First Person with Wayne Shepherd

First Person: Charles Morris

The host of Haven Today on radio, Charles Morris, tells of his backround as a journalist, his story of faith in Christ, and the tragic death of his son. Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company: FEBC National Processing Center Far East Broadcasting Company P.O. Box 6020 Albert Lea, MN 56007 Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

Duration:: 23m
Broadcast on:: 12 May 2011
Audio Format:: other

The host of Haven Today on radio, Charles Morris, tells of his backround as a journalist, his story of faith in Christ, and the tragic death of his son.

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
FEBC National Processing Center
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

If we just can have the gumption to just make our way to the foot of the cross and for the rest of our lives hang on to the cross That's the freedom and it's only Christ Welcome to first person a weekly conversation. I'm Wayne Shepard and we'll be talking in a few minutes with a fellow broadcaster Charles Morris of Haven today First person is here each week at this time for the purpose of getting to know the stories of people who through good times Embad always point us to the faithfulness of God to protect and provide for his people Through the months at this relatively new program has been on the air We've heard the life stories of people from all walks of life and learn how God has called them and prepared them for his purposes So if you'd like to go back into the archive and hear from people like Ravi Zacharias Tony Dungy a decis settles and many others Simply go to our website first person interview calm click on the archive button and choose from the growing list of interviews Again, we're found online at first person interview calm as an interviewer I've always enjoyed listening to Charles Morris on the Haven today broadcast as he often interviews guests and ties his topics into Scripture But as I've gotten to know Charles through the years I've come to realize there is more to his own story that contributes to his skill and heart as a broadcaster I recently sat down with Charles at a meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters in Nashville Well, Charles, I'm going to turn the tables on you today the interviewer becomes the interview e okay and talk to you about your life Hey Wayne, I can't think of anybody better that I would enjoy sitting down with and we have of course many times But I'm a little uncomfortable being the interview e but we'll give we'll give it a trial. Do fine Thank you. Just thank you very much. You are the host of Haven today everybody knows that but talk talk to me about the Ministry of Haven today Bring a different style to the program 77 years. So yes, so You know Haven started back when Christian radio was not even Christian radio even though it was Christian radio and I don't even know other than maybe in Chicago one station and a couple of other places If there were any Christian stations back in the thirties Haven today it was called Haven of Rest originally. I'm the fourth speaker now It was started by a man who was famous in radio There was no TV and if you see his picture, maybe you wouldn't have been famous in TV had there been TV He had drunk his way through every radio gig on air as well as manager in the number two market in America And his wife had kicked him out. They had small children Can't live in alcohol have an alcoholic living, you know in our home and he ended up on the street in San Diego But he had heard the gospel those were the days when just about everybody in America had grown up going to church but it wasn't his gospel and He hit the rock bottom and his wife had been praying for him even though she couldn't let him live at home And so he went into a church And they wouldn't receive him who knows what he looked like after, you know a lot of drinking and what he smelled like and what he was wearing, but they wouldn't have anything to do with him so he went back and It was the Gideon Bible story. He knew where to find the gospel so he gave his life to glory conversions And what do you do if you're a radio guy and and you know, you've been saved So a month later a program was born and you were supposed to have you know music on the air So he goes to the Bible college where if you met some decades later Jim Dobson would graduate from and he finds himself a quartet And you needed an organist because those were the the days do you know of the theater pipe organ a very dramatic sounding And a month later Haven of rest was born and at times it was on Well secular networks to be easy to do what you do and forget the history that's behind it You you like to remember it, don't you sure I I do even though we live in a day where? So many of our younger listeners and we do have a few younger listeners They don't really care about our history, but what struck me years later when I came 11 years ago now to Haven as the speaker It would it amazed me that any time I was someplace and the Haven of rest him played anyone who was over 60 started crying and I came out of a secular background and I didn't understand that it's kind of like taking the trip to Israel and the tour guide that That you know as you're leaving that road from Jericho and the Sun is beginning to set and boom There's Jerusalem below you and he