Mustard Seed Faith in Church Planting and Evangelism

By Gary Morris

The cover picture and the title go hand in hand. The person who goes out and casts seed has in him the hope that the kingdom of God will be expanded. He possesses at minimum, faith the size of a mustard seed.

He believes that the all-powerful God whom he serves will release His power in what the picture portrays. The servant of God cast the seed, not knowing but believing that the purposes of God will become evident. Why? Because faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

So in his labors, some seed finds residence in a hard and dark heart of stone. God is working His miracle of regeneration or drawing that hard-hearted individual to Himself. The seed of the eternal Word is cracking and breaking up the hard heart.

Sometimes, the person of faith observes something happening. He witnesses what was once a hard and depraved heart is now being softened toward God. If he is involved in up-close evangelism, he is blessed to witness the spiritual miracle of salvation as depicted in the picture as becoming a heart of flesh. That once-hard-hearted person is now able to move in God's direction rather than continuing in his own depraved way.

The eternal seed that has been implanted in the heart by God now begins to sprout out with life, demonstrating the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, growing and producing spiritual fruit unto his King; this is his reasonable service.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098079321

Book preview

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Mustard Seed Faith in Church Planting and Evangelism

Gary Morris

Copyright © 2020 by Gary Morris

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Background

Preparation Part 1

Encounters

Preparation, Part 2

Purpose and Focus

Growing Pains

The Hawaii Plant

Praise and Worship

Church Leadership

Wrapping It Up

To my heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

My family—Judy, Nathan, Joel, Malia, Abigail.

My dearest friends—Pete and Debralee, Jim and Jane, Al, the whole Ohana of Hawaii.

My teachers—Al, Garfield, Paul, David, Stacy, Ray, Glenn, Allan, and many more, which includes many I met on the streets and behind those closed doors.

Foreword

Win for the Lamb the reward for His sufferings. This is a passionate declaration found throughout church history, where God’s servants labor in the Lord’s harvest.

This book on church planting by Gary Morris resonates this burden for lost people with our Father’s love. He has walked out the content of this book.

How it all started is found in the early chapters of background, preparation, and encounters. It is very exciting to read how God apprehends an individual for His plan and will to be done.

There is some great emphasis on the person and work of the Holy Spirit sprinkled throughout the chapters. The substance is truly authentic; his transparency is refreshing, accompanied with a challenging call to church planters to come forth into the Lord’s harvest.

Reading the numerous stories on conversions of people is heart stirring. It is exactly what planting a church is all about.

The reader can experience the equipping nature from the author on a topic that certainly needs to be awakened in a greater measure in the body of Christ.

Pastor Peter Miller

Friends of the Cross Christian Church

Corning, New York

Introduction

There have been several people in the last several years who have mentioned to me to write a book on my experiences in church planting and evangelism. And even though I have been out of the ministry for several years, the years doing this kind of ministry have remained burned in my heart. I am sure that many who read this book will agree that the experiences in the Lord’s work have an everlasting impact and abiding memories that one cherishes throughout his or her life. I like to call these precious encounters my personal burning bush experiences with the Lord.

In my calling as an evangelist and the kind of evangelism I truly enjoyed, I can honestly say that I have never been shipwrecked, but I have been threatened verbally and physically, which to me goes along with the territory of the calling. When you go into enemy territory, as I prefer to call it, you just never know what you will encounter. On the flip side of the hazards, there is absolutely nothing that compares to having an impact for eternity—meaning, the tremendous blessing of God in allowing you to join hands with Him and seeing people’s lives changed by the power of God.

This book is for church planters, evangelists, and pastors. I believe that it is also a good read for fellow Christians, with the reasons being of a nudging you may have for such a ministry as church planting and evangelism or to be a vital member of an evangelistic team in the church you attend.

I would also hope that this writing gives to the church, God’s called-out ones, knowledge of frontline ministry, and its need for every church body to have on its ministry team an evangelist who is not ashamed of the gospel or fearful to go out to where the lost are.

I now open this book for your reading and will close it with the same: But if our gospel be hid it is hid to those who are lost (Paul 2 Corinthians 4:3).

One note: I never capitalize the name of satan—never have and never will.

Chapter 1

Background

I was born and raised in the Gem City of Ohio, also called Dayton. My parents also were born and raised in Dayton. At that time, Dayton was a thriving city of wealth, primarily from industries that resided there, which included General Motors and the National Cash Register. My family and extended family worked at either GM or NCR. I was the rebel, since after serving in the United States Coast Guard for four years, I chose the medical field, radiological technology, and eventually serving the Lord Jesus as a church planter in several locations. I was the adventurous type as well as a risk taker.

When Mom and Dad were planning for a family vacation, I could not wait to get the car loaded. When hanging Nansen bottles on a cable in twenty-five-foot seas, I did not shy away from the task at hand. That is just the way the Lord wired me, and He used my makeup, I believe, for the tough work of church planting.

I believe that the Lord can and does use our background to accomplish His purpose in our lives. Whether our backgrounds are for good or ill, He can use our experiences for His glory. I believe that because as I look back, He did just that in my Christian walk, especially in the ministry of church planting.

As far back as I can remember, our family went to church. We attended the Christian and Missionary Alliance on Burns Avenue in Dayton. A congregation of four to five hundred with nowhere to park, it seemed. Church planter, when you begin to meet corporately, make sure you have places to park. In our society, this is a very important aspect in church planting—parking.

As a family, we went to Sunday morning Sunday school and service, Sunday evening service, and Wednesday night prayer meeting religiously, as well as revival services. A. W. Tozer, my father’s favorite author, spoke at our home congregation, although I was much too young to understand this man of God’s message, but I have read many of his pointed, some would say prophetic works.

