Member Spotlight: Ted Pittenger—founder, Board member

Ted and Shari Pittenger’s involvement in Samaritan Ministries may have undergone change, but their hearts are still in it 100 percent.

Ted founded Samaritan in 1991, with sharing starting in 1994, and served as its president until 2021. He also was chairman of the Board of Directors for most of that time and continues as a member of the Board today.

“I just kind of stepped back a little bit,” Ted said recently as he sat at a table with Shari in his office at Samaritan headquarters.

He “stepped back” as far as Samaritan goes, but not as far as staying active goes.

“I always fill up my days,” Ted said.

That aligns with something Ted always stressed when talking to Samaritan staffers about their retirements: staying busy, especially with the things of the Lord. He and Shari are doing that by volunteering with the ministry International Friendships Inc., which serves students at a community college near the Pittengers’ home.

“We basically try to make international students feel at home,” Ted said.

That includes giving the students rides to stores and for other errands. While it’s not overtly evangelical, “the kids involved do know that the volunteers are believers and they will hear about the Lord and stuff like that as they participate,” Ted said.

Other activities include cookouts for the students as well as Bible studies.

Looking back

When Ted does pause to look back on the past 30 years, though, it’s with gratitude for how God has used Samaritan Ministries to enable Christians to help each other with health care needs.

“I never really had any idea of what Samaritan would become,” Ted said.

For a long while, Ted didn’t even know if it would become anything.

After he and Shari joined what was then called Christian Brotherhood (now Christian Healthcare Ministries) in the 1980s, Ted decided there was room for another health care sharing ministry that took a different approach. He began talking to people inside and outside of health care sharing about the possibilities. After some starts and stops, the first sharing happened in October 1994 and has continued. Now more than $30 million per month is shared among almost 80,000 households. (More details about Samaritan’s founding and development are in the book Sharing the Burden: The Samaritan Ministries Story.)

The birth of Samaritan involved the entire Pittenger household. Shari said she’ll be working around their house and think, “Oh yeah, this is where this part happened, this is where we had the offices, this is the table where the first Board members met.”

“At that time, we had no idea what God planned to do with Samaritan,” she said.

Current CEO Mark Zander sees the fruits of what God has done over 30 years.

“Without Ted’s faith, there would be no Samaritan Ministries,” Mark said. “The Lord used Ted’s patience and entrepreneurial spirit to birth a ministry that has blessed hundreds of thousands of people. Plenty of people told Ted it wouldn’t work or that it couldn’t be done. I’m so thankful that he didn’t believe the naysayers, but instead, chose to believe and obey God. Ted’s unwavering commitment to keep Jesus at the center of Samaritan Ministries is in large part the reason Jesus continues to and always will be at the center of everything that we do. Here’s to another 30 years of redeeming health care together!”

Encouraging creativity

Shari is still the decorating contractor at Samaritan, responsible for the ministry’s workspace look, thanks to her graphic design degree from the University of Illinois, where she met Ted. And she’s open to what God will be doing through Samaritan for the next 30 years.

“We have no concept of what He has planned,” Shari said.

Shari and Ted also are grateful for the family God has given them. Five of their six children are married and the Pittengers have 10 grandchildren.

“Each one of our children is following the Lord, and the ones who have gotten married have married believers,” she said. “This is just amazing to me.”

Shari also has been teaching art to the home school group at their church, “and I really, really enjoy that.”

Some of that teaching has taken place in one of the two buildings that housed Samaritan’s first offices 30 years ago.

“I see a pattern all throughout the years of how God wants me to encourage creativity in people,” she said.

She is also working on a way to sell her artwork, “something that I’ve wanted to pursue in my homeschooling retirement years.”

Looking ahead

Ted is still heavily involved with the Samaritan Board and enthusiastic about its leadership.

“I think there is a good mix on the Board,” he said. “Each guy brings unique value thanks to their professional backgrounds.”

Ted said he wants to be available as a resource but not be seen as meddling. When he was thinking about the transition, he contacted another former ministry leader about how their transitions had gone. In that case, a former leader who had stayed around was “kind of meddling a little bit and employees would come to talk to him (about the ministry).”

Ted decided that “I don’t want to be that guy, so I’ve tried to keep a pretty low profile.”

“I talk with people and exchange pleasantries and stuff, but I don’t really talk about the ministry to staff,” he said.

Meanwhile, he’s also “just kind of sorting through stuff and waiting for the next project.”

A project that will have Jesus as the focus, no doubt.