Charlie
Shedd: Pastor & Author
For
many years Charlie Shedd served as the “class agent” for the class of
‘37. He wrote an annual newsletter for the class and on at least
one occasional wrote a letter to class members encouraging them to
contribute money to Coe. To help class agents with this project,
the development sent them drafts of a form letter, inviting the agents
to offer any revisions in the wording. Charlie Shedd’s skills as
a writer and editor is immediately evident in the letter he returned to
the Alumni Office. He inserted eight corrections, all
improvements. He trimmed 33 excess words (for example, replacing
“you and I as alumni” with “we”) and revised the campaign’s original
motto–“we must give more and more must give”–into a neatly phrased
chiasmus: “more must give and we must give more.” It’s easy
to see why he became one of American’s most prolific and successful
authors in the 20th century.
Education:
McCormick Presbyterian Seminar & University of Chicago Divinity
School
Pastor
for churches in Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia,
California, Hawaii, Florida, and Pennsylvania.. In 1955, he
founded the Memorial Drive Presbyterian in Houston with 50 members
meeting in a borrowed schoolroom. Thirteen years later, when he
left the congregation, the church had over 3,000 members, a church
famous for its policy of giving one dollar to charity for every dollar
they raised to spend on their church. Left Houston church so he
could devote more time to writing. But didn’t want to give up
pastorate, she he accepted appointment with a small congregation on
Jekyll Island. “Going from more than 3000 members to 67 is the
right way to go. I feel like a shepherd again instead of a
racher.”
While
at Memorial Drive that his writing career really took off. He had
done some writing before: his first article was on a furniture-making
project that he sold to Popular Mechanics: “That was when I discovered
you could have fun writing about something you like and get paid for
it.” His first popular book came in 1957: How To Pray Your
Weight Away. Shedd had a weight problem, weighing over 300
pounds; he found his solution through religious fasting. After
several years of writing without much success, this book brought
together two popular fields of non-fiction: self-help books and
religious/inspiration books (plus the pun of a book on weight loss by
someone named Charlie Shedd–New York publishers assumed it was a
pseudonym).
As
a minister he took one day off per week for writing. Every
Tuesday he went to a motel room and wrote all day.
In
1965: Abingdon Press published Letters to Karen, advice from
father to daughter as she entered matrimony. Selected by Reader’s
Digest for its condensed book series. Enormous success.
That’s when they created the Abundance Foundation.
Author:
37 books (as of 1991). Last book: “Remember I Love You–Martha’s
Story”
Books
translated into 20 languages
Seven
books on marriage, including Celebration in the Bedroom and Two
multi-million sellers: Letters to Karen & Letters to Philip.
Books for young people (e.g., The Stork Is Dead and How To Know If
You’re Really In Love), idea books for Churches (e.g., How To Develop a
Tithing Church and How to Develop a Praying Church), eight books
intended for parents and grandparents (e.g., The Best Dad Is a Good
Lover and Tell Me a Story: Stories for Grandchildren), and books for
helping people manage their lives (The Fat Is in Your Head and Word
Focusing: A New Way to Pray). Brush of an Angel’s Wing (‘97)
“I
think maybe I know why my books sell like popcorn. Every author
likes to think he’s a good writer, that his books have merit. But
I suspect another reason why mind do so well is that the Lord knows
he’s going to get half.
TV
appearances: Donahue, Today, PM Magazine, Merv Griffin
Film
series: based on their Fun in Marriage Workshops
Expert
woodworker: builder of playhouses, toys, furniture; frequent
contributor to wood working magazines
Columns:
“Sex and Dating” (Teen Magazine) - column so popular that Shedd was
swamped with mail. He organized volunteer in his Houston church
to answer over 25,000 letters, making sure that every correspondent
received a person letter of response.
“The Meat of the Coconut” (ran 8 years in the Houston Post)
“Strictly for Dads” (national newspaper column for Universal Press
Syndicate)
Workshop
Titles: “The Seasons of Life” (from childhood and courtship to marriage
and death), “Fun in Marriage,” “How to Know if You’re Really in Love,”
“What Makes Some Women so Attractive” (study of the Book of Ruth), “The
Best Dad Is a Good Lover,” “You Are a Beautiful Person” (exploration of
Psalm 139), “If I Can Write You Can Write.”
Personal details:
7
children
Married to Martha for 48 years. Then married Diane, a Methodist
minister.
Charlie met Martha on an ice-skating pond. Both from Cedar
Falls. Sweethearts from their early teens. Married in 1939 (he
was in last year of Chicago Divinity School and she was teaching
English in a small town in Iowa.
Charlie
began writing when he lost his voice due to a throat tumor.