puts in Kate Smith singing, you know, the holy city It's that kind of an experience that was surprising to me my predecessor Wayne the third speaker Ray Orton who died just a couple of years ago He dropped the rest part because they kept getting phone calls Asking if this was a retirement center or crematorium. He said enough is enough of that so and you're grateful You didn't have to deal with that part. No, no, I had I added a word. I didn't take some work away That's what other story. I mean listeners know, but what is your philosophy? How do you approach the program today? You have interesting such interesting guests on Well, we have a slogan Which really is what Haven has been about forever? Telling the great story. It's all about Jesus and as we hear from our listeners They call or the email or whatever we keep hearing back. We think the Lord gave us that told us This is your message. What we hear from them is you're that program. That's about Jesus and Some days we do interviews some days. I'll do a message but whether I'm talking about shootings and some far part of the world or Tsunamis or whatever's going on revolutions revolutions How does that figure in with the gospel? And I see that as being the main thing that North Americans and in particular American Christians have lost sight of We want to change the world We want to change things for the better But we want to do it in light of tell me what to do. Yeah, so you connect the dots Don't you I have a duty to point people to the gospel the Jesus Christ And by the gospel, I don't mean Just walking the aisle saying the pennant sinners prayer Confessing my sins and then I go out and live as hard as I can to follow these 10 rules or whatever the gospel never ends Every day grace is new God has prepared you for this role in some very unique ways. I want to talk to you about that I want to talk to you about life before even today I don't know if I could say everything and that and the various things that you did and how when you look back on that now You see how that shaped you and got you ready for this assignment. Mm-hmm Well, yeah, Wayne as you know and you're bleeding me in with that. Yeah, I was a secular journalist I really didn't like the Christian media when I was a secular journalist even though I was a follower of Christ I wasn't walking with Christ, but I was truly a born-again Christian I Worked for United Press International, which is not so much a company today but it was like Associated Press or Reuters or the heat John's friends press and You know our Chicago office was you know in in the building the stone container building You know Paul Harvey and I would get on together and he wouldn't always have his rug gone So I'd have to look twice to realize it was Paul Harvey It's very interesting even when I was in the media the fear factor of Christians much less Christian media Christians were not thought of having the answers and there was a great fear factor Sure if you get to New York, it's gonna be maybe in the national international media You're gonna be predominantly certain stereotypes are true But the fact is that there was always a desire for truth to share truth But what people in the secular media didn't realize was that they were following a lie at the same time Christians really didn't know how to engage people in the secular media. I was sitting in a meeting of Forming USA Today once that Gannett owned at the time now USA Today's been out enough years that you know, it's just old school at this point, but the idea of We need to do something to serve all those Christians out there across America and they just didn't get it, you know And at the same time, you know, we shoot ourselves in the foot as Christian So that's the world that you were a part of yeah, I didn't want to be identified as a Christian. Okay, even though I was okay. Yeah, it was it was pretty bleak. When did the turning point come then I? Was signed by a UPI to run the state of Florida for them I don't know how many people know this but All the organizations, you know, we like to think Fox News is conservative. I watch only Fox News CNN is the liberal or whatever They all get their news from the same place, you know, it's it's it's not that big a deal You know the tragedy of the Internet is even a more liberal news organization like the New York Times is Still the only newspaper in America that has 50 bureaus around the world and so when something happens You need somebody there that's gonna tell the story and bring it back So I was in Florida and with UPI had an office in Miami had an office in Orlando and We pretty much served we had bureaus in South America But anytime something big happened they would come out of the bureaus that I was in charge of whether photographers or sports reporters Or just news reporters and as I did most Saturday nights. I got repariously Intoxicated I wasn't an alcoholic But the next day Sunday morning I woke up and I certainly had a clear head Kind of like the demoniac, you know in the gospel that somehow after Jesus healed and you had a clearer head and Then puzzle you it did it had been a long time since that happened and I knew I had to go to church These were the days of the yellow pages Wayne, which you know, you could free internet with me Yes, I opened the yellow pages. I find a Bible believing church I go in and and and I went to church and afterwards