Archive: Paul Morell: Treading Firmly Where the Lines Are Thinnest

By Martha Davis

It’s Sunday morning at First United Methodist Church of Carrollton, Texas. A crowd of 500 or more area-Dallasites is seated for the first of two morning services; the choir has sung the morning anthem. It’s time for the sermon, but the distinguished Rev. Paul Morell is not in his place behind the pulpit.

Instead, cradling his Bible, he preaches as he paces a narrow carpeted area in front of the speaking podium. It’s a mistake, he believes, to cling either timidly or tiredly to the elements of office, be they pulpits or policies, when those elements become serious barriers to effective ministry.

Not an easy man to understand, predict, or even engage in conversation, this United Methodist minister of more than 40 years can be described as a man of vision rather than vernacular. His face, most often serious, gives no indication of his years. His manner, at times, and his slim build give the illusion that he is taller than his actual medium frame.

He observes about himself “a willingness to meet the need without measuring the cost.” Few who know him would argue. “I have to remember what God told me when He called me into the ministry: “Paul, go where the line is thinnest.” And so his lifetime walk has been much like his Sunday morning paces—Christian service neither confined to the traditional, nor conformed to the ordinary.

Dr. Morell has been since 1983 senior pastor of the 3000-member First United Methodist Church of Carrollton. The 20 years previously he served as senior pastor of Methodism’s largest inner-city church, Tyler Street United Methodist Church in South Dallas’ Oak Cliff area.

According to UM Bishop Richard Wilke, “Paul has an uncanny sense of what time it is … where the church is, where God has placed him, spiritual needs and hungers. [He has] an awareness of shifting needs and an ability to discern and pursue unique opportunities.” Wilke, noted author of And Are We Yet Alive? and developer of the “Disciple” Bible study program, has been a colleague and friend since 1948 when the two were students at Southern Methodist University.

“Paul has always had an unwavering commitment to family and a commitment to reach the unchurched,” he continues. “Today when bishops are focusing on the local church, it is evident to me that Paul’s entire life has been devoted to generating vitality and power through the local church for missions and ministry. There is no question he has tried to follow Jesus Christ in ministry and in life.”

Wilke’s accolades are well-founded. Along with the energy Brother Paul (as he prefers to be addressed) devotes to his local church, and the priority he puts on being in the pulpit (or rather in front of it) on as many Sundays as possible, he has been a leader in national religious agencies.

He’s a pathfinder of sorts. When he becomes aware of a need and an organization does not exist to address it, he has at times helped begin one himself. Dr. Morell is a founding member of the advisory board of the Institute of Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C., and he has served several years as founding president of World Encounter Gospel Organization (WEGO), based at Tyler Street UM Church.

As executive secretary and founding member of John Wesley Creative Ministries, he helps provide scholarships for Wesleyan seminary students pursuing a doctorate degree. The foundation also financially assists missionaries, including the legendary Columbian missionary Bruce Olsson.

It’s easy to see this man is committed to spreading the Gospel of Christ. Morell remembers what he describes as “a decisive and incisive event” in his call to evangelical ministry. It was the summer of 1948. The Oklahoma district superintendent had asked him to pastor for the “small but wonderful” Wheatland United Methodist Church. “All summer I visited people, played croquet with the older men, worked with the youth, and encouraged those of my age to help me minister. But two weeks before returning to SMU, 95-year-old Mr. Love of the congregation passed away.

“I held the service and afterwards went to the tiny office, took the membership book, and scratched his name from the roll. Suddenly it occurred to me—instead of 95 members, I now had 94. I was going to give back to the bishop and the superintendent a congregation smaller than they had given me. I had been so busy caring for people, but not leading them to Christ. I perceived very clearly that I must always be about the business of evangelism and seeking the unchurched, of saving and recruiting for Christ…otherwise we die.”

In addition to a Master of Sacred Theology degree (cum laude) from Perkins School of Theology, Dr. Morell holds a Master of Arts degree in evangelism. In 1987 he was nominated for the Phillip Award for evangelism in the United Methodist Church.

Dr. Morell’s passion for evangelism extends beyond the U.S. borders. He serves on the executive committee and board of directors for the Mission Society for United Methodists. Earlier he was chairman of Good News’ Evangelical Missions Council. He has promoted mission work and led trips to Panama, Latin America, South and Central America.

“If I had 10 lives, seven of them would be spent on the mission field. Need is everywhere; money is lacking; commitment is better but still in short supply,” Morell says.

“Since I have only one life, I’ll spend it where it ought to be spent, and that’s where I am. I choose to believe I’m where God wants me to be for now—in the local church. Our highest calling is not to hold an office, but to simply be extensions of Christ in our given circumstance.

“Almost every United Methodist minister has to fight the desire to succeed and be applauded by his peers—to be district superintendent, bishop, or pastor of the largest church,” he continues. “I’ve not always been pleased at the level of victory I have achieved overcoming these desires, but I have learned it is more important to be faithful to what is entrusted to us than to abandon ministry for awards our system can give.”

Currently the noted pastor is involved with writing and editing his first book, Living In The Lion’s Den, which he explains, “takes a look at fear, insecurity, failure, grief, guilt, lust, and pride: the lions which tend to devour our life and happiness, and must be tamed.” He names pride a “fierce lion” for most pastors. “It’s so easy for us to feel we do not get what we deserve.” Living In The Lion’s Den is scheduled to be released by Abingdon Press in February of 1992.

Brother Paul describes his ministry as a “pulling of self and resources together toward the objectives God has laid on my heart: evangelizing; being an encourager to others; calling the church leaders to higher accountability than I see being practiced; developing a servant’s heart; doing church planting; and calling church-accountability to Jesus Christ rather than to the esteemed opinions of other educators and philosophers.”

