The pastor who stayed: Tacoma’s Rev. Roy Fletcher approaches retirement
Rev. Roy Fletcher likes to help people.
The 88-year-old Tacoma pastor has built an entire ministry based on supporting the community with whatever resources he can find.
It’s his calling, he says: a calling that came decades ago, before he set foot in Washington and even before he dedicated himself to Christianity.
It began, rather, in his childhood, over 2,000 miles away in his hometown of Hot Springs, Arkansas.
While playing with his friends at a park one day, an old woman across the street yelled to get their attention. His friends, unwilling to entertain whatever queries the lady so desperately wanted to ask, took off running. But Fletcher couldn’t find it in himself to do the same.
He approached the woman, who had a simple request: pick up bread at the store for her. So, he did. And the moment he completed the task, it finally dawned on him. This was his purpose, to help the community however he could, even when everyone else chooses to run.
“It was different from other pastors,” Fletcher said. “Some of them said they had a dream and they saw a sign in the sky, and God spoke to them. It wasn’t like that for me. It was something within my heart.”
This personal mission stuck and eventually led him to the Sheridan Street Church of God, a historic black congregation in Hilltop that Fletcher has since ministered for the past 62 years.
Next June after decades of service, Fletcher is finally hanging up his robes and stoles for the retired life.
It wasn’t an easy decision, especially as the longest serving African-American pastor in Tacoma, according to a church press release.
“I’ve been here that long and after you get older, your body just starts habits. I liked going, I liked witnessing, I liked visiting,” Fletcher said. “Now I’ve got to the place where I don’t feel like going as much.”
His storied history with the church began after he moved to Tacoma with his late wife, Gean, and their children to be near family in 1958.
He opened his first iteration of his ministry, the Church of God mission, in McKinley in 1964. It was a small congregation of about a dozen people.
Two years later, when he found out the building on 2303 S. Sheridan Ave. was vacant after its pastor moved to Seattle, he brought his mission to Hilltop and has stayed at that location ever since.
He collected parishioners the old-fashioned way, dedicating every Saturday to knocking on doors of houses, nursing homes, hospitals and even jails to invite new people to church.
In its heyday, the Sheridan Street church saw hundreds of visitors.
But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. In the 1980s and 90s, Hilltop was a hotspot for drug use and gang violence, forcing many ministries and congregants to leave the area out of fear.
In 1990, the church’s typical congregation of 150 was halved, according to previous reporting from The News Tribune. The conditions were so dismal that even Fletcher was tempted to leave.
But that same feeling of obligation that compelled him to buy bread for his neighbor decades prior had not gone away.
He planted his feet in Hilltop, refusing to give up on the neighborhood’s youth.
Under his leadership the church built four new Sunday school classrooms, and congregants made it a mission to visit every resident in the neighborhood to help families in need and spread word about the church.
Instead of casting out the community members involved in gangs, he welcomed them into the church with open arms.
His son, Mike Fletcher, remembers his father’s tenacity during that uncertain time.
“He invited [gang members] in. He talked with them, and he just never gave up,” Mike Fletcher said.
One time in 1991 a shooting took place outside the church’s Friday midnight prayer service. Soon after a group of about 25 gang members entered the church.
One of the men asked to be prayed for, and as church members joined hands with their troubled neighbors and prayed, he began to cry.
“It’s not easy to continue to preach and try to help people when you hurt,” Roy Fletcher said. “I stayed there because I love people, and if I quit, who’s going to help them? I know that others could do it, but I feel that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Cora Warren has attended Fletcher’s services with her family since she was a teenager in 1967. Fifty-eight years later, she faithfully returns to church every Sunday, serving as a board member and also involving herself with the women’s group.
She remembers the years when Hilltop was strewn with violence. Helicopters patrolled the area almost every day and the church’s location put them right in the middle of the action.
“He didn’t run from it,” Warren said. “Some people didn’t want to come because they heard about the trouble. But no matter what they conducted service on every Sunday.”
Fletcher’s guiding leadership and openness to the community allowed the church to survive, she said.
“He’s a man of integrity,” Warren said. “He doesn’t only talk the talk. He walks the walk.”
Fletcher’s legacy extends beyond the pulpit. He has seven kids, over a dozen grandkids and more great-grandchildren than he can count.
And though the church hasn’t yet decided who will replace Fletcher, there are talks of his daughter Carolyn taking the reins.
Whatever the case, Fletcher will still attend church and help out when he can, just without the decision-making power he once had. And until his retirement in June, he’ll continue to practice his guiding principles of helping out whenever and wherever he can.
“I won’t condemn you,” Fletcher said. “I’ll try to help you. I don’t care what type of life you’re involved in. If you let me help you and let God help you, you will improve.”
This story was originally published November 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
