Gateway Church founder recovering after surgery complications

There’s been an outreach of support for a North Texas megachurch pastor who suffered a medical emergency over the weekend.

It started with a routine surgery earlier this month for Gateway Church Founder Robert Morris.  Then, came the complications before he was rushed back to the hospital on Sunday.

The young adult service at Gateway Church in Southlake on Tuesday night focused on prayer for Robert, their senior pastor.

"God has done a huge miracle in the life of our pastor,” said church member Stacy Burnett. “So we're just going to come in here tonight and praise him."

Robert was flown to a hospital on Sunday. He suffered what the family described as complications from a surgery he had last week.

Eventually, a CT scan showed about the size of a cantaloupe of a blood clot,” explained Josh Morris, Robert’s son. “And so we knew that he was bleeding internally."

Robert’s wife, Debbie, shot a video as a helicopter took him to the hospital. She simply asked the more than 30,000 church members to pray.

"I think that's what really kicked it off,” Josh said. “Because right from there, we started to hear from people. And I think the severity of realizing that he was being flown caused people to say we really need to pray."

Video posted to Instagram shows people lining the hallway at the hospital as Robert was wheeled into surgery Monday night. Thousands watched a Facebook Live video of an all-night prayer service while similar services were held at Gateway Church's six different DFW campuses.

“Everybody was praying for one thing, and that was a breakthrough in Pastor Robert’s body,” said church member Ben Pirtle. “And it was amazing to see it happen."

Church leaders say messages of prayer and encouragement poured in from people in 45 different countries as well as other local churches, city council members and non-members who also reached out to encourage Pastor Robert

"When you're part of a church and a church body, you have a group of people that is there to pray for you and walk through these things with you,” Josh said. “And it was the people of God being people of God joining together to pray."

The pastor's son says his dad is doing very well and is still in the hospital, but his vital signs look great.