there was a visiting pastor, but another local pastor Introduced ourselves. He said who are you what do you do? And you know we have that kind of a guy-to-guy conversation And he said would you like a cup of coffee and so we did and that man brought me back to the Lord and Here years later that man still prays for me every day. It's amazing. So anyway, that's my that's my story And we'll go deeper into the personal story of Charles Morris of Haven today coming up on first person On our next program artist Timothy boss explains his desire to mentor young artists one thing we need to understand especially in the evangelical churches that we don't have a whole lot of history with the arts and We can't expect great art to come tomorrow. We need to be patient and learn our craft Lord willing we will have another renaissance no doubt you've seen his work now here from artist Timothy boss next time on first person Charles I love to have people tell their stories here on first person And I don't think that we fully can understand your story until we hear a very painful chapter in the life of your family Are you willing to talk about that? Yes, I always say yes Wayne But you know I never know how my emotions sometimes they hold and you know sometimes they don't but sure we can try if you'd like to it Revolves around your son one of your sons actually both of your sons, right? It ended up being both. That's right. That's right And that I've never told anywhere other than just in snippets on our program before. Yeah, yeah When did this all play out? our older son all his life Had problems. I remember when I was first getting into for lack of any other word Christian work And we were living in Florida I was doing a lot of work for a big name big church pastor who was on TV and we never knew why our son always had problems and I went to a bookstore and I just I always go to bookstores And I found this book and I'm starting to read it. I'm saying this is our son and Yeah, we're talking about the normal teenage problem. Yeah, he was a teenager early teens this was attention deficits disorder and He wasn't really hyperactive with it, but that gave us some clues. We we took him to a famous school to have him Evaluated and they spent two days with him in Philadelphia and a Bryn Mawr college had this kind of teachers college But one of us the old seven sister schools and they said your your answer is you either need to board him at one of three boarding schools which as Christian parents we were not willing to do or you need to find a school somewhere where he can have more of a Hands-on experience and they didn't recommend homeschool. We tried homeschool. We we've done it all too much. All our kids Yeah, so we ended up moving to Colorado Springs. We found a school there the prep school of Colorado Springs, which was supposedly Hands-on we enrolled all three of our kids there But he after a year was kicked out because he told the truth He did marijuana the other kids lied none of them got kicked out one of those sad stories Things went to worse. I mean, you know, we we we tried the the boot camp in the in the Utah desert Which we found out later was was run by people we wouldn't agree with We did our focus on the family referral to a counselor we did everything we possibly thought we could and then and then we moved to California I became the speaker of a national radio program and finally got to the point I went to a couple of alanon meetings and We had tried different places to put him and nothing seemed to work how old is he at this point he would have been 20 and and we kept thinking and always praying the next thing would be the answer and Eventually, I couldn't let him live at home went to a couple of alanon meetings and We both my wife and I realized that we were encouraging him so we couldn't let him live at home and but eventually he just Totally well was on the verge of going to jail and so one Saturday afternoon we get a phone call and It's his girlfriend and she's screaming in the phone. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead and Janet took the call. She said no. No, you know, he's not dead. He's not dead Janet at this point is screaming back, but Janet says where are you and they were sharing a place in San Clemente a block from the beach and just Not even getting by but other than to support a habit, but he died of a drug overdose We got in the car we grabbed our younger son or we have an older child a daughter who's married to a pastor in Oregon and and We raced down there and by the time we got there the yellow tape was up and you know the Orange County sheriff's officers had already Sealed it off and he really was dead Interesting when these things happened to you Wayne the six weeks prior to his death every Saturday night he'd give me a call and And his girlfriend confirmed this later. He had started reading the Bible again, but he called me Saturday night He'd say dad. How are you and I'd say great. How are you Jeff and he'd say dad? Can you pick me up? I want to go to church tomorrow. We're here. I want to hear the gospel We and not every parent can say this I got another friend in LA and his son never professed faith in Christ He was shot by police in a high-speed drug chase on the streets of LA But yeah, we lost our son about six and a half years ago now. It's got to be just a An almost unbearable pain I mean, we have