Paris Reidhead
1919-1992
Paris Reidhead devoted his life to communicating the message of the Gospel in America and throughout the world. A student pastor in rural Minnesota at age eighteen, Mr. Reidhead felt led of the Lord to overseas mission work. In 1945, Paris Reidhead and Marjorie, his wife of two years, traveled under the auspices of the Sudan Interior Mission to the Sudan-Ethiopia Border where they surveyed and analyzed tribal languages in preparation for evangelism and education in this area.
Upon his return to the United States, Mr. Reidhead was appointed Deputation Secretary of the Sudan Interior Mission in the Southeastern United States. He was soon a nationally recognized spokesman for missions.
In 1953 Mr. Reidhead began his national Bible Conference ministry for the Christian and Missionary Alliance which brought him, in 1956, to pastorate of the Gospel Tabernacle, the New York City church where the C & M A was first established by Dr. A. B. Simpson in 1887. While in New York, Mr. Reidhead drew on informational resources at the United Nations to pioneer a program through which government and private funds were used for economic development in the Third World; his efforts to implement local programs on this model took him to mission fields in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Third World development became his full-time commitment in 1966. Mr. Reidhead's vision of public-private funding for economic development led, in 1971, to the formation of the Institute for International Development, Inc. which has served as the model for about ninety evangelical organizations which have, in turn, channeled more than 100 million dollars into Third World development. In 1984, Mr. Reidhead founded Enterprise Development International, a service agency devoted to aiding Third World church and evangelical agencies in creating job opportunities for destitute families.
Since Mr. Reidhead's death in 1992, Paris Reidhead Bible Teaching Ministries, Inc. continues under the leadership of his daughter, Virginia Teitt, a dedicated Board, and the many people who have donated time and talent after being changed by God’s Word through this message. The message of the Gospel is reaching an ever-widening audience all over the world.
