, and to have a governing body of which a majority are independent board members.
Adrian Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.