The Gateway Church scandal began in June 2024, when founding pastor Robert Morris was publicly accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma in the 1980s. Morris resigned within days, pleaded guilty in October 2025 to five felony counts of child sexual abuse, served six months in the Osage County Jail, and was released in March 2026 as a registered sex offender on nearly a decade of probation. The Southlake, Texas megachurch he built lost elders, staff, roughly 40% of its tithes, and more than a fifth of its weekend attendance, and it still faces a defamation and cover-up lawsuit set for trial in February 2028.
The Abuse and How It Became Public
The abuse began on Christmas Day 1982. Morris, then a 21-year-old traveling evangelist, was staying with the family of Cindy Clemishire in Hominy, Oklahoma. She was 12. Clemishire has described the abuse as “kissing and touching and inserting fingers into my body,” and said it continued for roughly four and a half years before she told her parents in 1987.1NBC News. Robert Morris Gateway Church Lawyer Letters Cindy Clemishire Morris stepped away from ministry for two years, returned in 1989, and in 2000 founded Gateway Church, which grew to roughly 100,000 active attendees across eleven campuses.2Interfaith America. Gateway Church Money Tithes
Clemishire had tried to force accountability long before 2024. She emailed Gateway Church in 2005, and former elder Tom Lane acknowledged receiving it.3NPR. Robert Morris Gateway Church Sex Abuse Scandal Explained In 2007, her attorney at the time, Gentner Drummond (who would later become Oklahoma’s attorney general), sent Morris a letter seeking reimbursement for counseling costs. A settlement was never reached because Clemishire refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement.4NBC News. Robert Morris Sex Abuse Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond
The story broke publicly on June 14, 2024, when the watchdog blog The Wartburg Watch published Clemishire’s account. Gateway Church’s first response treated the matter as a long-ago “moral failure” involving a “young lady,” framing it as an extramarital affair that had been addressed through confession and repentance.5Fort Worth Report. Gateway Church Founder Robert Morris Resigns Following Sexual Abuse Allegations Morris told The Christian Post that he had engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” in his early twenties, describing it as “kissing and petting and not intercourse.”6The New York Times. Pastor Robert Morris Gateway Church
Those euphemisms did not hold. On June 18, 2024, Morris resigned. The Board of Elders said its “prior understanding” had been limited to a relationship with a “young lady,” and that it did not know the victim had been a 12-year-old child or that the abuse lasted years.7NBC News. Robert Morris Resigns Gateway Church Child Sex Abuse Allegation Clemishire disputed that. Her attorney, Boz Tchividjian, said the church had changed its story, pointing out that leadership first called Morris “transparent” and later said he had been “untruthful.”3NPR. Robert Morris Gateway Church Sex Abuse Scandal Explained
What the Internal Investigation Found
Gateway hired the law firm Haynes and Boone to investigate. Its findings, presented in November 2024, confirmed what Clemishire had said: others inside leadership had known. The firm identified two groups, one that knew Clemishire was 12 when the abuse began and another aware of sexual abuse allegations that nobody followed up on. Elder Tra Willbanks described the former culture as one where “power was centralized” and the leader “was surrounded by people who wanted to protect him.”8KERA News. Gateway Church Removes Elders Employees Who Knew of Robert Morris Sexual Abuse Allegations The investigation found no victims other than Clemishire.9CBS News Texas. Gateway Church Investigation Robert Morris Abuse Governance Failure
Four elders were removed: Kevin Grove, Thomas Miller, Jeremy Carrasco, and Gayland Lawshe. Additional staff who had known of the allegations were fired. Founding elder Steve Dulin had already left in July 2024. By November, only three elders remained: Willbanks, Kenneth Fambro, and Dane Minor.8KERA News. Gateway Church Removes Elders Employees Who Knew of Robert Morris Sexual Abuse Allegations Morris’s son James, the planned successor as senior pastor, and his wife Bridgette also stepped down in late June 2024 after elders met with the couple and collectively decided they should leave.10NBC DFW. James Morris Resigns Gateway Church
The Criminal Case in Oklahoma
Prosecuting a 1980s offense required an unusual legal theory. Oklahoma Attorney General Drummond, the same attorney who had represented Clemishire in 2005, invoked a seldom-used provision in Oklahoma’s criminal code that pauses the statute of limitations when a defendant is not a resident of the state. Morris had been a traveling evangelist based outside Oklahoma during the abuse, so prosecutors argued the clock had never run.4NBC News. Robert Morris Sex Abuse Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond Drummond said he expected the case to produce new case law on the question.11CBS News Texas. Oklahoma Statute of Limitations Texas Church Robert Morris Child Sex Abuse Drummond walled himself off from the investigation given his prior attorney-client relationship with Clemishire, and a multicounty grand jury returned an indictment in 2025 charging Morris with five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.12NBC News. Robert Morris Guilty Child Sexual Abuse Texas Megachurch Pastor
