Welcome to the Eric Matexas show with your host, Eric Matexas.

Hey there folks, I've got a surprise for you. I think I mentioned that a few weeks ago I was in Kansas City

and I was at what they call the International House of Prayer, IHOP as they call it, hanging out with Mike Bickle, who is known to some of you.

And hanging out with my buddy Ken Fish and Ken Fish got me into this mess. And also there were Francis Chan, who we had on this program recently, and a guy named Andy Bird,

and a really young guy named Chris Reed. He's a calo individual. We became friends and I wanted to have him on this program. I love talking to him and now I get to do it on the air and you get to listen. Chris Reed, my friend, welcome.

Hi Eric, good to see you. Glad to be with you.

It's great to see you. You crack me up and that's like one of my highest compliments I could possibly pay because when we were together, you're very gifted and anointed as we say, but you're also fun to talk to you joke around.

And for example, I asked you the simplest question, you're a tall guy and I said, how tall are you? Do you remember how you answered me?

No, I don't write off. I know you don't, but what's the answer to that question? Six foot seven. Six foot seven, but what you said to me, you couldn't leave it at that. You said six foot seven, but that's only if I stand all the way up.

Yeah, that is so dumb. You go into the pantheon of comedy greats just for that line. You're you're at Morningstar Ministries right now. Is that right?

Correct. Just got moved here two weeks ago. Well, that's kind of the headline, Chris, because I want to talk about what we talked about in Kansas City, but you are taking over for Rick joiner.

I mean, I don't think Rick's going anywhere. Is he?

No, no, so I've moved here and I'm kind of right now just in a training process. I'm shadowing Rick joiner and so, you know, ultimately we don't know how long the transitional take, but that's certainly why I'm here.

You have a fascinating story and I want to tell my audience really that you, I guess this is so strange. It's hard for people to think about, but you began preaching at an extremely early age.

Tell my audience about that because now you are your 36, you're very mature beyond your years, but you were preaching like as a kid. How old were you when you started?

So by the time I actually got started speaking on a regular basis, I was 14. And just my parents were, you know, driving me to my respective opportunities to speak and such.

And then so by the time I was 18, I had ministered in over 200 churches. So I started pretty young.

Well, here's a, here's a dumb question, but now that I'm in my 50s, I think if a 14 or 15 or 16 year older, 17 year old or 18 year old, got in the pulpit, I'm not sure that I could sit there.

It seems odd to me that a kid would really have anything to share, homiletically speaking or whatever now.

What do you think? And it was this kind of a curious thing now that your older, if a 14 year old gets into the pulpit, what would you even make of it? It almost seems like a parlor trick, like a crazy thing, like the midget batter, you know, what was his name back in the 1940s.

They put a three foot eight, midget into bat, so the strike zone, it seems like it seems kooky, like you can't really take it seriously, but obviously it was serious. But so what do you make of it today? The idea of a 14 year old preaching?

So I look back and think how thankful I am that I would even have crowds of people, especially adults sit through and listen, listen to that.

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