Gateway Tightens Belt More, Discloses Large Debt to Staff

Staff at Gateway Church are being asked to tighten their budgets even more as the church is working to reduce $55-million in debt.
According to sources in the Gateway Church Ministry Staff meeting earlier this week, pastor Todd Lane said that budgets would be cut by 10%.
The church had earlier disclosed significant staff cuts. Of late, sources within the church have said that additional cuts have gone as high as 50% of staff in some departments.
On the up side, pastor Tom Lane showed pictures of his visit to the White House. The picture below comes from Rodney Howard-Browne’s Facebook page (Lane is the last person on the right).
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Professional? Wealthy? You Are Gateway Church's Bullseye!

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If you are wealthy professional, Gateway Church in Southlake, TX wants you.
According to Associate Senior Pastor Bobby Bogard, Gateway has been given a “grace lane” by God to consider rich professionals as the bullseye for their recruitment efforts. Bogard told this to a group of pastors in January 2017 at the Linked International Network of Churches Equip Conference. Watch:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/8Z7B-zDkOx8[/youtube]
Transcript:

Gateway Church will be 17 years old this Easter.  We’re a spirit filled Charismatic church without the weird or the goofy.  I’ve seen the weird and the goofy, believe me.  In  my charismania days.  Um, we have over 30 thousand in attendance on a weekly basis.  That’s six campuses., with 26 services. I say all that to say this, big is not always better.  Big is not better. But what we are at Gateway Church is we’re healthy and I wanna talk to you about healthy church.  We’re healthy in so many different ways.  And health is probably one of the main ingredients of our success.  In all of the growth that we’ve taken place we’ve remained a healthy organization and a healthy church.  A healthy ministry.  A healthy people.  A healthy staff.  Healthy pace.  And so, part of our secret sauce is that we’re healthy.  Our goal is to become healthy, not to fill buildings with people.  Because here’s the deal.  If we can become healthy, we will see people filled with God, and then the principle of ‘healthy things grow’ right?  So that’s a value that we hold.  Healthy things grow.  And so church growth is really a byproduct of a healthy church.
Number two is people.  We’re all about people.  That’s our slogan, it’s been our slogan from the very  beginning.  I’m gonna drill down to some of this in just a minute.  I wanna fly by on a 30,000 foot view, okay?   But, we’r e all about people.  And the reason we’re all about people is because  God’s all about people. Am I right?  And so if we’re all about people because God’s all about people, it’s because we know God loves people, and if God loves people  we need to love people.  But how many of you know, sometimes, in our journey we love Jesus with all of our heart.   Right?  It’s just some of the people He hangs out with that we have a  problem.  C’mon somebody?  And so, God loves people.  I love what Johnny shared, man.  I love the fact that John Maxwell is passionate about a million souls, because souls are people.  People have problems.  People have  issues. People have transition.  But God loves them in every season of their life.  He never turns himself away from people.  And so, if you help people, God will send you more people, because God loves people.    I’ll say that again.  If you love people and you help people, God will send you more people.  Why?  Because God loves people.
And so as we, as we, look at health, and as we look at people, there are some considerations that we go after in preparing ourselves to be healthy and to love people.  And that’s number one is:
We’re always asking ourself, who is are target?  Who’s our bullseye?  Do you know who your bullseye is?  Your bullseye, not that you’re not gonna reach all people, because we’re gonna reach all people.  We’re gonna be all things to all people, to reach all people.  But there’s something that God has gifted you with.  There’s a Grace Lane that you have.  And that Grace Lane is directed to a bullseye.  And who is your bullseye?  Who are the people God’s called you to reach?
And so, as we look at our bullseye, God has called us, to reach professional people.  That’s our bullseye.  We’re still gonna help the down and out.  We do it every week.  We’re still gonna help single moms.  We do it every week.  We-we’re still going to uh, look and help marriages and blended families.  We’re gonna work through their issues.  But our bullseye is the business professionals.  Matter fact, in one of our depart- we have a whole department that’s built towards reaching business people.  I’m talking about people with influence and large capacities of wealth.  That’s our bullseye because we feel like that’s something God’s graced us to do.  And if we can reach our bullseye, it will create a ripple, if you will, so that we can reach the others more effectively.

