How Did Pastor Robert Morris Acquire Multiple Multi-Million-Dollar Properties?
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.
However, The Roys Report (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 amid allegations of child sex abuse.
Morris’ former residence in Westlake, Texas. valued at nearly $4 million. (Screengrab)
How Morris acquired this vast wealth is uncertain. TRR asked Gateway to reveal Morris’ 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,“The 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 exclusively reported.
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 bestselling 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 in 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.
However, 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-acre property 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 Lamb, 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 the 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 with 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.
According to a warranty deed obtained by 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.
This piece is republished from The Roys Report.
Julie Roys is a veteran investigative reporter and founder of The Roys Report. She also previously hosted a national talk show on the Moody Radio Network, called “Up for Debate,” and has worked as a TV reporter for a CBS affiliate. Her articles have appeared in numerous periodicals.