'If you want to know, you can know'

The first Sunday morning service of 2019 was not the normal lineup at Bethany Baptist Church. Instead of congregational singing and a message from the pulpit, the service featured the five-member Berry family singing Southern Gospel favorites. It was an inspiring way to worship God and honor the music group's father and grandfather, Ken Morgan, for his 90th birthday.

Morgan is not someone you'll see on stage during a normal Sunday morning at Bethany. Unlike his musically talented family, he's not one to sing or play an instrument, minus his high school days with the clarinet. But he's certainly affected countless lives as a Sunday school teacher for more than 60 years.

Becoming a Sunday school teacher was a somewhat improbable life course for Morgan. He didn't grow up in what you could call a "Christian home." His father, though a "good guy," Morgan said, did not have much to do with the faith. His mother for much of his formative years was a "nominal Baptist,"

"Somewhere around my sophomore year, give or take a couple, I prayed the Lord would give me something to do. I had no idea what," Morgan shared with me Monday afternoon.

He finished high school, served in the Air Force, married his girlfriend, Mary, and started his first job in Goodland, Kansas. He was an agricultural engineer, with a specific focus on erosion control. But soil was not the only thing he was digging into.

He read Scripture and studied some of the great men and women of the Bible. It was at this time he started leading his first Sunday school class as a substitute teacher.

"I studied furiously all week so these educated Baptists wouldn't eat me alive when I got up to tell something," he said. "And it was kind of a shock, in a way it was, because I found out what I learned that week they didn't know. I did not realize that most people don't know much of anything about the Bible."

He learned over time the prayer he prayed as a young man for a lifelong passion was being answered in the form of studying Scripture and teaching others what he learned.

Along the way he taught junior high, college and adult classes. Like many great men and women in the Bible, there were peaks and valleys, times when he felt he was reaching more individuals than others. But his approach remained consistent --whether it was teaching more than a hundred college students during the '70s at Red Star Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau or helping one pupil on Wednesday mornings.

Morgan often would reflect on Mathew 5:6: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

"And sure enough, if you want to know you can know," he said.

What about the skeptics? He welcomes their honest pursuit of truth.

"There's an opportunity to talk about the Scripture," he said. "Of course now if they don't believe the Scripture and are skeptical about the truth of the Scripture, they might not believe. But at least you can talk to them about what it says. And send them away with something to think about."

Morgan humbly admits that his time as a teacher would not be nearly as successful had it not been for his late wife Mary. "I prayed the Lord would give me one really good girl," Morgan said.

The couple met as teenagers, both members of the clarinet section in the band, and were married for 62 years.

"I have said a number of times, what I became as a teacher is because I had her support," Morgan said. "She did a lot for me to back me up. People saw me but she was behind me helping me."

There are a number of spiritual gifts listed in the Bible. Teaching is one. But so is the gift of help, something Morgan said his wife used well in ministry and particularly when he taught college students for 10 years.

"She was absolutely my support. I mean that literally. I could not have had that relationship with those college kids (without her)."

What major lessons has Morgan learned from his years of study?

"Reading through, if you read it honestly, skeptically, intelligently, really dig into it, you have to leave impressed that it all goes together and makes sense. Now the person who skips along and gets a tidbit here and there, I don't think you quite get that compulsion. There are things in the Old Testament that shall I say are rather boring to read. But they are part of the culture at the time, giving all these instructions to Israel. But overall there is a remarkable continuity to how God dealt with his people and fulfillment in the New Testament."

Morgan's life in ministry is inspiring. It's also a reminder that there are many individuals, including many folks reading this column, who do important work that often goes unseen or celebrated. Whether it's teaching Sunday school, volunteering with a children's ministry or serving meals to the hungry that make a difference -- both now and for eternity.

Lucas Presson is assistant publisher of the Southeast Missourian.