In a small, multi-cultural community, the Rev. Derek Reed and wife Tiffany Reed would like nothing better than for their Faith Ministries church to reflect that variety, where all people can feel represented and valued.
Derek Reed, the new senior pastor as the 19-year-old assembly, leans on a passage from the seventh chapter of book of Revelation about “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation” around the throne.” All in unity.
“There should be something for everyone in the house of God,” Tiffany Reed said. “And we just want to represent that, from the disabled to African Americans to Caucasian Americans and Indian Americans. We want all people, when they come here, to feel like they belong here.”
The duo, married for 14 years and with a background as Christian house parents, see themselves as a ministry team. That’s just as they were in group homes at previous assignments in both Illinois and Florida, where some of the teens they supervised featured backgrounds littered with such seriousness as attempted murder charges.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
The couple learned to love the young people especially when they began acting out — and sometimes saw such stubborn love break through the teens’ tough exterior to heal deep wounds.
“The way you live your whole life should be a ministry,” Derek Reed said.
He especially wants to show compassion to the down and out. He once was homeless and sleeping under a bridge as a struggling college student in Memphis, Tennessee. And he regularly battles chronic pain as an after-effect from a serious illness.
“I want to be a light in dark places,” he said.
The pair recently sat in the office at Faith Ministries to talk about their new roles.
You believe in Tiffany as a kind of co-minister with you, right, pastor?
Derek: Galatians 3:26 says that there is neither male nor females in Christ Jesus. I believe very strongly in women serving as ministers. And, if you really think about it, if Jesus were against women in ministry, why would he choose to bring his son through a woman? … And some people call Mary Magdalene the first apostle.
Tiffany: We’re equal in value. But it doesn’t mean we have to be equal in everything that we do.
So how do you see ministry overall at Faith, Tiffany?
When we (church members) go outside these doors, that’s when some of the real ministry work begins. …When people find out that you’re a Christian, they will carefully look at you and judge your walk with God and how they should ideally look by how you live out your faith. … Really, our whole life is worship.
How does your chronic pain situation affect your expression of faith, Derek?
I believe that, in any of my suffering, I’m earning the right to speak passionately to that group of people (in pain). Besides, how can I effectively speak to hurting people if I don’t know anything about pain?
What is one of Derek’s greatest strengths?
Tiffany: He is such a giving person. With all that he has been through, he has the right to be as selfish as he wants to be. I sometimes look at things and just say that it is what it is. But he always is careful to judge people by what’s on the inside.
As a married couple, how do you also work so well together?
Derek: I always say that God gave us marriage as a gift. Because of that, why, then, would marriage ever feel like a curse when you’re walking through the day to day (events)? Why would we ever treat it like that? So many of us couples can somehow fall into the habit of focusing on the things about our mate that irritate us.
We forget that we can’t say anything about the speck in spouse’s eye when we have a plank in our own eye.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”About the Reeds” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Who: The Rev. Derek Reed, new senior pastor, and his wife, Tiffany Reed, whom he sees as a kind of co-pastor at Faith Ministries at 5103 W. State Road 46 in Columbus.
Married: 14 years.
Ages: Derek Reed is 38 and Tiffany is 37. Daughter Callie is 4.
Hometowns: Both are from Memphis, Tennessee.
Past role: Derek Reed was associate pastor at Columbus First Assembly.
Free time: Derek Reed loves action movies such as "Tropic Thunder." And Tiffany Reed likes to spend time with anything connected to interior design.
[sc:pullout-text-end]
