Hesitating to Collect Offerings
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
June 27, 2019
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
So, I started the Upper Room Baptist Chapel almost nine months ago. A number of people have attended and gone but I have been blessed with a few families and individuals who have faithfully attended and been an integral part of the Chapel. Since I started the Chapel almost nine months ago, I have not collected an offering or “passed the hat” in any way. I have been very hesitant to do so for various valid reasons, these reasons being especially relevant for here in Kenya. However, over the last few months at various intervals almost all of the faithful attendees to the Chapel have asked me why I haven’t taken up any offerings. They have respectfully and lovingly questioned some of my reasoning with some good, logical reasoning of their own. One thing that I have heard from most of them is that they want the Chapel to continue long term and they know I cannot possibly be around forever. They want to help support the ministry and ultimately see it become self-reliant. This is obviously a good, reasonable and Biblical goal (and quite lofty) which I whole-heartedly approve. Seeing as most of the faithful attendees have approached me on this matter at one time or another, I feel it necessary to discuss the reasons why I have hesitated such a long time to inaugurate the collection of offerings.
15 Valid Reasons Why I Have Hesitated to Collect Offerings at the URBC: 1. I don’t want anyone thinking I (or the Chapel) just want their money; 2. In Kenya, too many pastors (and churches) are in it just for the money. To them it is a job, a lucrative job, and people are easily fleeced; 3. Too many Kenyan pastors and churches completely misuse donated money, stealing money from the offerings for their own personal use; 4. Misuse of money causes Kenyan people to not trust the pastor; 5. I want the focus to be on the gospel ONLY and not on money (in some churches it’s just money, money, money all the time); 6. I don’t want anyone to think they cannot come to the Chapel to hear the gospel because they cannot contribute; 7. I don’t want anyone feeling pressured to give money they don’t have or to take food off of someone’s table (a reality here in Kenya); 8. I don’t want any unbeliever to think we are here just to collect their money. I don’t want them to even come close to thinking that; 9. Money can be a cause of division and fighting among God’s people. I have seen it cause countless troubles in Kitale churches as when there is money in the coffers people viciously fight over it; 10. People with the money tend to run a church with their money and have a greater influence within a church; 11. Pastors focus more on people with money than people without money (James 2:1-4); 12. Ministry becomes one of numbers and money; 13. Pastors become afraid of preaching truth out of fear of losing tithing members. Pastors become puppets of tithing members; 14. People will come to our Chapel only for the expectation of getting some of the money in the coffers; 15. I don’t want people to give money just so they will in turn receive material blessings, a typical and universal teaching here.
Do these sound like valid reasons to hesitate to you all? But my attendees have valid arguments too and I know that giving to the Lord’s work is Biblical and vital to the health of the ministry. We will be discussing these matters at the Chapel. Please pray with us as we want to follow the instruction of the Bible and the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
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Foundational Teaching from Colossians; Battling the Flu
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
May 30, 2019
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Thank you, Lord, for Your mercy and grace, especially (this month, at least) for mercy and grace towards your missionaries doing your Kingdom work. This missionary, for one, desperately needs it.
I need God’s mercy and grace to do the work He has called me to do here. I can’t help thinking “Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to be a pastor of a church here”. The culture is against me. My inability is against me. Satan is against me. Kitale, in general, is against me. Even nature is against me (yea, I got really sick this past month). But God is for me and I don’t yet feel like He has changed what He wants me to be doing. Thus, I need to trust Him and obey Him and keep doing what He wants.
Things at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel are progressing. I’ve been wondering if a Sunday would come when nobody would show up. I thought that Sunday had come a couple of weeks ago. When 10am rolled around nobody else was there. When 10:07 rolled around there was still no one else there. But at 10:08 someone showed up and a few more trickled in after that. But our attendance that day was only 6. I worried that the low attendance would stay low but the next week we were back up to 16. Again, it is not about numbers. URBC is about proclaiming and living the Word of God and we will continue to be faithful to do just that.
