Born into a Christian family, his father—Bishop C.L. Morton Sr.—pastored two
Church of God in Christ congregations: one in
Windsor, Ontario and the other in
Detroit,
Michigan. In 1972, Morton moved to
New Orleans, Louisiana and to the Greater St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church (now known as Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church) under the pastorate of Reverend Percy Simpson, where he became an associate pastor. Upon his ascension to the senior pastorate, Morton introduced
Pentecostal and
Charismatic elements to the church. Shortly after his appointment as senior pastor of Greater St. Stephen, Morton married the former Debra Brown. Together they have three children: Jasmine, Paul Jr., and Christian. His son Paul Jr. later became a
Grammy Award-winning musician under the name
PJ Morton. During his pastorate at Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, Morton established the
Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship which initially began as a Charismatic Baptist movement within the
National Baptist Convention, USA. The movement became its own separate denomination in 1994 after Morton and those affiliated with the fellowship "were lovingly advised to resign their posts with the NBCUSA before they were kicked out." National Baptist leadership feared the movement would develop into a separate denomination, urging members to either remain within the convention or leave. Morton was consecrated into the episcopacy in March 1993 by
Independent Catholic episcopus vagans George Augustus Stallings of the
African-American Catholic Congregation in New Orleans, and by 1997, Greater St. Stephen grew to 18,000 members in 3 locations under his pastorate. Prior, in 1962 and at the age of 20, his brother
C.L. Morton Jr. was consecrated as a bishop for the Church of God in Christ. In November 1993, Paul Morton—along with
J. Delano Ellis, Wilbert Sterling McKinley and Roy E. Brown—established the
Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops. In 2005, Morton founded Changing A Generation Full Gospel Baptist Church in
Metro Atlanta. In 2013, he announced his intent to retire as Presiding Bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship. Two years later, in 2015, he retired from his office as leader of Full Gospel. == See also ==