On October 2, 2025, Morris pleaded guilty to all five counts before Osage County District Special Judge Cindy Pickerill. He received a 10-year suspended sentence, with the first six months to be served in the Osage County Jail. The plea deal required him to register as a sex offender for life and pay $270,000 in restitution to Clemishire.13Fort Worth Report. Robert Morris Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse Gets 10 Years but Will Spend 6 Months in Jail Clemishire told reporters: “Justice has finally been served, and the man who manipulated, groomed and abused me as a 12-year-old innocent girl is finally going to be behind bars.”14PBS NewsHour. Former Texas Megachurch Pastor Robert Morris Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse Charges
Morris was released shortly after midnight on March 31, 2026, having served the full six months.15CNN. Pastor Robert Morris Jail Release He now faces roughly 9.5 years of probation, supervised by Texas authorities through an interstate compact, and lives at his home in Palo Pinto County, Texas. He must report to a probation officer and is barred from consuming alcohol, possessing firearms, or associating with convicted felons.16CBS News Texas. Gateway Church Founding Pastor Robert Morris Released From Oklahoma Jail
The Civil Lawsuits
In June 2025, Clemishire and her father sued Robert Morris, his wife Deborah, Gateway Church, the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association, and several current and former church leaders. The suit alleges the defendants knew about the abuse, concealed it, and profited financially from hiding it. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $1 million and have requested a jury trial.17CBS News Texas. Cindy Clemishire Father Lawsuit Robert Morris Gateway Church Several named former elders have denied wrongdoing. As of June 2026, a federal judge ordered mediation between Gateway Church and its insurer over the defamation claim, and trial is set for February 2028.18CBS News Texas. Federal Judge Orders Mediation Between Gateway Church Insurance Company Over Defamation Suit
A separate suit brought by four former congregants claimed church leadership had committed financial fraud by failing to direct a portion of tithes, potentially exceeding $15 million annually, to foreign missionary work as promised. On June 23, 2026, U.S. District Chief Judge Amos L. Mazzant dismissed the suit with prejudice, ruling that how a church spends donated money is an internal religious matter courts cannot adjudicate under the First Amendment’s ecclesiastical abstention doctrine.19Fort Worth Report. Federal Judge Dismisses Gateway Church Robert Morris Tithing Lawsuit
Morris also fought the church for nearly a year over a retirement package. According to Gateway’s filings, he demanded $1 million upfront, $800,000 per year until age 70, and $600,000 per year for the rest of his and his wife’s lives. The church refused. A Tarrant County judge signed a settlement on May 8, 2026, dismissing the case without prejudice. Terms were not disclosed, and the parties agreed to resolve any remaining disputes through arbitration.20Fort Worth Report. Robert Morris Gateway Church Agree to End Multimillion Legal Battle Over Retirement Pay21KERA News. Southlake North Texas Gateway Megachurch Founding Pastor Robert Morris
What Happened to the Church
The financial damage was severe. By November 2024, tithes had dropped 35% to 40%, according to elder Kenneth Fambro. Attendance at the flagship Southlake campus fell roughly 40%, and across all campuses, weekend attendance declined from about 25,000 to around 19,000, a drop of more than 20%.22KERA News. Robert Morris Gateway Church Sexual Abuse Allegations23KERA News. 4,000 Gather in Southlake to Commission Gateway Church’s New Lead Pastor Gateway announced staff layoffs in June 2025 and canceled Saturday services at every campus except Southlake in July 2025.24CBS News Texas. Gateway Church Announces Staffing Layoffs Former Pastor Robert Morris Tithing
After an interim period in which author and pastor Max Lucado served as teaching pastor, the church named Daniel Floyd as its new lead pastor. Floyd, who previously led Lifepoint Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, was commissioned on August 16, 2025, at a Southlake service attended by 4,000 people. Nic Lesmeister was appointed executive pastor in July 2025, and four interim elder board members moved to permanent roles.23KERA News. 4,000 Gather in Southlake to Commission Gateway Church’s New Lead Pastor Floyd acknowledged the church’s past in his first sermon, saying, “It’s a day where we turn the page, and we begin to write a new story, but it’s also not the day we erase previous chapters.”25CBS News Texas. Gateway Church New Lead Pastor Daniel Floyd Robert Morris Abuse Scandal
In a victim impact statement at sentencing, Clemishire addressed Morris directly: “Your crimes didn’t just wound me, they wounded my family, they wounded the church, and they wounded faith itself.”26CBS News Texas. Gateway Church Robert Morris Guilty Child Sex Abuse Cindy Clemishire