I have finished preaching through the book of Colossians at URBC. The great foundational teachings of this book are vital to the people here in Kitale. Through this book, we at the Chapel learned who Jesus really is, who we are in Jesus, and what Jesus has done for those who trust and follow Him. If we could just learn and master this one book of the Bible, we would go a long way in our walk and relationship with God and in the Kingdom of Jesus. Last week I began a new short series preaching through some of the Psalms. It will be short because I obviously will not be preaching through every Psalm. I will probably only preach through 4 or 5 of them before moving on to something else, maybe to return to Psalms again at some future date. Last Sunday I preached through Psalm 1. It would be difficult for me to say whether the message was good or not (although I pray that it was). You see, I got really sick with the flu. I prepared my message while sick with the flu. I preached my message while sick with the flu. Then I came home and collapsed on the couch. Even for the next two days I was pretty much incoherent on the couch while sick with the flu. I am even late writing this update because I have been sick with the flu. It was a pretty nasty bug that Chloe and I shared but hopefully Julie will avoid. I will have to ask my Chapel members whether the message last Sunday was coherent or not. I am very glad to be feeling better now.
In family news, we have more transitions facing us in the near future. Amy turns 19 in June and then in July she will be graduating from Rift Valley Academy where she has boarded and gone to school for the last five years. Following graduation, she will be leaving Kenya and returning to the States to go to college. I’m sure I will be providing more on this transition in the months to come but I want you all to be praying for Amy (and us) even now as she prepares to make this huge transition in her life. [Read Amy’s testimony here.]
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Teaching in Three Places
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
January 26, 2019
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It has been a long, hard month and I cannot remember being this tired for this prolonged of a period. We have worked really hard this month and it has left me feeling ragged and worn out. But that is not to say that the work hasn’t been rewarding, nor has it been drudgery. But it has been exhausting. I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting older and my mind and body just can handle what it used to be able to handle. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m complaining, because I’m not. I’m just telling you all where I’m at right now.
Work at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel has been going well. Our attendance for the month has kind of been all over the place but our “regulars” have continued to come each and every week. On one of the Sundays this month we did experience our highest attendance to date with 28 people! While I’m not getting caught up in any numbers games, I did think this was a great attendance and I was very excited that so many people heard the Biblical message that week. Of course, the next week our attendance was about half that amount. I was telling a local pastor friend of mine about our fluctuating attendance and he gave me this perspective. He said, “Roger, you are the only full-time member of the Chapel”. I thought that was an interesting perspective. Anyway, I have been teaching each week on the parables that Jesus taught from the book of Luke. Through these parables I want the people to see into the heart and mind of Jesus and the Father. I think Jesus’ parables are one of the best ways to see how God thinks about things and they reveal the heart of God in an extraordinary way. And I want the people of Kitale to know this heart of God.
In addition to this Julie has been working extra, extra hard with the directors (and our dear friends) of the school Chloe goes to in order to help them start a new international branch of the school called Milimani Christian Homeschooling Community. She has been working very hard with them for over a year to help them get this started and my plan is to let her write the newsletter update for next month and explain, in her own words, this ministry that she has become heavily involved with. I am mentioning it this month because I have been asked to teach a math class at the new school. I accepted this ministry and now get to daily invest into the lives of some lovely young students at the school, as well as doing the morning devotions. But, again, I hope that Julie’s voice can be heard on this ministry next month.
