When police officers knocked on Bailey and Jason Morris’s door, the first questions officers asked were, “What’s going on? Who is throwing a party?”
The Morrises co-pastor Waco First Church of the Nazarene in Texas. Their house was filled with 140 college students at the time officers arrived.
“I promise, it’s just a Bible study,” Bailey told the officer as he entered the house. “We’re literally just reading the Bible.”
The “party” officers were called to is called Table. It’s an intentional ministry of Waco First to connect with college students over a meal and study God’s Word.
The Morrises started the ministry shortly after arriving as pastors at Waco First in 2023. Over the years, church attendance had dwindled, and Jason noted that it could have been easy for those still faithfully attending to sit around and reminisce, “about the good old days.”
Jason recalled a board member telling them, ‘Their best days [as a church] are ahead of them.”
“What that told us was we’ve got a group of people that love the Lord so much, and they are still passionate about reaching people that are lost and bringing life to this community,” Jason said.
Baylor University, home to 18,000 college students, is located just 6 miles from the church. The Morrises attended a local church fair held on Baylor’s campus ahead of the 2024 school year. They prayed that the Lord would send them students, and he did. Two girls walked up to their booth, and the Morrises shared their vision. The Holy Spirit helped plant that vision in the girls’ hearts, and they decided to invite their friends and give it a chance.
The first night, six students showed up. Together, they shared a meal cooked by church members and studied the Bible around the coffee table. For the first couple of weeks, less than 10 students attended. But by Christmas there were 20, and by the end of the 2024 school year, it grew to 40.
“It wasn’t just ‘come get a free meal and hang out,'” Bailey said. “We studied the Bible together, and they wanted to go beyond ‘What does the Bible say about me?’ [and into] what the Scripture says about God. They were really curious, and they wanted to think deeply about it.”
She also noted a shift in culture among the younger generation.
“Young individuals aren’t necessarily looking for a church to just go and sit in the pews and consume,” Bailey said. “They want to contribute, and they want to be around a table.”
The following school year, they returned to the Church fair. Students who attended the year prior invited as many people as they could, pitching the free home-cooked meal, the Bible study, even the Morrises’ dog.
That first week of the 2025 school year, they had 140 students and their cars showed up at the Morrises’ home, prompting the encounter with police.
“They were walking from blocks away just to get there,” Bailey said.
Church members, some of whom have been in the church their entire lives, have volunteered to help cook meals, welcome, and pray with the students.
“What I love is that these students will always remember the generosity of these people,” Bailey said. “I think that’s what the Church of the Nazarene is all about, and that’s who we are. We’re unreasonably generous. These students will always remember Linda and Sharon, who were here every single Sunday, feeding them, caring about them, praying for them.”
In-person church attendance at Waco First has more than tripled, with 160 reported in 2026, since the Morrises launched Table. The attendance at Table has also outgrown the Morrises’ home and meets at another parsonage adjacent to the church’s property. Jason says the group has stayed strong and “hungry for truth.”
“As a church whose focus is on holiness and is passionate about sending people out, I think it’s so important — especially for that age group — that we’re teaching them what it looks like to live a holy life with Jesus,” Jason said. “We get to pour into them and help them to recognize what it looks like to live a holy life, and then show them how to take that with them wherever the Lord sends them into the world.”
