He and his late wife, Ruth, served as education and humanitarian service representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) in the St. Petersburg, Russia, and Baltic States regions (1992–96).
In addition to his scholarly work, Rees wrote, directed and produced Spires to the Sun: Sabatino Rodia's Towers in Watts, a documentary funded by the California Council for the Humanities which had its premier showing on public television station KCET, May 1992, and was also shown on TELE-3, Lithuania, March 1993.
Rees is the co-author (with Kenny Kemp) of a script entitled "Crucifixion of Innocents: The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer," which was optioned by Artemis Films; co-author (with Kenny Kemp) of an original screenplay entitled "A Perfect World"; co-author (with Raphael La Rosa) of a script, "Sabatino Rodia: the Artist Nobody Knows," for KCET Public Television in Los Angeles; executive producer of "I Hear Tell: Storytelling in American Cultures," a projected documentary film on storytelling funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities; designer, writer, and editor of a tele-course on the American Short Story, produced by Coastline Community College; and advisor on the award-winning film, "Families Are Forever," produced by the Family Acceptance Project, San Francisco State University.
Currently he is co-writing (with Bob Devan Jones) a musical, "Clarissa and the American Dream" and a play on Ezra Pound (with Clifton Jolley).
He writes regularly for The Huffington Post, Sunstone Magazine (where he has a column called "The Carpenter's Union: Jesus in the Modern World"), and Dialogue.
In addition to numerous articles, essays, poems, editorials, chapters, and reviews, Rees is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of the following: