Growing in Christ. - Page 5 of 5 - The Blog of Pastor Matt Craig Morris

Sunday Rewind: Happily Ever After, Hope

Being a parent is a big deal! Whether through birth, adoption, or as an assistant/surrogate parent helping others with their children, the responsibility to love and guide another human being is an enormous responsibility and gift! You pour your heart, your energy, your passion into their lives. You cry, you ache, and you hope for their very best. You do all of this with no guarantee that the lessons you’ve taught them or the love you’ve shared will be returned. You simply do your very best, let go, and hope. Letting go scares me. My children are still young. But I know there will be a day, fast approaching, where I must let go. They will make their own decisions, live with their own consequences,[…]

Sunday Rewind: Happily Ever After Part 1

How do we prepare for our BIG Day? She said, “I will.” Perfectly timed and perfectly said, those two words changed my heart! Sometimes the written word doesn’t do justice to the importance of tone, body language, and inflection. When the church doors swung open and I saw my bride dressed in spectacular beauty, I began to sob. I tried my best to maintain composure, but I had never seen anything so beautiful. As she walked down the aisle towards me, her beauty only grew in magnitude. Tears welled in my eyes. She held my hand. She was here, dressed like that, for me! As the pastor officiating our wedding asked me if I would take Kerri to be my wife, my voice failed and[…]

Sunday Rewind: Who am I?

Fill in this blank: I am ______________. How do you identify yourself? I might write “Matt” or “a pastor” or “married” or “male.” You get the idea. There are a million billion ways we could answer the simple question “Who am I?” Yet have you ever considered how profound the question truly is? How I answer this simple question ultimately defines me as a person and influences my every thought and action. For instance, I am “married to Kerri.” Well, that should limit my thoughts and actions towards every other woman…and I can hear my wife lovingly say, “it better!” I am “male.” Well, that’s a hot button issue for our culture. Does or should “male” influence my thoughts and actions? I am “a[…]

Sunday Rewind: What Now?

My daughter loves gymnastics and dance. She must get that from her mother! We were so excited to take her to her first gymnastics lesson last year. She was a little clumsy and stubborn (she probably gets that from her dad), but she did great. She learned better body control and it was great exercise. A little disappointed, we decided not to enroll her this year. Time and money were too tight. Can I confess that removing her from gymnastics gave me a lot of guilt? I feel like a bad parent. She got over it quickly…heck, I don’t think she quite knows what she is missing. In the end, we decided that our priority needed to be less activity and more family time. We[…]

Sunday Rewind: Why Bother Praying?

What’s the point? Have you ever invested time and energy into an ambiguous or seemingly futile endeavor? You work, study, struggle, and sweat…all for not. Maybe its a college major with no employable skills taught. A job assigned by a superior with no apparent value…or one that doesn’t best use your skills or time. Sometimes some church programs and ministries can fall into this category. They start with lots of gusto and end up be a no-go. No matter the situation, we find our selves pondering, “What’s the point?” At times I have found myself thinking this about prayer. I know prayer is an essential discipline, responsibility, and gift we possess. It connects us with the Almighty God. But after years and tears asking and[…]

Sunday Rewind: Going to Extremes!

“Moderation in all things.” A lot of us live by this motto. Extremism gets a lot of play on the nightly news, and rarely is it good news. The problem with politics: extreme partisanship. The problem in the Middle East: Extremists. The reason we don’t talk about religion or politics at the dinner table: opinions in the extreme. Moderation makes sense. It allows for tolerance. Moderations reduces judgmental accusations. Moderation simply makes sense. The problem with moderation is that Jesus never preached it. As we continue our sermon series on Stumbling Blocks, we tackle what are often considered the extremes. Billy Graham is quoted as saying, “The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and[…]

Sunday Rewind: Choices

There is an old saying that goes something like, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” We all know the principle behind this saying. I can give my children every lesson and benefit this life offers…but I can’t make them use it well. A teacher can provide every piece of knowledge, but this same teacher can’t make a child learn. Ultimately, the horse must choose to drink, the student must choose to learn, and my children my choose to be responsible. We can set someone up for success…but they must choose. Oh my is this frustrating! Don’t you wish you could make your children choose wisely?!? Don’t you wish you could force your students to learn?!? As we continue[…]

Sunday Rewind: Elevated Expectations

Today was a HUGE day in the Morris family! Zelia started her first day of official “big girl” preschool. Okay, this news might not make the cover of the Franklin Press. But it was big day of excitement, fear, and expectation for our world. We signed Zelia up months ago, knowing it was time to challenge her maturity. It was heartbreaking for her to leave the security of the daycare person she had come to love and trust. However, she was eager and anxious to be a big girl and go to a “big girl” school! I’d like to believe that this transition was harder on mom and dad than it was on Zelia. I still remember vividly the joy as I watched my precious[…]

Sunday Rewind: Out of Alignment

It fascinates me how different my children are. Oh, they have their similarities. They both are intensely high energy, sweet, and out-going. Maybe I’m a little bias, but I also think they are just so cute! For all their similarities, their differences are striking. The one fundamental difference I recently noticed is how they respond to correction. Both my children are intense and vocal in their desire. Yet my son, if sternly corrected, immediately stops. He responds quickly to correction. Now my daughter…the spirited child that she is…chooses not to stop but to challenge your reasoning for asking her to stop. Have you ever argued with a 4 year old? Its a pointless, exhausting endeavor! Yet she picks a fight with every disobedient step she[…]