Ending
to his letters: “As my Gulla friends of South Carolina say: May the
Lord bless you uncommonly good.”
The
Abundance Foundation, founded in 1966. Foundation provides grants
for hunger relief around the world, primarily focusing on the purchase
of animals as breeding stock.. Money provided by the Foundation
was used to supply dairy herds in Zaire, bulls in Brazil, milking
buffalo in Philippines, cows in Ghana and Gambia, rabbits in Nigeria,
cattle for a Leper colony in Kora, mules for a village in Thailand, and
chickens for families in Haiti, sheep in Arizona, pigs in
Oklahoma. Foundation is funded by 50% of the royalties from books
and media income from the Shedds’ projects.
“The
Charlie Shedd Institute of Clinical Theology (ICT) was established in
1991 to promote activities in the fields of professional counseling and
pastoral counseling which specifically address Christian character
formation.”
Shedd
philosophy:
From
article by Walt Sutton in Presbyterian Survey (Oct ‘91)
Sex,
love, and marriage belong together: “married sex is a God-given,
healthy, happy part of life. But they think
communication–openness in personal relationships–also is a God-given,
healthy, happy part of life, so they talk about sex, love and marriage
directly, plainly and without embarrassment.” A philosophy based
on a favorite quote from Genesis I: “Then God created male and female,
and it was excellent in every way.”
Shedd
quote: “Give 10 percent, save 10 percent and spend the rest with
thanksigiving and praise.”
“Once,
Charlie’s outspokenness about oral sex caused Baptists in Texas to
threaten to cancel a speaking engagement for the Shedds. A
reporter called to ask what they would do if it started a wave of
cancellations. Martha, who answered the phone that time, said,
“We’ll probably just stay home and make love.” Result: many more
invitations for speaking engagements.
[Another
version of the story from Des Moines Registrar article, 9 March ‘82:
“The most celebrated case was a few years ago when a Texas Baptist
preacher got the Shedds dropped from the speakers list at a big Baptist
get-together in Houston. He had gotten hold of a tape of a
session in which Charlie advised a woman who was griping about her
husband wanting oral sex to relax a little and enjoy it.”]
In
1980 Shedd retired from full-time ministry to a home on Fripp Island
near Frogmore, South Carolina. Built a new home out of lumber
from an old barn. To devote full time to writing, film, TV
appearances, newspaper columns, and seminars.
“One
thing we decided real early was that we were not scholars as much as
students–students of life, of the Bible, of people. One thing we
were going to do was to keep everything practical–helpful.
From
article in the Gazette: 7 Nov ‘76
Shedd,
pastor of Presbyterian church on Jekyll Island. Jimmy Carter
& family spent summers there and it was the church the Carters
attended. Performed marriage ceremony for Carters’ son
Jack. In preparation for the ceremony, Jack identified his father
as the person who was closer to being a Christian than anybody he
knew. Jack answer his father. “He gets up every morning and
checks everything with the Lord. At the rehearsal at the
governor’s mansion, Sheed shared that story. “Jimmy Carter got
tears in his eyes and said, “I’d rather hear my son say that about me
than be President.’”
From
Pam Fruehling article in Gazette, 23 March ‘80
“‘The
church has sinned against society in the past by teaching that
everything is good except sex,’ said Shedd.
“Early religious training, he continued, can be an obstacle to a
liberated sexual relationship. Couples need to accept the truth
that God made sex and made it good.
“‘A whole lot of society needs to discard what was taught at home,’
emphasized Shedd. ‘Sex is not a happening, it’s a creation.’”
“He said rereading the Bible with a positive frame of mind will lead
people to the correct conclusion that sex is a gift of God. The
best sex education, he added, comes from married couples who love each
other deeply and aren’t afraid to let their children know it.
“The Shedds believe that Christians should be sexier than anyone
because they know that sex at its best is a spiritual union between a
couple and God. They urge couples to go ahead and celebrate their
creation.
“‘Anything a couple wants to do in marriage, if it is not physically,
mentally or psychologically damaging can be part of the celebration,’
they write.
“Their contention that exciting, fulfilling sex takes place only
between married couples is based on their feelings that the basis of
satisfying sex is total commitment.
“‘Sex is a 20-year warm-up, not a one night stand,’ said Shedd.
‘The average guy is interested in quantity, while the average gal is
concerned about quality. It sometimes takes years to get the
balance right.’”
“The Shedds attribute their marital bliss to a covenant made years ago
to spend one day a week talking about real things, like
feelings.”
Shedd
had two half-brothers, Philip & Paul. Paul was still living
as of ‘68. Both Coe alums. Philip, a minister, died in
1920. Paul, class of ‘17, was also a minister at one time a
missionary in Persia.
