George Campbell Morgan (1863-1945) was the son of a Baptist minister. When he was ten years old the well-known evangelist D.L. Moody traveled to Campbell’s native England where he heard Moody preach. Moody left such an impression upon him that three years later at the age of thirteen, Morgan began preaching himself. By his latter teenage years he was preaching regularly in village churches with the exception of a two-year period where he gave up all preaching engagements in what could be described as a crisis of faith. More on that later. Morgan originally was educated to be a teacher and never had any formal theological training for the ministry.
Nevertheless, G. Campbell Morgan was a man born to preach. If there was ever a minister who was consumed with preaching it was Morgan. His expository preaching had wide influence both in England and the United States. Morgan’s active preaching ministry spanned over a period longer than 60 years.
Morgan was a pastor, serving two stints at Westminster Chapel located in central London (1904-1917 and 1933-1943) the second of which ended with Martyn Lloyd-Jones taking over, but not before he and Morgan shared the pulpit at Westminster for several years. He died two years after retiring from Westminster. In between his stints of pastoring Westminster, Morgan was also an itinerant preacher for a number of years in the United States (1919-1932). His wife stated that this was the happiest time of his life. During this time he also pastored Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1929-1932). Additionally, Morgan served as a Bible lecturer for D.L. Moody, was a college President, as well as a professor at Los Angles Bible Institute.
A famous minister and theologian of Morgan’s day spoke of how his attendance at Morgan's meetings in Baltimore affected him. "Still vivid in my mind are those winter afternoons in Baltimore... when I heard Dr. Morgan unfold the opening chapters of Luke's Gospel: we felt a tenseness, a magnetic pull, an atmosphere saturated with terrific intensity; our souls were confronted with eternal and transforming truths that sent us out of that sanctuary cleansed, ennobled, and determined to go back to the Book."
There are several features of his life that provide encouragement and incentive for expository preachers today.
Time Investment in Sermon Preparation
When asked one time what his method of sermon preparation was by another minister, Morgan responded by saying that he didn’t really want to know and that even if he did know he wouldn’t be willing to prepare in such a manner. He then told the minister that he never preached a sermon without reading through the entire book in which his text was found at least 40-50 times. Observed by those who stayed with him from time to time, Morgan rose early in the morning and was in his home study by 5:30 a.m. His son said he was the hardest working preacher he ever knew by far. “No man ever worked harder than my father. One who spoke of the marvelous simplicity and lucidity of his interpreting Scripture little realized the amount of painstaking work and study involved.”
Sometimes failure makes us work harder. Such was likely the case with Morgan who in his twenties failed his trial sermon to serve in the Methodist church. He was eventually ordained in the Congregational church. But he never forgot his trial sermon failure and thanked God for it insisting that God took his feet in another direction.
When asked what was necessary to preach as he did, he boiled it down to two things. “Two things are vital. First, personal first-hand work on the text; and then, all scholarly works available.” To Morgan there was simply no substitute for hard work. He studied the text exegetically and outlined it before ever looking at a commentary. But when it came time in his sermon preparation process to consult commentaries he didn’t just read a few, but probed every one he could possibly get his hands on.
Love for the Lost
The impact of evangelist D.L. Moody on his life as a young man, as well as his later association with him during his adulthood, reveals Morgan’s mutual love for the lost. His favorite section of Scripture to preach from was the Gospels. He believed placing Jesus before people was critical to effective and powerful preaching.
Morgan’s itinerant ministry placed him before many lost people, some of which were connected to the church but still unregenerate. This reminds us that every preacher must make the gospel central in every sermon. We simply never know who is yet unsaved who is listening. This goes not only for evangelists or those in some sort of itinerant ministry, but also for pastors of established congregations.
Love for Preaching
Morgan usually preached for over an hour and sometimes an hour and a half. Tall, lean, and unassuming in the pulpit, Morgan was fundamentally committed to explaining the Bible. He preached anywhere they’d take him. He mesmerized those in the pew with a magnetic pull to the text.
He crossed the Atlantic 54 times to minister the Word of God. He said himself, “The supreme work of the Christian minister is the work of preaching. This is a day in which one of our great perils is that of doing a thousand little things to the neglect of the one thing, which is preaching.”
