LIFE: According to Jon

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband." Ephesians 5:31-33 The single most important relationship that I have is with my King, my Master, my Savior - His name is Jesus Christ. Everything else rises and falls with the intimacy I share with the Lord. But immediately following that relationship is my marriage to Brittany. The three of us together create a cord that is not easily broken when our hearts are in sync but when sin and miscommunication enter the picture, it can be devastating. Just take a look around you at the shattered remains left behind by divorce and you can tell that marriage is simultaneously beautiful, hilarious, frustrating, messy, joyous and perhaps the most difficult blessing we will ever have. And it...

“Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;  therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Matthew 9:37-38 On each of our trips into El Salvador, we are blessed to see so much of this beautiful country. We fly into the airport and are quickly escorted into a bustling city with many of the comforts of America (although certainly not all of them, of course). Each day we travel from mountaintop villages, to schools in the midst of gangland territories and even police headquarters. In November, we took flatbed pickup trucks into the jungles via a dry riverbed to conduct clinics for a town that rarely sees outsiders and is effectively cut off from the rest of the world during the rainy season. And this year, we finally got the chance to see the coast of our Central American home.  Again, we left at just six o’clock in the morning, drove two hours to the southern coastline ...

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014 I don't know how it happened. One day I'm preaching full-on, laughing and serving in Montrial, filling up on Chinese food for dinner and the next day I'm sick in bed, stuck in the hotel and severely dehydrated. As a team, we are aware of the cardinal rules: don't drink the water...wear sunscreen...don't share water...be flexible...don't brush your teeth in the water...don't go anywhere alone...and, oh yeah, DON'T DRINK THE WATER. But then you also have to be wary of local cuisine preparation techniques and consumable vegetation. Nevertheless, sometimes, despite our best efforts, we come into contact with certain "cooties" that our system just isn't prepared to defend against. So there I was, physically drained (in more ways than one, I assure you) and bummed that my team had to go on to Nueva Grenada ("New Fruit") without me. I was frustrated. I was exhausted. I was concerned that my absence wo...

Over the last several days in El Salvador, we have had the opportunity to impact the lives of approximately 1,700 people. Yesterday in the village of Apopa, we were able to treat and serve more than 500 people. That includes hundreds of prescriptions filled, dozens of haircuts, countless teeth cleaned (and pulled - ouch!). After two back-to-back days of relentless crowds and difficult work, our team returned to San Salvador exhausted but thrilled with so many seeds planted...in fact, an estimated 40 people responded to the Gospel yesterday and made the decision to accept God's free gift of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We celebrate those numbers but our team leader, Jon White aptly reminded us that there are 7 billion people on planet earth. We know that billions are not believers and many have never even heard the Gospel. One team in one small, central American country is not enough. We need more people to live missionally every day - to go where Jesus' name has neve...

Normally, Mondays seem to come at the expense of an all-too-sudden end to the weekend. If you're anything like me, a rock'n worship song alarm barely begins to ramp up before you throw your phone behind the dresser (hence the hardshell, shock-proof case). Too much light is streaming through the blinds even at this early hour and there are just so many things that have to get done. Or maybe like Brittany, the alarm clock is a lively two-year old with an insatiable appetite who really needs to stay in bed a little longer but grumpily greets the day anyway. I toss the pillow off the side, drop to my knees by the edge of the bed, and thank God for the day and a night's rest, for my family, church, and friends. I pray for vision and God-sized goals and dreams then trudge through another Monday. But what if we treated that first day of the work-week like a fresh and new opportunity to do intentional missions? What if we sought Jesus and His Father's will for our vocatio...

         "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." Matthew :13-14 It's official - our team has fallen in love with the country of El Salvador. The country is absolutely gorgeous but it is the people that we have come to adore. They are incredibly hospitable and receptive to us. The children in the remote villages we visit cling to our team members and it's difficult to say "adios" ("goodbye") each day. These kids are mostly on their own as their parents work to provide what little money they will earn each year - the average salary in El Salvador is well under $5,000 a month which would represent a very good year for most Salvadorians. However, that means that the services Jireh Latin American Ministries provide as well as the love and affection we are sharing...

" Be serious!  Be alert!  Your adversary the Devil  is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.  Resist him  and be firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world."  I Peter 5:8 Whenever we do the work that God has called us to in making disciples whether at home or abroad, there will inevitably be opposition. Evil will always be antagonistic towards the spread of the Gospel. I used to think that it's because our enemy, Satan, knows that he is ultimately finished - his fate is sealed. But these days, I wonder if he is self-deluded and deceived into believing that he can actually win. In any case, our God is greater than the god of this world, the god of the air. We've read the end of the book and Jesus wins! Arriving in El Salvador and committing to missionary endeavors for two weeks paints an incredibly large target on the back of each team m...

El Salvador Blog Post (Day 1) So here we are, flying to Houston, Texas in admittedly tight quarters but enjoying the antics of some of our team members who earned their wings this morning. For the last six months, this team has prayed and prepared to share the Gospel and serve others to meet very real and practical needs in a country a thousand miles away. Our efforts are intentional and bold as we ready ourselves for work in El Salvador but just days ago could we have said that our evangelistic endeavors at home were as zealous? I can only speak for myself but I am not an evangelist by nature or spiritual gifting. I love to study the Word of God. Personally, I thrive on teaching and theological conversation. But cold-call evangelism, street preaching, or even just dialoguing with strangers in the checkout line are a real struggle for me. It is a matter of prayer each day that I not waste opportunities – nevertheless, I’m guilty of doing just that.  So, after c...

It's 11:00 PM on July 3rd, 2014. In less than 8 hours we will be boarding a plane and heading to El Salvador. Four members of our missions team are in our house at the moment, our bags are packed (or in my wife's case, being packed) and our caravan is departing northern Virginia at 2:30 AM. However, no one is sleeping. As I peruse Facebook, we aren't the only ones eagerly awaiting this opportunity to be the hands and feet and mouthpiece of our Savior and Lord. Each of us heard the command to "Go" so we have decided to follow Jesus. But why start writing a missions report the day before we leave? What could be so interesting about sleepless nights and anticipation? The truth is, it might not be so exciting for you reading this today but we would like to invite you to join us as we pray for the Lord to glorify His Name - we are expecting great things as we provide humanitarian aid and THE message of hope to our brothers and sisters in El Salvador. Because of th...

My name is Jon Morton and I am a youth pastor... And, yes that is part of my confession...it's also one of the biggest parts of who I am. It isn't something of which to be ashamed nor is it necessarily something that needs to be applauded when we've finally worked up the courage to admit it. Youth ministry does however come with certain stigmas. To some it is just a weed in the church to be removed, free babysitting, activities coordination to keep teenagers busy and out of trouble, and akin to "church lite". There are still many friends and family members that ask me when I'm going to become a "real pastor" or when we might take our own church. In short, they just don't get it. Partnering with parents and church leaders to disciple teenagers is an incredibly rewarding vocation and our family is blessed to play even a small role in God using students to accomplish great things for His Kingdom. But the funny thing is that I never wanted to ...