With the exception of its main campus in Southlake, Texas, Gateway Church has announced that it will soon be hosting worship services exclusively on Sunday as it grapples with dwindling donations in the aftermath of the alleged child sex abuse scandal involving the megachurch’s founder, Robert Morris.
“Beginning the weekend of July 26 and 27, all campus weekend service times (except for Gateway Southlake) will take place exclusively on Sundays. Gateway Southlake will continue the Saturday service time at 4 p.m., all other campus weekend services will stay the same,” Gateway elders said in a recent update to members.
“This adjustment allows us to minister to and love our congregation well while prioritizing the needs of our individual campuses. Throughout all our locations, our commitment to loving God and loving people remains unchanged. As we all meet on Sundays at our respective campuses, we are reminded that while we may meet at many locations, we are still one church family,” the update said.
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The axing of Saturday services at the megachurch comes just over a week after elders said they would cut staff in the coming weeks due to “a significant drop” in tithes and general giving in the wake of Morris’ scandal.
“Over the last year, tithing has not mirrored attendance, given the ongoing issues related to the church’s former pastor and that has led to a significant drop in giving levels,” Gateway Church elders previously shared in an email to members on social media. “These are the difficult but practical realities of the season we’ve been in, and we will continue to walk through it with humility, prayer, and our commitment to intentionally healing as a church family.”
Church officials told The Dallas Morning News that affected staffers will be given two weeks to voluntarily resign and will receive one month of severance and benefits for each year of service up to four months. The staff reduction is expected to be completed by mid-July, around the time when new Gateway Church Senior Pastor Daniel Floyd and his wife, Tammie, are expected to begin transitioning into their new roles.
“This was an extremely difficult decision for us to make, and we didn’t come to it quickly or easily and waited as long as we could,” Tra Willbanks, the chair of Gateway’s elders, told The Dallas Morning News.
“This decision was an important step to ensure we are able to minister to our church family well; however it affects real people and members of our church family that we’ve loved and served alongside for years, which is what makes it so painful. And we are trying to love our staff well through this painful process.”
Cindy Clemishire, a woman who alleges she was sexually abused by Morris in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12 years old, also recently filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southlake-based megachurch and Morris, seeking more than $1 million.
The lawsuit names Clemishire, 55, and her father, Jerry Lee Clemishire, as plaintiffs, and alleges that Morris and Gateway Church leaders mischaracterized the abuse she suffered as a consensual “relationship” with a “young lady” instead of the sexual assault of a child.
Morris was indicted in March on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child by a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma in connection with his actions against Clemishire. She reported that Morris began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, when she was 12, and continued with the abuse for four-and-a-half years after that. At the time, Morris was serving as a traveling evangelist.
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