When now-disgraced megachurch pastor Robert Morris urged his congregants to tithe, he claimed he didn’t “need funds” but simply was grieved that non-tithers were missing “the blessing of God” and becoming vulnerable to Satan.
Sin embargo, El Informe Roys (TRR) has uncovered details about Morris’ wealth, calling into question whether the famous preacher’s emphasis on tithing—giving 10% to the church—was purely altruistic.
Though it’s not publicly known how much Morris is worth today, TRR was able to confirm that over the past 12 years, Morris has bought and sold multiple, multi-million-dollar properties in Texas.
These include a 370-acre ranch in Jacksboro, worth at least $8 million; a nearly $8 million custom home in Colleyville; a $1.7 million home on a peninsula in Possum Kingdom Lake, which is about 80 miles west of Fort Worth; and a nearly $4 million home in Westlake,—a Dallas suburb named the most affluent community in the country by Forbes Magazine in 2011.
At one point, Morris owned three of these homes at the same time. He now owns the Jacksboro ranch and lake house, after selling the Westlake home about a month after resigning from Dallas-based Gateway Church en medio de allegations of child sex abuse.
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How Morris acquired this vast wealth is uncertain. TRR asked Gateway to reveal Morris’s salary over the past decade, but the church refused to comment.
And despite claiming to have independent audits for the past 19 years, Gateway has not released any audits to the public. When TRR asked for the audits, Gateway responded,“(T)he details that were shared in the elders’ address from this past weekend are all that we’re sharing at this time.”
In a Nov. 2 address, Gateway Elder Tra Willbanks claimed that independent audits show that Gateway gave 19% of its revenue to global missions.
This contradicts the testimony of Allen Shoulders, a seasoned CPA and former Gateway Pastor of Global Ministries. Shoulders claimed that during his tenure, Gateway never spent more than $3 million on global missions, despite having annual revenue exceeding $100 million, as TRR reportado exclusivamente.
Shoulders also told TRR that he discovered about $1.5 million of unexplained transfers out of Gateway’s global missions fund, but when he pressed for answers, Morris asked for his resignation.
Morris also is a best-selling author and may have obtained some of his wealth through book sales.
He also heads the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association, which according to its 2022 IRS 990 filing, paid Morris a $200,000 salary for 15 hours of work a week. The previous year, the nonprofit paid Morris $100,000 for the same amount of work. But in 2019, it paid Morris $300,000, and en 2018, the ministry paid Morris $350,000.
TRR has unsuccessfully tried to contact Morris for comment about his homes and these large amounts of money for minimal work hours.
Morris’ $8 million ranch
Robert Morris’ largest property is a 370-acre ranch in Jacksboro, about an hour northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.
The property has a “confidential owner,” which means the owner is in a protected class—normally reserved for police, judges, or victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
Sin embargo, TRR was able to obtain warranty deeds for the property, which name Robert Morris, and his wife, Debbie Morris, as the “grantees.” One of the deeds, dated Sept. 13, 2013, is for 130.66 acres of land in Jack County. The other, dated Dec. 19, 2012, is for 240 acres in Jack County.
According to LandSearch.com, the average cost per acre of land in Jacksboro is $8,915. However, the 370 acres Morris owns is not average. It includes at least five lakes and Indian Hills, a mountain whose summit at 1,299 feet is one of the highest in Jack County.
TRR spoke with David Garin, who owns a ranch within 10 miles of Morris’ ranch. He said unimproved land in the area is worth $10,000 per acre. He also noted that Morris’ property has a perimeter fence similar to the fence Garin has on his property. Garin said the fence alone is worth $1 million.
Using Garin’s estimates, Morris’ property would be worth at least $4.7 million for the land and fence alone.
However, the ranch also includes a home with a more than 4,400-square-foot footprint and an in-ground pool. According to Garin, comparable homes in the area are worth about $700 per square foot. This would put the value of Morris’ home around $3.1 million, bringing the value of the land and house to $7.8 million.
Google Earth also shows several other improvements on the property, such as a barn and boat docks.
So, the ranch is likely worth at least $8 million, but may be worth considerably more, depending on the finishes in the home and actual value of the other improvements.
Morris constructs mansion in Colleyville
In 2017, Morris bought two lots in Colleyville, Texas, in a very exclusive area near other Christian celebrities, including TBN’s Matt and Laurie Crouch and the late Marcus Lamb and his wife, joni cordero, owner of Daystar TV.
One of the lots Morris bought held a million-dollar, 4,500-square-foot home, and the other was vacant. By 2019, Morris had constructed a multi-million-dollar custom four-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion with the “highest level designer finishes” on the vacant lot.
