The Out Pouring Of Life International Ministries

Young Christian in a wheelchair eagerly answers the summons to preach.

Publication: The Dallas Morning News (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

Publication Date: September 26 2000

Byline: Jeffrey Weiss

DALLAS _ O'Shea Morgan was lifted to the pulpit one recent Sunday to deliver the first sermon of his life. His

only notes were a short list of Bible verses. The 14-year-old boy preached for an hour: along, stern word against

sin and hypocrisy. His first-ever altar call drew one adult _ a stranger _ who dedicated himself to ministry.

O'Shea says he was moved to preach by a message from God, delivered a year ago as he listened to his

pastor. "I knew it was a calling from God, because every time he preached," O'Shea said, "I felt such joy." What

may be most surprising about O'Shea Morgan is that he proclaims a solid faith rather than railing against God.

He was born almost four months early and weighed less than 3 pounds.Doctors told his family that he was

significantly disabled and would probably never talk. The diagnosis: cerebral palsy, a catch-all description of

impaired motor skills created by a damaged or improperly developed brain. The doctors were incredibly wrong

about O'Shea not talking _ his speech is all but normal. But otherwise they were mostly on target. The boy can't

walk. He lacks the fine control needed to use a pen or pencil. He had surgery to keep his legs from locking into

a bent position. Last year, surgeons inserted two metal rods in his back to prevent his increasingly curved spine from crushing his organs.

The rods may save O'Shea's life, but they also stole some of his already limited

mobility. "I can't get into my chair when I'm on the floor, now," he said. Both of O'Shea's parents are lost to

drugs, the family says. He's livedwith his grandmother in South Dallas since he was 7. The house has a ramp,

but the family doesn't own a van that can handle his motorized chair. And yet when he heard God call, O'Shea

answered without hesitation. "God just told me, `It's time for you to preach,' " he said. O'Shea is easily

underestimated. He looks younger than his age, and his movements are sometimes uncoordinated. His

slightly hooded eyes and gentle smile make him look passive. But all of that belies the ferocious intensity of his

thinking. He's not angry with God. God told him, "You'll come out [of the wheelchair],' " O'Shea said. But he gives

the Almighty an alternative to a miracle: "Either God wants me to come out or he wants me to be strong for the

other handicapped people." O'Shea's grandmother said she realized that her grandson was smart when she

visited his school several years ago and watched him wheeling around and helping his classmates. Two years

ago, he offered good advice for how she should deal with his rebellious older sister. "That's when I knew he

was heavy in the head, "Serethea Morgan said. None of which prepared her for the boy's announcement that

God had commanded him to preach. "I said, `Are you sure?' " she recalled. O'Shea had no religious training.

He'd gone to a Missionary Baptist church most Sundays and attended a few sessions of Sunday school, but the

boy didn't even own a Bible.

So Morgan bought him one. Morgan wasn't the only person O'Shea talked to about his message from God. He informed his pastor that God had instructed him to preach. "He told me I'd have to wait

until I grew up and went to college," O'Shea said. So O'Shea put his dream on hold and opened his Bible,

starting with In the beginning ... and plowing through the verses, chapter after chapter. He stopped at Genesis 38 _ Joseph sold into slavery _ and skipped ahead to Proverbs. "I'm still reading through Proverbs," O'Shea said

last week. A month ago, his grandmother took him to a different church, New Lamplight Christian Church, a

small nondenominational assembly where Morgan used to attend. She and the pastor's wife are friends.

O'Shea got fussed over and prayed over on that visit. And Morgan encouraged the boy to talk to the Rev. Bobby

Jessie, the church's pastor and founder. "I asked him what he wanted to do with himself," Jessie said. "He

said`Preach the Word!' He didn't hesitate. I asked him why, and he said he had been moved by the Holy Spirit."

Jessie was familiar with unlikely callings _ his own, for instance. "I knew about the bad side of life, and the

world, too," he said. He's made a point of reaching out to people, like the homeless or those with criminal

records, who aren't often encouraged to step forward in bigger churches, Jessie said. That very day, he let

O'Shea offer the closing prayer. The boy rocked the house. "It moved all over the place," Jessie said. He told the

boy he could give the sermon two weeks later. And just like that, O'Shea's first sermon was no longer put off

until after college. Suddenly, it was time to put up or shut up. O'Shea couldn't decide what to preach about. He

asked his grandmother for help. "I said to preach on doing what is right," she said. That was all the inspiration

O'Shea needed, along with another message from above. "That night, God told me what to preach from," giving

him exact verses to use, he said. On the appointed Sunday night, O'Shea was wheeled into the church.About 60

people were waiting. Many of them represented blessings in O'Shea's life _ his grandmother, aunts, uncles and assorted cousins and family friends who obviously dote on the boy. The church has clean, unadorned white

walls and few religious images. A silver cross stands a top a small altar. Small crosses are embroideredon

cloths covering the altar and the pulpit. The Americans with Disabilities Act apparently hasn't found its

way inside the hall, but church members helped O'Shea cope with the lack of ramps. Two men carefully hoisted

him in his chair to the pulpit. After an opening prayer and song, the Bullock Chapel Steppers, four boys and four

girls from a nearby church, called out Bible verses and worked through a drill-team-like routine of clapping and

stamping.O'Shea watched from his wheelchair. "The purpose of the beat! Is to stomp the devil out!" they

shouted.Then seven of O'Shea's cousins came forward, a family choir led byO'Shea's Aunt Cassandra Morgan,

known as Ko-Ko. Aunt Ko-Ko named the boy, she said later. "O'Shea" was the main character in an obscure

1986 television movie called ``Club Med.'' "He was the star," she said. "Everybody looked up to him." Now it was

time for everyone to look up to O'Shea Morgan. "The next voice you will hear," said Jessie, "is O'Shea Morgan

telling us what God would have us know." The pastor stepped down from the pulpit and pulled O'Shea's

grandmother from her seat. She dissolved in tears and shrieks of joy: "Thank you, Jesus! Thank God! Thank

God!" And finally, it was O'Shea's turn: "Good evening, everybody," he began, awkwardly holding the microphone

in one hand. "My text today is `doing what is right.' " For a solid hour _ afterward he was stunned to learn he had

gone on s olong _ O'Shea mixed a few Bible verses with a hard-edged message. He started with Proverbs 13:6:

Righteousness guards the one whose way is blameless, but wickedness subverts the sinner. Shifted to

Proverbs 13:21: Adversity pursues sinners, but the righteous will be rewarded with prosperity. Moved to

Genesis 6:13: Then God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with

violence because of them;and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth." And he told his congregation

that God was coming back and they'd better act right, no matter if they were regular church goers. "You're not

being honest with God, so you're not being guarded," he said. "You must stop cussing people out after church,"

he said. "You must stop wearing short skirts on the weekend." "Some Christians are hypocrites," he said. "I

asked God that night, `Was I really supposed to be talking like that to those people?' " O'Shea said a few days

later. For a first effort, it was a pretty good sermon, Jessie said. He told O'Shea that he could have a regular

preaching gig at New Lamplight if he wanted it, every second Sunday night of the month. O'Shea is getting ready

for his next sermon, on Oct. 8. And he' salready had new instructions from God, he said. The Almighty seems

to be no more patient than O'Shea. "He's told me," O'Shea said, "that it's time to start my own Web site for the church."