Tom Rees

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our first guest speaker was going to be our very own professor, Tom Rees. It isn’t very often that students get the opportunity to gain so much insight about the lives and testimonies of the people who will be instructing them for the next three months and lucky for us, Tom has an amazing testimony of God’s leadership and provision for his family. He also has a fresh perspective and knowledge of church leadership and disciple making.

Tom felt the effects of an unstable home life at an early age when his parents divorced and his father disappeared from his life. Throughout the years, two other “dads” came into and left his life, both leaving behind a wake of tragedy. The first father, a Vietnam helicopter pilot, was killed overseas and later the second father was discovered to be a man with another family as well as a mistress. Happily, shortly after the fallout between the family and the most recent “dad”, Tom’s mother found Jesus and committed her life to the Lord.

Tom’s mother was diligent in seeking salvation for her son, often encouraging him to sit in front of the television and watch Billy Graham crusades. It wasn’t until some time later that Tom found some tracts in a record store and shoved them into his pockets to give to his mother later. A few weeks went by and one day on the train, Tom rediscovered those tracts. After reading through them he realized the truth about God’s grace. Shortly thereafter he and his mom began attending a charismatic Catholic church and later found a home at a local Assemblies of God congregation.

Through the years Tom has gained training and experience in church leadership through various partnerships with AG churches and organizations. Because of his current position at Glad Tidings in Reading, I was interested in his point of view on church size. I have recently gone through a church-search of my own which raised questions about different models of churches. So my question for Tom was, “What is your church size philosophy?” His answer to that was,

“My feeling is that you need to provide multiple connection points for people. There are people who tell me they love coming Saturday night because it’s smaller. I have to be careful with that because people say it is a non-growth philosophy. I’m not anti-numbers. I want to grow because I’m reaching lost people, not because I’m taking other believers from other churches.”

What Tom said about connection points really stood out to me. He makes a good point that the size of the church doesn’t matter as long as you are truly reaching people where their needs are, including their need for a place to minister.

Listening to Tom’s story and having the opportunity to interact with him was certainly a treat. I know that we will learn many things from him as the semester progresses.