Those who know him might say what is so distinctive about this man is his candor. To him, so many issues are black and white, and he’s nearly fearless about pointing to wrongdoings—even those within the church he loves dearly.

His disagreements with the United Methodist Church are serious and, at times, have provided a less-than-comfortable relationship between him and officers of the denomination. Still he is unwavering in his convictions.

“The churches I’ve pastored in the last 25 years have not always paid their full apportionments,” he reports matter-of-factly. “So many other ministries are so much more effective than those mandated by the United Methodist Church.

“There ought to be priorities by local related schools and other institutions to churches instead of blind payment. Today we live in a forced system. We consider dialogue a virtue, but what we do is minimal and our people give too little.”

With riveting frankness, he continues, citing the “absolute failure of seminaries to do the job the church has entrusted to them; and the inability of our colleges and universities to express strong Christian convictions of morals in faculty and student life.”

He cites the “radical left posture of many of our general boards and agencies.” His tone is steady, his voice never rises, his manner is almost casual as he relates his impressions, which he has obviously long pondered and surrendered to prayer.

“We have not discovered the difference between institutional, liberal, and evangelical effort,” he explains. “The Board of Global Ministries has little conviction that Jesus is the only way. In our mainline denominations, for practical purposes, universalism [the idea that all persons will be saved] is the norm.”

He is grieved by the denomination’s “flirting with homosexuality as a God-approved lifestyle; the hundreds and hundreds of divorced clergy in our denomination; radical feminism; and the absence of evangelism—the lack of concern for those who do not believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.”

Even with all the church’s obvious blemishes, Morell is hopeful. He looks to the reasonably strong world connection in Methodism and the denomination’s size—“up to two and three times larger than other well-known denominations”—as definite strengths. “We have a good balance historically between head and heart, between vital faith and caring for people in vital ways. Much of the current-day Pentacostalism has its root in the evangelical wing of the Methodist Church of 80 and 100 years ago…we need the spread of scriptural holiness and Pentecostal convictions. Methodism has mild but definite moral and spiritual structures that reflect Catholic origins. Many of the positions and attitudes we hold are compatible with most branches of Christianity.”

His vision for the church is this: “That we be a willing instrument of the Holy Spirit to be used by God for exhibiting what the Kingdom of God truly is; that our institutions promote and expect the kind of moral and social behavior that the scriptures call forth from believers; that we see the church not so much as what it will do for us, but what the members will do for Christ through the church.

“I look forward to the day when the Council of Bishops and the general agencies of the church will spend most of their time, energy, and money, on matters that extend beyond the current leftward social and political agenda… . There are a good number of groups who have joined together, and in their effort to do much good are also doing much harm because they fail to call each other to accountability in matters beyond oppression issues.”

Of society, Morell’s talk is pointed. “We have forgotten how to love and we love not church or state, friend or family, or God. We treat one another as things rather than Christ’s sacred creations. The elderly are often not wanted.”

As is typical of him, Morell doesn’t wait for others to make the changes. He served as founding superintendent of Tyler Street Manor in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. The 14-story home for the elderly, built in 1972, is one of the finest elderly care homes in the Southwest.

He cringes at the lack of care of children he observes from parents and communities…and a “callousness with which so many teachers view their students… . Many, many children are neither loved nor cared for today. They are an inconvenience, an embarrassment to career objectives.”

While at Tyler Street, Dr. Morell helped establish a fully-accredited academy for students in kindergarten through high school. He currently serves as superintendent of the Carrollton Christian Academy, a ministry of the church be pastors. With his support, the academy, which enrolls more than 600 students, has added a junior high school, gained elementary accreditation, and is building a gymnasium and additional classroom and laboratory facilities to provide for expansion through the high school grades by 1993.

In addition, the Carrollton church has opened a Christian Child Care Center to provide for the hundreds of community families needing toddler and before- and after-school care for their children. Dr. Morell’s commitment to family and the church is most evident in the love he shares with his wife, Ann, his three married daughters and their families. They are closer than most families living under the same roof. “We’re all United Methodists together—serving, working, praying… .”

After much discussion of such heavy, heartfelt issues, Paul’s face relaxes as he speaks of his four grandchildren. His eyes widen and his face crinkles in an uncharacteristically lopsided, boyish grin. He takes his role as a grandfather as seriously as the rest. “I try to love them, help them to have a positive image about mankind, Christians, church. I try to challenge them to be their best. I am a pal on one side and an example on the other.”

Only a grandchild could get the distinguished Rev. Dr. Paul Morell to break away from the serious Christian business at hand to host an annual birthday party at a Dallas pizza and game restaurant or take in a baseball game at Arlington stadium.

In the last of the eight or so trips to the Holy Land Brother Paul and Ann have led, the trip of 1988 was perhaps the most memorable. Grandson Rocky, 11, accompanied the couple. “It was a great experience for him and me. It strengthened his faith, gave him insight beyond his years, and continues to help him do his best in all areas of his life.”

Morell gestures proudly to a framed letter hanging behind his desk—a note from Rocky’s teacher expressing how important that experience was to the boy.

And to a grandfather, the cherished memory of the boy’s sweet, clear voice, echoing the words of a German song (his mother taught him) through the Shepherd Caves just outside of Bethlehem makes this pastor’s steps a little lighter as he treads firmly where the lines are thinnest.

Marcia Davis, a freelance writer/photographer and former newspaper reporter/photographer and government information officer, has served as communications specialist to First United Methodist Church, Carrollton, and Carrollton Christian Academy for more than six years.