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New Life Church Knew A 12 Year Old Was Abused

New Life Church Knew A 12 Year Old Was Abused

Last updated on: June 10, 2025 at 11:11 am by Pastor Kelly M. Williams

New Life Church Knew A 12 Year Old Was Abused 2025-06-10T11:11:04-06:00 Pastor Kelly M. Williams

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This past week Julie Roys from the Roy’s report published a story implicating several pastors, ministry leaders, and churches in the cover up or negligence of the horrific sexual abuse of Cindy Clemishire at age twelve, which lasted for four years at the unclean hands of Pastor Robert Morris at Gateway Church in Dallas.

You can read Julie’s report here: https://julieroys.com/documents-jimmy-evans-new-life-elders-knew-robert-morris-abused-12-year-old-decades-ago/

This past Sunday Pastor Brady Boyd, whom I have known for eighteen years now, shared with the congregation that Julie had, “made some ugly allegations about me.” I didn’t see any ugly allegations in the report from Julie about Pastor Brady. I did see information that spoke of horrible things Pastor Brady potentially did. It is my experience that when a Pastor immediately attacks the character and person of the individual who questions or is commenting about something they have done, this most often indicates the need for further investigation.

Pastor Brady shared with the New Life congregation in the service that he never knew Pastor Robert Morris abused a minor and if he did, he would have never allowed Pastor Robert to speak at New Life, lead at New Life, and be a church overseer for New Life with Pastor Larry Stockstill who also was an overseer for Pastor Ted Haggard at New Life.

You can watch the service for yourself here: https://www.facebook.com/NewLifeColorado/videos/1572349860391427

Pastor Brady begins addressing the congregation at the 31:00-minute mark of the video.

One year ago, the story broke about Pastor Robert sexually abusing a minor. You can watch Pastor Brady’s response from a year ago here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttJqyxXO54g

In each of these videos Pastor Brady addresses the importance of people trusting him and his leadership and the fact that he takes that leadership trust seriously. I agree with him on the critical importance of trust.

For whatever reason, a year ago, Pastor Brady felt no need to address the following questions which could have fostered more trust at the time between he and his congregation:

Did you know about this?
Did anyone at New Life know about this information?
When did you find out about this information?
When did you break fellowship and friendship with Pastor Robert and why?
What kind of role did Pastor Robert play at New Life and what processes are in place to vet your most senior leadership that oversees the church?
When you found out, what sort of internal investigation did you do to uncover how this could have occurred in your organization? (Meaning, did Pastor Brady discover a year ago that he has two current staff today who have known this for 18 years and never told him.)

Since then, Pastor Brady and New Life leadership including overseers Larry Stockstill and Greg Surratt have not addressed in any of these matters publicly. Maybe they were waiting for a better time, but it appears had the article by Roy’s report not been published this would have never been addressed publicly. Therefore, all the questions from the video from a year ago are still pertinent to now and other questions become even more pertinent to the process.

The recent court documents state that Pastor Brady and the nine-member search committee new about the abuse in 2007 thanks to Cindy’s sister, Karen Black, who was a member of New Life at the time. Two of the members of the nine-member search team are still a part of the senior leadership of New Life in addition to Pastor Brady.

Brain Newberg is the current Senior Executive Pastor and a member of the New Life Elder board. Lance Cole is currently a New Life Executive Pastor. Each of these men were in leadership and a part of the church when Pastor Ted Haggard was the Senior Pastor. I have known each of them for years.

Pastor Brady shared in his video that the nine-member search team knew about the abuse and did not tell him. Pastor Brady implied in his video one year ago that he had no idea, so the assumption is, he didn’t know until a year ago. Yet, court documents indicate the elders of Gateway knew in 2005, and Pastor Brady was one of the elders then. But let’s assume Pastor Brady is telling the truth. Let’s assume, he is being honest and didn’t know, at least until a year ago.

However, he made it clear in the video on June 8, 2025, in the weekend service that the nine-member search team knew in 2007, eighteen years ago.

So, Pastor Brady became the Senior Pastor of New Life in 2007. He made Pastor Robert Morris an overseer of the church and a speaker in the weekend services. The Senior leadership which is now a part of the New Life Elder board, Brian Newberg, knew Pastor Morris was an unreported child-molester. So here are the questions these presumed facts produce:

Did Brian Newberg report this to the police when he found out or make sure it had been reported to the police?
Did Lance Cole report this to the police or make sure it was reported?
Did they feel any obligation to let Pastor Brady know about this information? And if not, why not?
Did the New Life board which includes Brian Newberg, feel the need to discuss this as an elder board at any time in the eighteen years leading up to now?
Did Brian Newberg who oversees sexual abuse reporting at New Life feel any obligation to let anyone else know outside of the nine-member search team? And possibly, they did, and addressed it internally and believed it had been dealt with properly, but if that is the case, was Pastor Brady as the Senior Pastor of New Life not invited to that meeting?

And then the questions for today:

Does Pastor Brady have any responsibility to address the internal neglect of addressing this properly and what are the current ramifications for those who are still on staff at New Life and a part of the current elder board?
And then finally, what is the current elder board’s responsibility at New Life?

Is their conclusion, “Well, it was a miscommunication.”

Okay.

But at best this is a miscommunication regarding unreported criminal activity that was allowed to remain, and it put New Life’s Senior Pastor, Brady Boyd, in a position of compromise that he didn’t even get to choose.

It begs the question that if Brian Newberg who is responsible for the sexual abuse reporting at New Life all these years, mishandled this, what else needs to be addressed? What else may have been mishandled?

When organizations use NDA (nondisclosure agreements) with sex abuse victims and staff who are disgruntled, it creates an echo chamber that someone internally must manage, and this never-ending management becomes impossible for anybody to maintain. I talk about why megachurches are perceived as more corrupt in our society in this article: https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/why-do-so-many-megachurches-seem-to-be-corrupt.aspx

Gateway and New Life and many other churches over the years have used NDAs to silence sex abuse victims with money. They have done the same with former staff that they have deemed need to be silent as well.

It is difficult to know from Pastor Brady’s announcement, who is telling the truth. But if Pastor Brady is telling the truth, then who didn’t, and why?

The announcement created more questions instead of answers for the overseers of New Life and the current New Life elder board. I pray the Lord gives them wisdom to lead in a way that brings glory to Jesus and good for others so that the churches of Colorado Springs can thrive together as One for Jesus with New Life Church for the advancement of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Blessings,

Pastor Kelly

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