Not to belabor this aspect of my growing up but I remember well when I was young two experiences that I had at our home ekklesia (church), that I believe shaped some of my beliefs. These experiences were hidden deep in my soul until the Lord brought them to light after I became a believer, and especially in the church planting ministry He entrusted to me.

The first occurrence, I was standing next to my father one Sunday morning and the body of God’s church was singing the songs of Zion. What song? I can’t remember. I was probably six or seven years of age. I still remember being moved by the singing and vividly remember saying under my breath, Jesus, I love you. I believe with all of my heart that the Lord treasured in His heart my words and brought them to fruition on June 15, 1975 at around 8:30 in the evening when I bowed my knee to the King of glory. I was twenty-four years of age.

The second experience was a Sunday evening service. While I was sitting next to my dad, I began to get a raging fever. It was definitely the flu bug. I remember well that it did not just creep up but quickly climbed up. My dad felt my head, and when the service was ended, he took me straight up, setting his face as a flint to the altar and motioned to Reverend Bennett to come over to where we were standing. I remember well Reverend Bennett calling for the elders to come up to pray for me.

Some may know that the founder of the CM&A was Dr. A. B. Simpson, who was close to death and was by God’s healing power, dramatically healed of tuberculosis as a child. The motto that he penned for the alliance was Jesus, Savior, sanctifier, healer, glorious Lord, and coming King. I would encourage all worship teams to get the hymn he wrote, Jesus Only, where the words of the chorus are the motto of the CM&A.

My dad believed the Word of God and believed in His healing power. Listen parents, I did not have faith as a young boy, but my dad did.

I was anointed by the elders with oil, and as they were praying, I literally felt this high raging and invading fever leave out of the top of my head, as did those who had placed their hands on me. A miracle to us, yes; was it to Him? Absolutely not. Church planter, the One who raised the dead is still in the healing business. And there may be a time when you will be called upon by Him for someone in need of His healing touch.

This healing of a fever happened another time in my body many years later, very early in my ministry. It was at a ministerium meeting. As the meeting was going forward, the flu bug hit me again, just like it did when I was a young boy. It came upon me with a vengeance, and I became sick very quickly. One of the brothers asked me if I was all right, and I told him that I just got hit with a fever. He stopped the meeting and said, Gary needs prayer.

There were about ten of us, and they all gathered around me. The brother, Bishop Raymond, poured the oil on my head. And believe me, he did not believe in a little dab will do you. He poured it on my head, just like on Aaron’s head described in Psalm 133. And they began to pray for God to heal me, and just like when I was that young boy at the altar, I literally felt the fever leave my body. One brother asked the others if they felt what he felt, the fever literally passing out of my head—answer, yes. Needless to say, we continued the meeting after we thanked God for His healing touch. The master physician touched me; oh, He touched me!

Now, do you see a little pattern here? Do you see a gift being manifested by God’s grace? Do you see the sovereignty of our all-powerful God?

Now I know this first chapter is about my background, but it is mostly about God’s wonderful grace. But I want to take my being blessed those two times, and how God used me to be on the giving end, to a little boy in Hawaii.

We were meeting corporately after many coming to our Savior through my evangelistic efforts. On one Sunday morning while I was sharing vital information from God’s Word, a dear brother of Samoan descent raised his hand, interrupting my message to His church, and said, Brother Gary, David, his very young son, is raging with fever, and before another word came out of Maurice, it was like God setting my face as a flint on little David.

I quickly, without oil, came upon little David, placing my hands on his head and began to beseech the master healer—you know, the One who raised the dead. And as I was praying, I literally felt the fever go out of his little body. Without hesitation, I returned back to the music stand to speak, and there is little David jumping around on his father’s lap, and Maurice proclaiming to all that God healed David. Not Brother Gary but God, through His matchless grace and healing power, healed his son. We all got a little happy on that one!

Church planter, it is when God does something like this that now He has taken over the service. What do you do? Praise Him, worship Him, proclaim Him, and continue to be very sensitive to what He desires to do in the midst of His people. You may end up closing your Bible and watching God do a work that will astound you. I join the crowd of Christian leaders that have gotten so hung up in what we have planned, what we want to do, and we miss the mighty work of God. The precious Holy Spirit can do one act, speak one word, and do more in one second than our hours of preparation could ever do for any Sunday gathering. Please hang on; chapter two is coming.

There were two other times where I saw God’s mercy of healing with two of our children. They were very serious invasions of sickness. Our second son, Joel, was invaded by pneumonia at six weeks old. The doctor told us if we had not taken him into the emergency room when we saw him so very lethargic, he most probably would have died. After the chest X-ray, they began immediate antibiotics because his right lung was almost completely obliterated with pneumonia. We prayed and prayed and prayed as my wife knelt at his bedside while he was in the oxygen tent and hooked up to an IV bag of antibiotics.

I have worked with doctors for twenty-five years, and I’m very thankful for them and declare that God uses doctors for the healing process. Our son regained his health by God’s grace and mercy. For me, God gets all the glory, and the doctors get a good pat on the back and a fruit basket.

Our youngest daughter, Abigail, began to have very serious headaches. Over the counter medication did not help. The intensity continued, so we took her to the doctor, who thought that it was just her hormones due to her age. The prescribed medication did not help either. Because the headaches worsened, we took her back to the doctor, and to be honest, I got a bit agitated, to say the least, at the response to let it go; it will subside. I then demanded that Abby, our spunky and vibrant daughter, be given a CT (CAT) scan of her head.

The doctor ordered the CT stat that day, and we received a call the next day to come in to the doctor’s office. Our precious daughter had a growth in her pituitary gland, which is located in the sella turcica. Big problem, but not for our sovereign and