A proposed class action lawsuit filed by congregants at Gateway Church alleges the nondenominational megachurch engaged in financial fraud when church leaders falsely promised members that a portion of their tithes would go toward foreign missionary work.
The suit, filed Oct. 4, alleges that then-senior pastor Robert Morris and other Gateway leaders told their congregation 15% of all tithe dollars would be distributed to global missions and Jewish ministry partners. A review of Gateway’s website shows that a similar promise remains on their global ministries homepage. But the suing congregants allege that the promise wasn’t upheld and that they don’t know where those tithes — which could total more than $15 million annually — went.
A spokesman for Gateway Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit comes amid ongoing turmoil at one of the largest church systems in the U.S., after Morris resigned following accusations he sexually abused a then-12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
According to lawsuit documents, in 2011 the church hired a certified public accountant in a pastoral role to oversee Gateway Global Ministries and ensure its financial integrity. The employee noticed a number of discrepancies in financial statements, including a mismatch between the amount Gateway told congregants it was sending overseas versus what was actually leaving the account.
The suit alleges the certified public accountant approached church elder and executive global pastor Kevin Grove about discrepancies in the reconciliation of the Gateway Global Ministries fund balance. Grove allegedly became irate and told the employee to “quit reconciling the accounts.”
The certified public accountant then reported his concerns to Tom Lane, an ex-Gateway Church executive pastor, and said either discrepancies needed to be addressed or he would resign. After speaking with Morris, Lane went back to the employee and said they’d agreed to accept his resignation.
“Rather than practice transparent stewardship with one of its key pastors, who was hired to lead the directly relevant global ministry, the Church ignored and buried his concerns,” the suit alleges.
Micah Dortch, an attorney representing the congregants, said they made multiple attempts to get answers from Gateway before filing the suit. His clients were rebuffed at every turn, he said, despite Morris previously promising in sermons that if congregants weren’t happy, they could get their money back. The suit alleges that this promise created a contract under Texas law, the terms of which were not upheld.
“The only reason they filed this lawsuit is because they could not get answers from their own church as to what happened to the money, where the money was going, and they couldn’t get the church to do what it said it would do, which is, ‘If you’re unhappy with this, give it back so we can give it to a more deserving charity,’” Dortch said, “So for my clients, this is the last resort.”
Four congregants are named in the suit: Katherine Leach, Garry K. Leach, Mark Browder and Terri Browder. They are proposing a class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and other unnamed congregants who may have been defrauded. According to the suit, members of the class action suit would likely include residents throughout the U.S., including Wyoming and Missouri, where Gateway has physical locations.
“Gateway is one of the largest churches in the United States, with current and past membership over 100,000. Accordingly, the likely putative class will be tens of thousands of persons and the damages will far exceed $5 million,” the suit alleges.
They are demanding a jury trial, compensation for attorneys fees, and monetary relief expected to exceed $1 million.
Dortch said that, although a church’s actions are in some ways protected by the First Amendment, when a church makes explicit financial promises to its congregation, that opens up legal considerations.
“This church didn’t say, ‘Just tithe, and we’ll use it for good stuff.’ They said 15% of everything you give goes to international ministries, and that was of particular importance to some of our clients with everything going on overseas right now,” he said. “And this church has got a lot of assets and a lot of campuses, so it’s important to the congregation that it benefits the greater good of God’s will.”
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.