Church Growth via Targeting Rich People

Bogard said these things in January 2017, the same month the church co-sponsored one of President Trump’s inaugural galas. January 2017 is also the same month that I reported that Gateway church started charging youth group kids $2 for pizza and water. In January, a Gateway youth leader went on Facebook to beg for donations from members to help pay for pizza for kids who couldn’t afford it.
Last month, Gateway began laying off staff (as many as 20-30%) and stopped paying some worship and tech staff. Bogard told the pastors’ conference Gateway was healthy but didn’t mention the layoffs and program reductions. However, Bogard did disclose that Gateway has a whole department geared toward reaching “people with influence and large capacities of wealth.” I wonder if anyone in that department got laid off.
 
See also:
Gateway Church Courts Business Leaders Via Exclusive Program

Gateway Church Internally Addresses Changes in Staffing

_MG_2556From multiple sources inside Gateway Church, I have learned that one of the topics of the monthly staff chapel several days ago was the recent layoffs at Gateway. In the meeting, a leader said the layoffs were a healthy “pruning.” Although I am aware that some of the support staff have experienced reductions in compensation (some went from being paid to volunteers), the staff were told that no pay cuts were planned.
Regarding news concerning the church, the leader told the staff that they should not be participate in blogs (specifically mine). For those who followed the Mars Hill Church and Gospel for Asia stories, that should sound familiar.
I welcome Gateway supporters and former members alike to express their views. I also call on Gateway to be more transparent about compensation, and where else the money goes.
I am hearing that some laid off staff are reluctant to speak because they signed non-disclosure agreements with a non-disparagement clause. This is another sound-alike from the Mars Hill days.

Gateway Church Courts Top Level Business Leaders via Exclusive Program

As the church is cutting staffs and salaries, Gateway Church leaders are offering an exclusive program for chief-level executives. Gateway Business Leaders describes itself as

The Gateway Business Leaders Program is a comprehensive program designed to help you accomplish God’s calling and destiny on your life. We have identified numerous topics that we believe will help you achieve Biblical success in your business, personal and spiritual life. We have organized the GBL Program by levels based on background and experience of the members. Our goal is to provide the best resources and relationships to each business leader in our events, training, groups, and mentoring pillars.

However, this interesting program isn’t for everyone. In fact, it is quite exclusive.

Our heart is to serve every businessperson at Gateway. However, at the present time, to best steward our resources, we have designed programs for business owners, presidents, vice presidents, CEO’s, and other C-level executives. Our program is not currently intended for non-profit leaders, first-time start-up entrepreneurs, direct sales agents, network marketers, manufacturing sales representatives, and realtors working for franchise real estate organizations. If you are an eligible candidate, we invite you to apply.

The website provides more details about who can become a member of the GBL program:

Business Owners: A business owner is defined as someone who owns a majority interest in the business they lead.
Corporate Leaders: Corporate Leaders are defined as Presidents, C-Level Executives of private and public corporations that have more than 100 employees, and Vice Presidents that oversee at least 50 employees.
Our program is not intended at this time for non-profit leaders, first-time start-up entrepreneurs, direct sales agents, network marketers, manufacturing sales representatives, and realtors working for franchise real estate organizations.

Show Me Yours but I Won’t Show You Mine

As a part of the process, applicants must disclose their salary. Why would a ministry need to know a member’s salary? This is an especially fair question since the leaders of Gateway are secretive about the salaries of senior pastors.
Gateway Business Leaders Income
Given the recent news out of Gateway, I am not sure I would want to join. “Come learn how we cut staff by one-third and cut pay by as much as 20%” isn’t an attractive slogan.
Note: Gateway executives could not join Gateway’s program. Since Gateway pastors are leaders in a non-profit organization, they would not be eligible to join the group they are leading. In essence, GBL seems like an exclusive club for Christian high rollers, one which is financed by rank and file donors.

Gateway Church Cuts Pay Between 15-20%

Robert Morris and Ted Cruz Wilks BrosI reported in mid-April that the fourth largest church in America — Gateway Church — planned to layoff one-third of the church staff amid extravagant spending for political purposes.  Now I have learned that, Gateway informed staff yesterday that their pay would be reduced by as much as 20%.
A source had informed me that expenses were slated to be cut but did not expressly mention salaries. Now, another source tells me that the staff were informed yesterday that pay was being cut. There is no way to confirm at this point if those cuts extend to the senior pastors and founder Robert Morris.
Gateway spent lavishly on political events during and after the presidential campaign, culminating in co-sponsorship of an inaugural ball for Donald Trump. At the same time, the church started to charge for pizza during Wednesday night youth group meetings.
Since Gateway doesn’t publish audited financial statements, it isn’t clear how much senior leaders make in salary. In any case, cutting staff by one-third and cutting pay by 20% doesn’t match Morris’ optimism about growth at Gateway.