It is my belief that ministers would do well to follow Morgan’s example. Ministers should look for and accept opportunities to preach in various contexts. Funerals, school chapel services, other churches, conferences, on the mission field, and in nursing homes just to name a few. A preacher is called to preach and should do so often, as often as possible. His first duty is to preach in the local church he’s called to pastor, but if he’s called to preach, then his preaching duties will include venues outside his own church.
Morgan comments on this very thing. “Nothing is more needed among preachers today than that we should have the courage to shake ourselves free from the thousand and one trivialities in which we are asked to waste our time and strength, and resolutely return to the apostolic ideal which made necessary the office of the diaconate. [We must resolve that] “we will continue steadfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the Word.”
Campbell was a meticulous reader, note taker, and organizer of his sermon texts. He prepared a brief to take with him into the pulpit. But these notes were scant. Even still, Morgan painstakingly organized his sermon around main points and sub-points with the artistic flair of alliteration. His goal, as he put it, was simplicity and clarity for the listener.
Relentless Commitment to Scripture
Martyn Lloyd-Jones who pastored with him and knew him well remarked that Morgan’s preaching was far more devotional than doctrinal. Even still, Lloyd-Jones appreciated his commitment to Scripture and exposition.
One person who heard Morgan preach on a regular basis remarked of him:
“He gets more out of a familiar passage of Scripture that I did not know was there than any man I have heard preach.” Another famous preacher of the day said of him, “His one aim is to let the Bible tell its own eternal message. In that work he has a genius that is incomparable.”
But Morgan was honest about his doubts as to the truthfulness of Scripture during his latter teenage years. In a struggle similar to one Billy Graham would have much later, Morgan studied both sides of the subject, both those who said God’s Word could be trusted and those who said it could not. It got so bad that Morgan quit preaching for a couple of years, cancelling all of his preaching engagements. Finally, he locked all his books in a cupboard, headed down to a bookstore and bought a brand new Bible. He decided that he would objectively study the Bible alone apart from outside influence. If he came to the conclusion that it was God’s Word, then it must be God’s Word.
He recalled his thinking during that time period. "I am no longer sure that this is what my father claims it to be—the Word of God. But of this I am sure. If it be the Word of God, and if I come to it with an unprejudiced and open mind, it will bring assurance to my soul of itself.” Reflecting on it later he said, “The Bible found me. I began to read and study it then, in 1883. I have been a student ever since, and I still am (in 1938)...This experience is what, at last, took me back into the work of preaching, and into the work of the ministry. I soon found foothold enough to begin to preach, and from that time I went on.”
Out of that experience grew a passion to explain God’s Word in such a manner that people would be convinced that it was God’s Word!
Evangelist Carlyle B. Haynes heard Morgan in New York City at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. “When I finally managed to crowd my way into the gallery at the opening meeting”, said Haynes, “I found 2, 500 people had gathered. Most of them had Bibles and notebooks, which deeply impressed me. Dr. Morgan was given a simple introduction by the pastor and came to the pulpit. He had not graces of gesture, now showy eloquence, no spectacular delivery. He was lank, lean, angular, and wholly unprepossessing. He used no charts or blackboard, no pictures, no screen, no gadgets of any kind, his dress was simple nothing to attract or to divert attention. His tremendous power was what he did with the Word of God. In five minutes I was in another world, and not because of any elocution or charm of speech...I forgot the people around me, forgot the speaker, forgot everything but the wonders of the world into which I had been led. I went home dazed with wonder and the effectiveness of the Bible alone as the source of convincing preaching.”
Love for the Universal Body of Christ
Morgan’s willingness to preach at different venues may have simply been due to his love for preaching. But it could also be said that he willingly preached in various contexts because he had a love for the body of Christ. During his life Campbell joined arms with Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists just to name a few. He grew up Baptist, attempted ordination with the Methodists, was ordained in the Congregational church, and pastored a Presbyterian church.
Crowds were so large to hear him preach that police were often required for crowd control. Morgan desired to minister God’s Word to God’s people no matter where they were and who they were.
Conclusion
There are many lessons to learn from the life of G. Campbell Morgan. Remembering history is important because remembering history helps us see what God has done...and what God can do. He can use a preacher who failed his trial sermon to become one of the most influential Bible expositors of the 20th century.
*Primary Sources Consulted
Jill Morgan, A Man of the Word: Life of G. Campbell Morgan
Arthur F. Katt, G. Campbell Morgan and Sermon Preparation. Published Quarterly of The Cincinnati Bible Seminary, The Seminary Review, Vol. VIII, Fall, 1960.