Gateway Church ex-pastor Robert Morris wants to force arbitration of pay dispute
.JPG "Gateway Church founder Robert Morris enters the Osage County Courthouse in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, accompanied by his wife, Debbie Morris, and his defense attorney in the criminal case, Mack Martin, on Friday, May 9, 2025.")
Lawyers for Robert Morris, the former lead pastor of Southlake’s Gateway Church, have asked a Tarrant County court to compel the church to arbitrate a dispute over his retirement pay, according to court records.
Morris’ attorneys argue that Gateway leaders were aware of Morris’ “highly inappropriate relationship” with Cindy Clemishire, who was 12 years old when Morris allegedly began sexually abusing her in the 1980s, according to court documents the lawyers filed on Friday. Gateway Church, Morris’ lawyers claim, is using the Clemishire case to avoid honoring financial commitments it made to the former pastor.
“While Morris is certainly deserving of the victim’s punches, Morris is tired of being the punching bag of Gateway’s current leadership as it tries to play its game of blame-shifting,” Morris’ attorney Bill Mateja told the Star-Telegram in a statement. “Our filings demonstrate that Morris was fully transparent with Gateway’s leadership – full stop.”
Included in the May 30 filing are pages of emails and documents that Morris’ lawyers say demonstrate that elders and other officials at the North Texas megachurch knew about the sexual abuse allegations for at least 17 years before Morris was forced to resign in 2024. The documents include a 2007 letter from Gateway executive senior pastor Tom Lane.
“We discussed the past events involving Robert and Cindy Clemishire,” Lane wrote in the letter to the church’s elders. “Robert retold his account of the things that took place leading up to 1987 and the process of repentance and restoration he walked through from 1987-1989.”
Gateway Church was founded in 2000 with Morris as its lead pastor. Four of Gateway’s elders were removed last fall after an investigation revealed they had some information or knowledge of Morris’ conduct prior to its public disclosure, the Star-Telegram previously reported.
Morris’ counter-suit to force arbitration comes weeks after the church rejected his demands for millions of dollars in retirement pay following his resignation, the Star-Telegram previously reported. Morris had asked for an initial payment of $1 million and an annual retirement package of $600,000 to $800,000 for the rest of his and his wife’s lives, plus other benefits.
In the church’s petition to the court about two weeks ago, lawyers for Gateway argued that any dispute related to Morris’ contract had to go through mediation first. According to the church, “Morris’s agreements with Gateway preclude him from future retirement benefits if he resigns or is terminated due to certain immoral or criminal conduct,” which Gateway’s elders believe would include the charges against him.
In the response filed Friday, lawyers for Morris argue Gateway Church failed to “honor its promises” made in Morris’ benefit plan and employment agreement. His lawyers also argue that Gateway “mischaracterized” Morris as combative and unwilling to reconcile.
Morris’ lawyers also say that he has always been ready to mediate the case, but that Gateway failed to provide him with the proposed mediators, according to the response.
Morris resigned from Gateway Church nearly a year ago after he made a statement acknowledging the abuse of Clemishire, the Star-Telegram previously reported. Since then, Morris has been criminally indicted on related child sexual abuse charges in Oklahoma, where Clemishire and her family lived at the time.
In April, Morris filed a demand for arbitration of the financial dispute with the Institute for Christian Conciliation, which bills itself on its website as a provider of “court-approved Christian arbitration.”
Lawyers for Gateway argued that the church should not be compelled to arbitrate before the ICC because the entity that previously owned it has ceased to exist, according to court documents. Because the ICC itself still exists, the court should compel Gateway to arbitrate, Morris’ lawyers argue in the filing.
Morris also motioned for Gateway attorney David Middlebrook to be removed from the case. Middlebrook previously represented Morris in matters related to the abuse allegations, which should disqualify him from the case under a Texas conflict-of-interest rule, Morris’ lawyers said.
Middlebrook has not yet filed a response to the motion. Officials with Gateway Church could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.
