The elders of Cross Timbers Church in Argyle, Texas, have provided more details regarding the circumstances of Pastor Josiah Anthony’s resignation, as well as an amended plan for interim leadership.
On Sunday (July 28), church elder John Chalk announced Anthony’s resignation during service, saying that Anthony had been battling mental health issues for some time and that some of his “decisions and actions were inappropriate and hurtful to current and former members of the CT family and staff.”
The church announced that Byron Copeland, Cross Timber Church’s executive pastor, would step in as interim lead pastor. Before coming onto staff at Cross Timbers Church, Copeland was on staff at Texas megachurch Gateway Church in various executive level pastoral positions from 2003 to 2023.
Gateway Church has been embroiled in scandal since June, when allegations that Robert Morris, the church’s founding pastor, had sexually abused a child in the 1980s became publicly known. Morris resigned in disgrace on June 18.
Several lawsuits involving abuse claims have been brought against Gateway, including a 2023 suit in which Copeland was named.
In the lawsuit, a former church employee said that when she came to work as an administrative assistant at Gateway in 2018, she had just undergone treatment for cancer and claimed that she “was subjected to ongoing disparaging comments about her appearance and unwanted romantic advances” from the pastor she reported to.
The former employee said that when she spoke to Copeland, then-executive pastor of Gateway Church, he “sympathized with her but did nothing.” The former employee further claimed that sometime later, Copeland “aggressively confronted” her and “threatened to fire her if she didn’t shut up and stop stirring up drama.”
In an email on Thursday (Aug. 1), elders of Cross Timbers amended their original plan to have Copeland serve as the interim pastor and provided more details into the “events and circumstances” that led to Anthony’s resignation.
In the email, elders acknowledged “that we have made mistakes along the way. We should have communicated more directly and clearly early on. The assumptions that some made about our church, due to our lack of clarity, were far more extreme than the facts.”
“We caused unnecessary speculation and distress, and we are sorry,” the email continued.
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The elders then disclosed that they had “received a concerning report of inappropriate communication on social media with a woman who is a former member of our church. This was taken very seriously by the Elders, and we were grateful it was brought to our attention.”
