Virginia Megachurch Pastor to Lead Scandal-Plagued Gateway Church
Daniel Floyd, a megachurch pastor in Virginia, will become senior pastor of Gateway Church, the scandal-plagued Dallas-area congregation founded by accused child molester Robert Morris.
In 2005, Floyd and his wife, Tammie, both founded Lifepoint Church in Fredericksburg, a suburb 54 miles south of Washington, D.C. The church has since grown to five locations around the commonwealth. Both husband and wife serve as senior pastors at Lifepoint, but a Dallas Morning News report about the appointment did not indicate a similar position at Gateway for Tammie Floyd.
Asked what role she would have at Gateway, a spokesperson told The Roys Report (TRR) via email, “No answer on that as of today’s news, but we’ll be in touch once there’s more detail to share.”
The Floyds also serve on the Lead Team for the Association of Related Churches (ARC), a church planting organization that’s had numerous sex abuse scandals among its network churches and has been closely associated with Gateway.
Morris served as an overseer at ARC Flagship Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama, but resigned amid his sex abuse scandal. Gateway also has hosted ARC conferences in the past, including a pastor’s conference in 2022 featuring disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll.
Gateway has been without a senior pastor since Morris, 63, resigned last year.
Gateway, which had a weekly attendance of 26,000 in 2023, was rocked last year by the disclosure that Morris had molested 12-year-old Cindy Clemshire in 1982 while working as a traveling evangelist in Oklahoma. Since then, the church — at one point ranked the ninth- largest congregation in the U.S. — has seen a massive decline in attendance and giving.
The Floyds announced they’d be leaving Lifepoint during services at the Virginia megachurch this morning.
Daniel Floyd was named to be the next Senior Pastor at Gateway Church in Dallas, TX. (YouTube screenshot)
Gateway also posted a video announcement with a personal greeting from the Floyds on its website today. In it, the couple said they viewed the pastoral position as a “sacred calling” and noted that they would be visiting Gateway Church next weekend.
Best-selling author Max Lucado has been an interim teaching pastor at Gateway since Morris left, while retaining his role at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio.
Morris was indicted on five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child and faces a preliminary hearing in September. He is now seeking millions of dollars in retirement benefits, a claim Gateway rejected in a May 13 court filing.
According to the Dallas newspaper account, Tra Willbanks, who chairs Gateway’s elder board, contacted Daniel Floyd in January about the possibility of taking the reins and doing “a lot of repair work in a community.”
Speaking to his Virginia congregations on Sunday, Floyd said he hadn’t been on a job hunt when the call came.
“We did not go searching for it. We have never looked to be anywhere but right here,” the Lifepoint leader, accompanied by his wife onstage, said. “But just like 20 years ago, it started with a phone call. And we had had conversations like this before, but this time, it was different.”
Floyd and his wife “sensed the hand of God in this,” he said, and “from the beginning, we submitted this process to our board of overseers, who is our spiritual covering here. We sought their prayer, counsel and wisdom.”
He said they also involved “other mentors and spiritual advisors in our lives, we also invited our executive team into this process.”
Lifepoint has already selected its next senior pastoral leaders, and Floyd said he will announce the choice June 1. He is expected to begin at Gateway sometime in August.
This piece is republished with permission from The Roys Report.
Mark A. Kellner is a reporter based in Mesquite, Nevada. He most recently covered statewide elections for the New York Post and was for three years the faith and family reporter for The Washington Times. Mark is a graduate of the University of the Cumberlands and also attended Boston University’s College of Communication.