Roger at the Bible College
And, now, throw into the mix that I taught a week-long class at the local Bible college on Biblical Financial Management and I can honestly say, I’m tired. But I always enjoy investing into the lives of the future pastors and church leaders that attend the college. Three of my students from this week were from South Sudan and plan, upon graduation, on returning to the war-torn region of their country and spreading the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
We pray that God would continue to bless our feeble efforts, expand His Kingdom in this part of the Earth and glorify His name.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
God is Blessing the Work in Kitale
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
January 1, 2019
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It is the New Year. As hard as it is for me to believe that statement, 2019 is now here and ready for us. I write this on January 1st so today is page 1 of 365 for the year. My new year has actually started with a little adventure. I was driving to town today to get some dog food and as I was driving down the road my car broke an axle and my front right tire broke completely off from my vehicle. Next thing I knew I was skidding down the road with metal on concrete. Metal on concrete is not a lovely sound or a lovely feeling. But I am completely unhurt, for which I thank the Lord. While I was waiting for a tow-truck (which arrived in just 10 minutes), three different Kenyan friends who were driving by stopped and sat with me to make sure I was OK. It was comforting to know there were people who cared and would assist me if they could.
We have closed out the old year at Upper Room Baptist Chapel on a positive note. Attendance at the Chapel has slowly gone up a bit and we averaged 17-18 people throughout the month of December. On the Sunday before Christmas we had 20 people in attendance, which matched the high attendance of our Inaugural attendance on October 21st. The work of Christ here in Kenya is not a numbers game but we are very glad to see that some people are interested in what we are doing here in Kitale. God really has been blessing the work so far in spite of my weaknesses. We have had other first-time visitors to the Chapel which has been encouraging to me as the minister of the work. In fact, one of the three friends who stopped by while I was waiting for the tow-truck was a man who has attended the services a number of times. He was talking with the tow-truck workers when they arrived and introduced me to them as “his pastor”.
A few short stories from the Chapel. First, I noticed that the room across the hall from our room was being used by a school that meets in our building. Each week I noticed that the room was unlocked and unused on Sundays. I decided to approach the administrators of the school to see if it were possible to use the room on Sunday mornings. Without reservation they agreed to let us use the room since they had no use for the room during that time period. They even agreed to let me use the room for no charge. So, we are now using that room each week as a Sunday School room for some of the young children who attend. This was a blessing from God. Second, we had a teenage girl attend one of our services. She has a Catholic background and regularly attends a Catholic church with her family. After the service she mentioned to Julie how different our worship and services are than they are at her church. Specifically, she said “You all actually teach from the Bible. At my church we are there for three and a half hours and the only thing that happens is one politician after another stands up and talks about their own political agendas. Nobody ever talks about the Bible at all”. She said she really liked what she heard at the Chapel that week. We pray that she is able to come again and hear the gospel message proclaimed again in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. Third, it was exciting to see my son Josiah and another teenager, Jesse, ministering in our services. Josiah and Jesse took over much of the music duties during the month of December while Josiah and Amy were home from school. What a thrill to see these young men ministering unashamedly in the Lord’s Kingdom. The other benefit is that they are both better guitar players than me. I would be glad to completely hand the music responsibilities over to them. Unfortunately, Josiah and Amy return to school on Saturday.
Happy New Year to all of you reading this update. May God’s grace and presence bless each of you all through this year.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Faithful Attendees and Newcomers at URBC
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
November 27, 2018
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Wow, it seems so much has happened since I wrote last month about our inaugural service at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel. I was excited when I wrote to you all last month describing our first service. But I didn’t know who might return and who wouldn’t. Now I have more that I can report.
Since our inaugural service, we have been averaging right around 12 in our attendance each week. I am very happy that we have had that many in our weekly services. Especially since those who are attending seem to be truly interested in receiving teaching from the Bible and in knowing and following Jesus. The next four weeks after our first service saw pretty much the same 12 people attending the services. I think that they are definitely getting something they do not experience at other churches here in Kitale. Here’s a couple reasons why I think that.
First, I set up a time to visit one of the families in their home. Elphas, Ann and their daughter Esther haven’t missed a service since we started. I meet with Elphas every week to disciple him but I wanted to visit him at his home. While I was in his home (a small, one-room apartment), he told me that he has gone to church for a long time but has never had a pastor visit him in his home. He didn’t know that was a thing pastors did. This week Elphas and I will visit a man named Joseph in Joseph’s home. Joseph was a first-time visitor last week.
