Give yourselves to personal spiritual growth. Guard your hearts! A clean heart will prove to be your greatest asset! If we are to affect others for God and godliness, to engage in a powerful ministry, then we must have clean hearts, and hearts that are aflame with passion for holiness. Flaming hearts go deeper than ceaseless activities and whirlwind schedules.
Aeron Morgan - The Priority of Personal Spiritual Growth - http://goo.gl/ft7dt
At around 6:30am on Friday May 3, 2013 I received a phone call from Michael Morgan, Aeron and Dinah’s older son telling me that his father and my long time best friend in Christian ministry had been called home at 6:05am. Aeron was 79. His wife and other family members arrived at his bedside in the nursing home Hospice at 6:10 where they found him looking very peaceful. They all sang and worshipped around his bedside the night before. His was an abundant entry into heaven - the everlasting Kingdom of his and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The family formed a guard of honour as the coffin was wheeled out of the ward to be taken to the chapel of rest. The staff and others were impressed by the witness.
I was able to participate in the funeral one week later on Friday May 10 just prior to our planned ministry tour to UK from which my wife Kathleen and I have recently returned to Brisbane. The DVD recording of the funeral should be available soon.
Aeron was an exceptional Christ centred and Word focused preacher. He was pastor of a number of local churches in both hemispheres and the longest serving principal of the official Assemblies of God Bible College in Australia when it was theologically based – a period of twelve years, in two separate stints, 1974 to 1981 and 1989 to 1992.
Aeron left a good and godly legacy, to which tributes by two AoG officials, Philip Hills and John Uliano were made at his funeral. Principal Aeron and his wife Dinah Morgan, who served as Matron on a voluntary basis, sacrificed much to purchase, manage and maintain the Commonwealth Bible College property at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. In 1974 they supervised the removal of the entire college, property and personnel, from Brisbane in Queensland when it was inundated and destroyed during the 1974 floods. In selecting the site at an elevated position in the Blue Mountains there was an absolute guarantee that what happened to the property in 1974 could and would never happen again.
Aeron was my life-long friend, whom I first met in 1961 at an AoG-UK General Conference, when he was one of two speakers at a Youth Rally. I can remember to this day his text and topic -
Mark 14:3 - And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it (the ointment) on His head.
The topic was Worship and his sermon was symbolic of his life and his preaching. Aeron’s focus was always Christ and I have tried to emulate him—not as well as I should at all times.
Soon after our meeting we toured parts of Italy and Switzerland in ministry. We have done many things together, from pastoring in neighbouring Assemblies in Manchester, UK, to participating as speakers in international Conferences. During those early years we shared the leadership and preaching at central evangelical lunch-time meetings for business people in the Manchester City Business Centre. I and our family missed him and his wife and family when they moved to pastor a Church in London and missed them much more when he and his family later moved to Australia to pastor the Assembly of God in Toowoomba. He was always the senior partner in our relationship and by far the better Bible Teacher. He was the best man at our wedding in 1966 and it was largely through him that we came, as a family to Australia in 1978 although I had lived in Australia as an AoG Bible College student in Brisbane during the years 1957 to 1959. I graduated just prior to my 21st birthday.
In terms that we can measure—only God can really determine—Aeron achieved much. He successfully pastored several AoG churches in UK and two in Australia, before his Bible College principalship and one after it. He was a lecturer at Bible Colleges in several parts of the world, plus an itinerant preacher in high demand by godly Bible based congregations. He was the first general superintendent of AoG-UK. Until then the movement had resisted the office in favour of a simple chairmanship of the General Conference, the chairman being elected annually and serving for one week only – the week of the General Conference.
Latterly Aeron and I worked closely together under the banner of Christian Witness Ministries (CWM), which my wife, Kathleen and I launched in 1994. We shared the teaching at the first international CWM Conference in late 2000 at Melbourne, and co-authored Gathering the Faithful Remnant based on the material we each shared at the Conference. Later Aeron authored The Biblical Testing of Teachings and Manifestations (2005) and is author of numerous articles, pamphlets and papers, many of which are published on his website listed above and/or in CWM’s international magazine CETF and available on line on this website
Aeron was recognised and greatly appreciated as an advisory elder at the Christian Witness Ministries Fellowship (CWM-F) at Eight Mile Plains in Brisbane, Australia – http://www.cwmfellowship.org – where he preached on a regular basis. His counsel and advice were much appreciated. He will be greatly missed.
In paying tribute to Aeron, Kathleen and I also pay tribute to his faithful and loving wife Dinah, who stood by him in ministry and life and who attended him in hospital and in the hospice on a daily basis following his operation for the removal of a brain tumour on July 25, 2012, which was followed with radium treatment. His was a short but extremely debilitating sickness, though by his own confession he did not suffer physical pain. His testimony until the last breath was, “God is good.”
Aeron is survived by his wife Dinah, their daughter Angela, and their two sons Michael and Philip and their spouses, plus nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Please remember the family in your prayers.
Bring me there, to that place near to Thine heart.Bring me there, where no evil hath a part;Bring me there, where Thy will is all supreme.Bring me there Lord, Bring me there.Music and Lyrics by Aeron Morgan.
Respectfully presented:Philip L. PowellBrisbane, Australia - Aug 1, 2013.