the Lord of course and if you don't have the Lord and what do you have in that kind of situation, but Do you describe the pain for you in your life? You always hear? This and I do believe it's true because I've talked to a lot of other parents since this happened to us It's one thing to lose a spouse. It's one thing to lose a parent It's a whole other thing to lose a child you you never get to get over it My wife and I never know she'll grieve sometimes I grieve at other times and and and and it also can really pull a marriage Yeah, yeah, we've discovered that realize that How did it affect his brother especially? his younger brother was very very angry at his older brother for Taking his life or accidentally we don't know for sure the coroner never ruled Specifically, we'll never know that for sure But yeah, our younger son was the good little theologian who always had the answers But about a month before our older son died We're in church the communion The cup is passed and our younger son did not take communion and Well, you took no for the parent. Oh, my wife and I both tried to act like we didn't notice But we swallowed hard and I teared up Janet tired teared up That was the beginning he had begun to question his faith And I remember a few weeks after his older brother died We were driving somewhere together and he was just so angry. He said dad How in the world could Jeff have gotten into such a state of life that he would just give himself over and you know You start drugs and then you can go to a psychiatrist and you can get psychotropic drugs to counter that but if you are an addict you're gonna do both together and that's just you know, it's double worse and But about two months later our son Peter at a neighbor's house and an affluent neighborhood in Orange County, California he pops his first oxycontin and that begins his own road and finally I had to tell him you can't live at home and finally he finds We get a call from somebody in Washington state where he's living our oldest our daughter and her husband pastoring a church now tried to take him in but We got a call that he was Mainlining heroin and was just so here he was someone who had all the answers He knew the Bible inside and out and now his life was a mess But you know what we did an intervention our daughter who's you know how kids are kids and oldest child syndrome, right? You know the Kevin Lehman principle or you know the birth order our daughter says I'm driving over to that Center where he's in detox and I am not leaving until he meets Jesus We threw clothes in a suitcase. We're in Southern California He's up on the Canadian border in Washington. We throw the dog in the car two suitcases We're driving but the time we get to Oregon our daughter calls us and She's had him on the phone. She's at this this Dryout Center detox center and and she asks him she goes in and she says Peter This is the older. Yeah sibling talking Peter You just need Jesus and you know, he's crying and you know, he's he's in withdrawals But he's still genuinely crying. He said, oh, I know that you know You need to just pray and ask Jesus to forgive you but more than forgive you to deliver you. I know We'll do it. Why did it last night? You know, have you told mom and dad? No? Well, let's get him on the phone right now anyway, we picked him up. He went into teen challenge and That's gonna be a rough road, but he came out. Okay. Yeah, you know, it's not the Betty Ford Center But it has Jesus there and it works if you stick it out. It works and now he's about to graduate from Moody Bible Institute I can't believe it The little theologian in the family Wanted to give his life to Jesus for the rest of his life God's given him a wonderful Wife whose our daughter-in-law and we are so happy Such pain mingled with such joy. What's the lesson? Hmm You know Wayne the head of another Christian ministry called me the day we buried our son This head of ministry that very same day had to kick that our son died had to kick his daughter out of the home Well, he asked me what you asked me The only answer I know is to stay on your knees and to pray There is no perfect set of rules to raise the perfect child, but grace trumps everything Jesus died for sinners not just my son Jeff, but me and you and If we just can have the gumption to just make our way to the foot of the cross And for the rest of our lives hang on to the cross That's the freedom and it's only in Christ As someone has so aptly said God never wastes our pain and as devastating as losing someone close to us is as Charles and his wife Janet have experienced it does show us how God can use even the worst the world throws at us to bring glory to himself Charles and Janet have written a book titled saving a life how we found courage when death rescued our son You'll find a link to the book at our website, and I hope you'll take the time to read it The website is first person interview calm Why you're there take the time to browse the list of interviews that you'll find in the archive at first person interview calm And then we keep you posted on upcoming programs on our Facebook page Facebook comm slash first person interview Next week we'll talk with artist Timothy Box now with thanks to my friend and producer Joe Carlson I'm Wayne Shepherd. We hope to have you here next week for first person you (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]