Second, I’ve been told by others who have been coming that the teaching is simple, easy to understand and straight from the Bible. I say, “Praise God,” because that is exactly what I am striving for! This is definitely a rare element in Kitale churches.
Last week I was really excited because we had four first-time visitors to the Chapel. Each of these four-first time visitors came as a result of being invited by other regular attendees of our services. Two of these four I know to be very new believers. After the service and the “informal pastor” time and fellowship they stayed around and talked with me for nearly an hour. They told me that what they heard and experience at the Chapel that day was not like anything else they’ve experienced elsewhere. They said the teaching was Biblical as opposed to, in their own words, “Motivational speeches about succeeding in business” or “sermons about making money and getting ahead in life”. They also said that when I confessed I was not a good guitar player and that they should expect to hear mistakes, that they knew then and there that the Chapel would be different. This is because they said a Kenyan pastor will never admit to doing anything wrong. Finally, they appreciated hearing what the Bible actually says instead of hearing a list of rules and man-made laws about how they can be acceptable to God.
Dear Lord, Oh, how we would like to make a difference in the lives of these new believers and in the lives of the others who are attending and in the lives of many other Kitale residents.
Please make this your prayer for us as well.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Inaugural Service of Upper Room Baptist Chapel
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
October 27, 2018
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The Upper Room Baptist Chapel has begun (see last month’s newsletter for an explanation of the name). What is the end goal? The end goal is an organized and fully functional church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are we there yet? No, not by a long shot. But we have begun the journey and we will see where God will lead and take us in the future.
I have begun the Upper Room Baptist Chapel with Sunday services and worship. These services include, of course: Singing and worshipping, prayer, teaching and preaching the Word of God and fellowship. Our first service was Sunday, October 21st. We still have a few things to iron out but in all I think things went well, despite my anxiety. I am trying to specifically NOT “look and feel” like a typical Kitale church. The worship, the teaching that actually comes from the Bible, and the focus on following Jesus are all very different than what most Kitaleans generally experience. Julie said afterward, “I doubt any of them have ever heard anything like you before”. I think she meant it as a compliment, but we shall see how the people who hear me take to it. For now, I just want them to hear the Word of God so the Spirit of God can work in their hearts and in their lives. The Word of God is so lacking in the churches of Kitale and thus in the lives of most of those who call themselves Christians.
A picture of our inaugural service at Upper Room Baptist Chapel.
Including Julie, Chloe and myself, we had a total of twenty people (adults and children) in attendance at our inaugural service. Although I am trying not to focus at all on numbers, I am pretty pleased with that number of twenty. I wasn’t sure if anyone at all would actually come to our inaugural service. I invited a lot of people and I never asked for promises from those I invited, but probably 90-100 people freely offered their promise to come anyway (that actually would have been problematic for me as I only have seats for about 45 people). I didn’t know whether to expect zero people or a hundred. I praise God for the twenty that came.
We began by singing and praising God for about 30 minutes using some traditional hymns and other choruses I hoped some people would know. I led the worship on my guitar. This leading of music on the guitar caused me as much anxiety as anything. I am NOT musically inclined, I am NOT good at playing the guitar, I am NOT talented at leading music, and I CAN’T sing worth a hoot. But since there was no one else to do it, the lot fell to me and we all got through it with a little stumbling and a lot of glorifying God. Next came my message. I am trying to keep my messages simple, straightforward, and Biblical, Biblical, Biblical. Do you see the focus on Biblical there? That is what we need here. My inaugural message came from Mark 4:35-41 and was entitled “Jesus is in the Boat”. This is the passage where the Disciples are afraid of drowning in their storm-tossed boat and Jesus is asleep in the stern. The main point of my message was that Jesus is the Son of God, that he cares about what we face in this life and that He is in the boat with us. Since God is in the boat with us, he is able and willing to dispel our fears and lack of faith in the midst of the storms that rage around us. I preached this message because I, more than anyone else, needed it. My message for this coming Sunday will be “How to Identify a Follower of Jesus” from John 13:31-38.
