I recently read the auto-biography of Ted Fletcher, When God Comes Calling. It is the story of the founder of Pioneers. I share the story to help provide insight into the origins of Pioneers. But also to illustrate how God calls ordinary people, even older ones, to accomplish significant kingdom initiatives.
Most heroes, most great men and women, are actually fairly ordinary individuals possessing unusual vision, hard work, and perseverance. Ted Fletcher was such a man. Most men and women of God also possess a large faith, dependence on God, and a great concern for the glory of God and the expansion of His kingdom. Fletcher also demonstrated these qualities.
The book opens with a quote from Mark Twain. “Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off your bowlines. Leave the still waters of the harbor. Catch the trade winds with your sail!”
Fletcher was born in 1931. As a young man, he became a marine. Ted came to Christ at a Billy Graham meeting while serving in the Korean conflict in 1952. Post-war he completed his college education. And he married his wife, Peggy, in 1956.
Much of Fletcher’s adult life was invested as a businessman. He served in sales roles with significant responsibilities within Mobil Oil and later with the Wall Street Journal. It was during these years that God began stirring Ted and Peggy’s hearts to go to the mission field. Sadly, sending agency after sending agency snubbed their inquiries because of Ted’s lack of formal theological education. So reluctantly Fletcher embraced the role of a “sender”.
During this time God gave Ted a promise out of Psalm 2:8. “Ask of Me, and I will make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession.” Sensing God’s leadership in 1973, he resigned his role as national sales manager for the Wall Street Journal. Little did he know that it would be another six long years before God provided the clarity that led him to engage in what become his life’s mission, the launching of a new missions sending agency focused exclusively on unreached peoples (those with little or no access to the gospel).
Fletcher launched World Evangelical Outreach, in 1979. It was renamed Pioneers in 1984. The work had small and humble beginnings in Papua New Guinea and in Nigeria, soon expanding into China.
Romans 15:20 describes well the initial and current focus of the organization -- “and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation”.
In 1982 WEO held it first candidate orientation program with 19 prospective missionaries.
A series of heart attacks, the first in 1986, awakened Fletcher to his own mortality and his need to more significantly involve others in the work. After stepping into a different role within Pioneers, the board passed the leadership of this emerging organization to Ted’s son, John Fletcher, in 1988, with John continued in that role until 1999.
In 1992 the U.S. mobilization base moved from Sterling, Virginia to its current home in Orlando, Florida.
In 2003, after several years of struggle with kidney failure, Ted Fletcher graduated to heaven.
Today Pioneers has 2450 workers on 229 teams among 146 unreached people groups in 95 countries. Approximately 250 new candidates align with Pioneers each year. The international work continues forward today under the leadership of Eric Peters, with the U.S. mobilization base led by Ted’s son-in-law, Steve Richardson.
Ted Fletcher, an ordinary man with an extraordinary impact.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” – II Corinthians 4:7
