FORT WORTH (TX)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
September 21, 2024
By Sheila Stogsdill
A north Texas church has fired its pastor for allegedly looking at “inappropriate materials,” despite the pastor’s denials of wrongdoing.
Lake Country Church in Fort Worth fired Senior Pastor Scott Crenshaw for allegedly viewing “inappropriate materials” during an Instagram search, according to WFAA 8, a Fort Worth television station.
Crenshaw’s lawyer, Mark Lane, says the claims are false, the station reported. Email messages left for Lane were not returned, and the law office did not have an answering service.
Crenshaw assumed the pastor role in 2018, according to the church’s website. His name has since been removed from the church’s official webpage, and a message left for church officials was not returned.
Crenshaw’s Facebook page says “I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a father of four, husband of one. I am a seeker, a teacher whose heart is to shepherd and pastor.”
Lane reportedly told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, church elders initially offered Crenshaw a 60-day sabbatical, but withdrew their offer and offered a 90-day leave of absence. That quickly changed to the church asking him to temporarily step down and subsequently losing his job, the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram reported.
Lane threatened to send a pre-litigation letter to the to the church and its elders, seeking restitution and damages for destroying Crenshaw’s career, the station reported.
Crenshaw was fired from New River Fellowship Church in Hudson Oaks after viewing inappropriate images on a church computer, the Star-Telegram reported in 2016.
Crenshaw told the Star-Telegram, “(I) found myself viewing inappropriate images” on his church office computer.
Crenshaw reportedly said in a statement, “I have always preached that New River was not a museum for perfect people, but a hospital for those who are hurting, jacked up and messed up . . . If this church is only for perfect people, then it would be very small and you would be without a pastor.”
Crenshaw is just one on a lengthy list of Texas pastors resigning recently in the wake of inappropriate sexual behavior.
The most well-known, the former pastor of Gateway Church Robert Morris, resigned this past June after a decades old secret came to light that he allegedly sexually abused Cindy Clemishire, a 54-year-old grandmother from Oklahoma, beginning in 1982, when she was 12.
Clemishire told The Roys Report (TRR) the abuse lasted until she was 16 years old.
Another well-known Texas pastor who recently resigned due to unspecified “sin” is Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship.
Sheila Stogsdill is a freelance print journalist and digital reporter, primarily covering crime issues for KSN/KODE.