Gateway Church Congregants Take Up Morris’ Offer To Get ‘Money Back’ on Tithes

FORT WORTH, Texas (RNS) — Katherine Leach’s stomach churned while she was driving to Saturday worship at Gateway Church early this summer.

Leach, who has been attending the nondenominational North Texas congregation for the past three years, has also tithed — a practice of giving a tenth of one’s income to a church or religious organization. She was also considering joining Gateway’s prayer team.

Then, on June 18, Gateway’s founder and senior pastor, Robert Morris, resigned after accusations made by an Oklahoma woman named Cindy Clemishire, who told the Wartburg Watch that Morris had sexually abused her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, starting when Clemishire was 12 years old.

Since Morris founded Gateway church in 2000, it has grown into one of the largest megachurches in the nation, with roughly 100,000 active attendees at its main campus in Southlake, a Tarrant County suburb, and nine campuses across Texas and two others in Missouri and Wyoming.

“This is an unthinkable and painful time in our church. Our church congregation is hurt and shaken, and we know that you have many important questions,” Gateway Church elders said in a June 21 statement, saying the church hired law firm Haynes and Boone LLP to conduct an independent inquiry on the matter.

The following service, on June 22, as Leach pulled up to the church, a group of protesters carried signs reading “She was only 12” and, citing the Gospel reading forbidding the corruption of children, “Matthew 18:16 Millstones not cover ups!”

Leach also made a sign, but she wanted to hear what leadership would say at the service. After handing water bottles to the protesters, she went in and watched from the balcony. “I was going with the anticipation that there would be this sense of grief as a church body,” Leach said. “It was heartbreaking, and it made me sick to my stomach, quite honestly, because it was just business as usual.”

That was the last time, Leach said, she’s been to a Gateway worship service, but she didn’t add her name to the 25% of congregants who have officially left the church since June. Instead, Leach has been asking questions, asking for a copy of the church’s bylaws, financial statements and how her tithes have been used.

In 2022, Morris, during a visit to Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, spoke about a deal he made with Gateway Church members. “I’ve told our church on multiple occasions, I’ve said to them … ‘If you’ll try it for one year — if you are not fully satisfied — at the end of that year, I’ll give you your money back,’” Morris said. “With 22 years of church, no one has ever asked for their money back.”

Leach is now one of several congregants trying to take Morris up that offer. On Sept. 9, she submitted a letter to Gateway Church requesting her tithes back. Almost a month later, she and other congregants filed a lawsuit alleging that Gateway Church committed financial fraud with congregants’ tithes.

The suit alleges Morris and other Gateway leaders told their congregation that 15% of all tithes would go toward foreign missionary work. Leach and the suing congregants allege the promise wasn’t upheld and that they don’t know where the tithes — which could amount to more than $15 million annually — went.