A YouTuber called “A Messenger,” who exposes “ministries/churches feeding on their sheep,” was able to get access to mansion before it was occupied and posted video of it online.
Pictures posted on Instagram by Debbie Morris show the couple held a reunion in the home in 2021 with former leaders of Shady Grove Church.
This is where Morris pastored in the 1980s, when his alleged abuse of 12-year-old Cindy Clemishire was first discovered, and where he was restored to ministry.
Morris bought the Colleyville property through First Trust Holdings Revocable Living Trust, likely to obscure that he owned the property.
However, First Trust Holdings lists its address on the warranty deed for the Colleyville property as PO Box 93628, Southlake, Texas—the same address as the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association.
Plus, when Morris sold the home in 2022, the warranty deed for the sale names Robert and Deborah Morris as the “Grantor” of the property.
House sales in Texas are not publicly disclosed, so the sale price of the Colleyville property is unknown. However, a current listing for the property estimates it is worth $7.85 million.
Morris buys home in exclusive Westlake Community
The same year Morris sold the Colleyville home, he bought a mansion in Westlake’s exclusive Vaquero community, near another millionaire pastor, Ed Young. Young, who’s Fellowship Church is in nearby Grapevine, lives in an 8,100 square-foot home less than 550 feet from the home Morris bought.
Morris’ home boasted 6,000 square feet of living space and was just a mile from the members-only Vaquero Golf Club. The mansion featured four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a formal dining room with a wine room, a private executive study, and a large primary suite with pool access. Redfin estimates the home to be worth $3.5 million.
The home’s “backyard oasis” included a pool, spa, pergola, and covered living area with a fireplace and grill.
Upstairs, the home had two large bedroom suites, a game area and a “spacious media room.”
Like the Colleyville property, Morris bought the home through a trust, according to a 2022 warranty deed. TRR was able to confirm Morris lived in the Westlake home by finding another public document tying the address of the home to Morris.
In July 2024, about a month after Morris resigned in disgrace from Gateway Church, Morris sold the Westlake home. Details of the sale are not publicly available.
Morris’ $1.7 million lake home
The final home owned by Morris that TRR found is a house on a peninsula in Possum Kingdom Lake with an estimated value of $1.7 million.
De acuerdo a un warranty deed obtenido por TRR, Robert and Debbie Morris bought the home on March 5, 2021.
A listing for the home claims it may have the “best views” on Possum Kingdom Lake. The lot is “very private, heavily wooded” and includes a “very lengthy deep water depth lakefront,” the listing states.
The home also comes with a two-story dock. The lower level has lifts for two boats and the upper level has a deck overlooking the lake.
The house itself, which was built in 1965, includes four bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms.
Debbie Morris’ Instagram includes numerous pictures of the Morris family enjoying boating on the lake.
Whether Morris will be able to keep the lake house and his expansive ranch without his Gateway salary remains to be seen.
In his address to the Gateway congregation Nov. 2, Elder Tra Willbanks noted that the church has received “financial demands” from Morris, which Gateway is rejecting.
Julie Roys es una reportera de investigación veterana y fundadora de The Roys Report. Anteriormente, también presentó un programa de entrevistas nacional en Moody Radio Network, llamado Up for Debate, y ha trabajado como reportera de televisión para una filial de CBS. Sus artículos han aparecido en numerosas publicaciones periódicas.
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Jacksboro, Texas. Colleyville, Texas. Possum Kingdom Lake in Graford, Texas. Westlake, Texas.
To be fair, Texas is pretty expansive in land area, so perhaps the word “global” does apply here. Hence, in some people’s minds, it’s all relative when defining “global funding”. /s
I’d like to see Mr. Morris make this statement:
“I’m going to sell one of my mansions and set the money aside for women who were abused.”
It’s all about banking a percentage of offerings and tithes each week. 1000s of members who give above and beyond and wealthy individuals who tithe, well thats a lot of cash. The mega church is mega by business design and for the love of money Robert Morris can’t help but to covet worldly possessions like so many others. Quite the twisted biblical manipulation to keep congregants in the prosperity game. Envy begets greed. Texas has been ground zero for this craziness since the 80s. Of course they can thank their neighbor K. “Dad” Hagin too. He helped out a lot.
Actually Kenneth E. Hagin had a balanced view of believing God for your needs. Just before going home he warned the entire Faith Movement that what he taught was not for personal aggrandizement but to see ministry NEEDS to be met.
If you have ever heard his tales about the “several times” he “gave away everything” including his house and his cars, you will know that they spin-tingling acts of faith. Those were always good stories to get people motivated to sell their possessions and give to his church (or to the churches who hired him to fundraise for their new building projects).
Now we are left to assume that all those stories were just made up to swindle people out of their money.
