By the time Gerson Morey was 35 years old, he was practically running a nearly 9,000-member Hispanic prosperity-gospel megachurch in Florida.
As the pastor’s right-hand man, Morey was in charge of a thousand life groups, preaching whenever the pastor was away, and ghostwriting his book. (The book’s prologue was written by Cash Luna, one of Latin America’s most influential prosperity preachers.)
In 2007, Outreach magazine dubbed the church one of the fastest-growing congregations in the United States.
Around the same time, someone handed Morey The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer.
He was bowled over by the idea that, in Tozer’s words, “religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity, and bluster make a man dear to God.”
“This confronted me because my theology was if you have numbers, if you are a soul-winner and have the big church, then that is a blessing to God,” Morey said. “If you are serving all the time in the church—regardless of how your family is—and if you are loud in all you do,” God will bless you.
“I memorized [Tozer’s] phrase in Spanish,” said Morey, who can still rattle it off perfectly.
“The second thing that shocked me was when he began to teach me that we are very depraved, evil people,” Morey said. “I was never aware of that. Through all the years I was a believer, I was never conscious of my own sin, my own weakness, my own depravity.”
Intrigued, he picked up other Tozer titles, and every time another author was referenced, Morey got the book. He read Jonathan Edwards, then Augustine, then Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
Morey’s changing theology began to show up in his preaching and counseling. Trials weren’t punishments for not believing or praying enough, he told the congregation. Suffering is what they are called to endure as believers, and God gives grace in the midst of it.
The people didn’t complain. In fact, they told him they liked it, and sales of his preaching DVDs in the bookstore picked up.
But even Morey’s significant influence wasn’t enough.
“This church was a one-man show,” he said. “The pastor is the supreme being. There is no group of elders who have a voice of authority in the church.”
When Morey suggested theological training for the small-group leaders, he was shot down. When people were distraught over how things ran, he could offer comfort, but not change.
“I was attached to serving the people, but it came to a point where I felt like I was part of the system,” he said.
So Morey walked away, leaving behind the paycheck, the influence, and the favor of a man highly regarded in prosperity gospel circles.
His plan? To return to the dental assistant job he had held before.
But before he could reapply, several families from his old church asked him to start a new congregation. They insisted—one showed up on his doorstep with their tithe in an envelope.
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