Grace Outrageous Ministry’s mission is to creatively and boldly speak and teach the Good News of Jesus and the love that God has for each and every human. Founder and director of GO is Pastor Tress Reed. This “redeemed hot mess” has a passion to reach the unchurched, the outcast, the marginalized - anyone who has felt left out - by living Jesus’ teaching in the actions of our every day lives.
Tress has a deep love, conviction, and faith in the power of God as expressed through the indwelling of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. She is a momma, Grammie, pastor, healthcare chaplain, lay family counselor, speaker and aspiring author. As a new season of life has recently unfolded, Tress has continued to learn and reach out in social justice areas such as racial reconciliation and LGBTQ equality. She moderates small group dialogue around white privilege and the journey to deeper understanding of systemic racism and oppression. She has volunteered in many ways, including serving in-need veterans, homeless neighbors of Columbus, public activism, a caregiver at the Institute of Formational Prayer and as a board member for non-profit agencies. Her work now is with the marginalized, impoverish, and homeless neighbors of Columbus at a federally qualified healthcare center.
An internal processing introvert, Tress finds it amusing that God has graced her with the ability to speak publicly with boldness and love. She has been forgiven and loved much, through the grace of God, and therefore finds great passion in paying that love and grace forward to all people and all nations. Tress is also an avid reader and continuously pursues learning opportunities. In her down time, she can be found in her kitchen cooking some crazy healthy ethnic food, curled up with her nose in a book, laughing with her people, or taking a walk with her dog.
The journey of Tress’s life has been a painful, yet amazing, living testimony of Grace Outrageous lived out. The Holy Spirit has led her down the road of healing from childhood abuses, family substance addictions, divorce, deep betrayals, her own poor choices, and a decades long battle with titles such as “a misfit” and “a throw away”.
While she used to be ashamed of feeling like a square peg in a round world, she now embraces her “square peg-ness” and has found many fellow square-peg servants. After all, Jesus was the consummate square peg and rebel rouser!
Tress’s vision for those engaged with Grace Outrageous Ministry has evolved out of her own life experiences and her deep desire to bring Jesus’ all encompassing love to those whose paths we cross… be that the struggling single mom at the local grocery story… the homeless transgender human… or the hungry children of an African village. She longs for community were people of faiths, all beliefs, all lifestyles can engage and learn.