People have been giving him their money of their own free will. I guess he was selling something they wanted.
Good point. Own “free will” or “deceptive sales practices”, or a combination of the two? Dunno, but time will tell.
No doubt some people gave because they were aspiring to receive the same.
After all, not all giving is altruistic, hence, quite often flames do not ascend without smoke’.
** Own “free will” or “deceptive sales practices” **
Hard to know, but “buyer beware” is timeless good advice. If you asked a tithing congregant at Gateway what he believed he was getting in exchange for his contributions, I wonder what he would say.
I contribute to my own church, and I figure my weekly donations help pay the electric bill or the youth minister’s wage. My building fund contributions go to pay the mortgage on the building, which is nice and has enough seats: our Spanish-speaking congregation has nearly tripled in less than two years. I’m satisfied with the value, as it were.
It sounds like Morris was investing in real estate. How much did he earn from book sales? This might have given him investment capital.
Without seeing accounts, there’s no way of knowing whether he was selling at a profit when properties turned over. I wonder if his books sold well in actual free transactions, or if the church was buying bulk lots, as with some other big cheese pastors’ books.
He preached that if we bought his books, he didn’t keep a penny-it all went back to the church! He said this numerous times and we are sure to have that recorded as well. Another way to swindle us out of giving more to support his mansions. I for one feel duped.
He sold them deception. I attended that church, and there are times I didn’t get the warm and fuzzy, in fact, one of his sermons was about the parable of the talents, he said it was about tithing. No it wasn’t, and neither was it about investing in the stock market, it’s about using your God given talents to increase the kingdom.
That’s very interesting. I’ve never heard anyone say the parable of the talents is about tithing.
That’s like saying people who sell others fentanyl is OK because the people like it.
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” He will one day have to give an account for his crimes and his greed. What will his defense be before God?
Yup, was about to write the same reference. And with fear and trembling.
Exactly. I run a Christian ministry and make zero dollars, I work as an aircraft mechanic, and we have 539 Muslims and Hindus that have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and it cost nothing.
God bless you, Paul. That is amazing and so wonderful to hear!
Clearly Robert Morris doesn’t believe any of that stuff, Paul. If he did, he’d begin by owning up and trying to make amends. So much of Evangelicalism today is about “believing” the right theology, and espousing the correct doctrines, and not about simply being a decent human being. So many evangelicals today are not only unChrist-like, they’re not even good people!
It is worse than that. He is a child molester as well. Jesus’ quote about millstones is very appropriate here. He may very well get some of the worst punishment that anyone receives.
Sickening. Owning more than 1 house and at those prices. !!! Greed!!
IF Robert Morris is truly worth over $100 million, I think the only way he could’ve accumulated that much money is if there were lavish multi-million dollar bonuses paid to him by the Board of Elders at Gateway quite a few times. Even if he received a $1 million dollar salary for 20 years and received some royalties for books he wrote and published, that’s at most a quarter of that $100 million.
If folks would just look around their local communities they would find small churches hosting food banks, clothing drives, etc., that would put their donations to far better use.
Gateway sounds more like an organized crime family than a church.
It could’ve been more embarrassing than it is, but there would’ve had to be clown cars and kazoos involved. My heart breaks for the depths we’ve plunged to. “Love not the world” has been edited by the removal of the “not.” To begin with, WHO in their right mind allowed a grown man ALONE time with a 12 year old girl? Does ANYONE still think that’s acceptable? The level of insanity we bow to is monumental. Somebody knew about this, but said NOTHING? God help us.
Hasn’t he been known to be this way (profiting from ‘ministry’) for a long time? I don’t think this is the first place to cover his apparent greed…
Nothing but a thug, a thief, a rapist, a pedophile, a liar, and a career criminal. When he dies I think Jesus just might have a few questions for him.
The Laodicean church, as well as the other 6, are alive and well in one place or another today.
15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot.
16 “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomitfn you out of my mouth.
17 “For you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.
Robert Morris is nothing more or less than the sort of preacher the vast majority of evangelical Americans want. If he had not fallen from grace, Robert Morris would still be carrying on like usual, growing his church, flying around the world on private jets, sponsoring balls for elected officials in Washington DC, buying and selling expensive real estate, and raking in millions from the tithes and offerings of working class Christians. The corporatization of the US evangelical church is protected by US evangelical Christians and enabled by the lack of government oversight: Churches are the only non-profit organizations that are exempt from filing IRS Form 990. But it is a cinch that if the IRS ever really tried to enforce the Johnson Amendment or tried to hold megachurches accountable to taxpayers for their secretive financial and illegal political activities, American evangelicals would cry “persecution!” and “communism!” and vote en masse for the politicians who promise to keep looking the other way.