How many people should I expect for our next service? I really have no idea. Some of those who came last Sunday are Kenyan friends of ours and I know they attend other churches. They came to our inaugural service to support and show love to me, their friend, as I start a new ministry. They probably will be returning to their churches this week. What about the others that came and the ones I invited this week who have promised to come? I really have no idea. We might be starting back with zero again. But God knows and it is up to God to do what only He can do and to bless this work as it honors and glorifies Him. I met personally this morning with one of last Sunday’s attendees and he said, “Roger, I’m with you forever”. I’ll continue to point him away from me and towards Jesus, but, I still hope he returns.
May I be faithful and may God be glorified.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
Starting Worship Services in New Ministry!
The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.
September 28, 2018
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I’m finally at the place where I can report I’m ready to begin a new ministry. I’ve informed you that I have had the desire and leading of the Lord to try and start a new church in Kitale and to pastor that church myself until it is ready to be on its own. “Does Kitale really need another church”, I’ve asked a thousand times? Yes, it needs a church that teaches the Word of God and worships God in Spirit and in truth. So, I’ve been planning and preparing for a long time. I rented a place to start in, worked on and prepared the room, and have been spreading the word about it for months. And now as we are about to close out September, I am able to say that we will be starting worship services in October, ready or not.
The name of the ministry for now will be called Upper Room Baptist Chapel. I would like to explain exactly why I am giving the ministry this name, so please bear with me as I give you the reasons for each part. First, Upper Room. Julie and I sat down and brain-stormed about the first part of this name. I wanted a simple name that kind of represented a significant meaning for the ministry. Nothing was sounding good until the Upper Room popped into my head. The reason this popped into my head is because the room I’ve rented is on the top floor of a four-story building in town. Get it? We’ll be meeting in the upper room of the building. But as I thought about it the name Upper Room seemed significant. I want to focus on the resurrection of Jesus, on following Jesus, and on knowing and having a relationship with God through Jesus – on fellowship with God. The Upper Room was a place where all of these things became a reality for the disciples of Jesus. So, the name seemed fitting for more than one reason. And, I thought we had come up with a unique name, that is until I started doing a few searches on the internet and found that there seem to be a number of churches with that name (In America, at least. There are none here with that name). Anyway, Julie and I still think it is a good and fitting name.
Second, Baptist. Is it old-fashioned and out-dated to call a church Baptist? Maybe to many it is, but not to me. Why? Let me tell you: Because I am a Baptist; Because I am sent out by a Baptist church and a Baptist organization; Because I believe in the Biblical doctrines of Baptist churches; Because I believe the history of Baptist churches is special and unique; Because the Baptist name represents who we are and what we will do and teach. For these reasons and more I will call the ministry Baptist.
Third, Chapel. I struggled a lot with this name too. It seemed like this part of the name should be easy, but it wasn’t. The word church made sense but the ministry won’t be a church yet. I hope and pray that someday, as God brings people into the ministry, as people are saved and baptized, that we will organize into a church. But at first, we will not yet be a church. So I ruled out that word. The word mission could also be used. However, in Kitale the word mission means a place where people can come and get things that they want, i.e., money and other material stuff. So I ruled out that word. I also, just personally, don’t care for Tabernacle or Temple because those words indicate Old Testament physical places where the Lord would meet with His people and I just don’t care for those terms for New Testament people. Worship Center sounds clunky. Training Center wasn’t fitting either. So, until a church is organized, I decided on Chapel – “a small building or room used for Christian worship in a school, prison, hospital or large private house”. That word seemed fitting and appropriate.
End result – Upper Room Baptist Chapel.
I am both excited and nervous about the start of this new ministry. I’m excited because I want to minister the Word of God and see the Spirit of God reaching into the lives of people, bringing them to salvation and fellowship with God. I’m nervous because I don’t know how things will go. If everyone attends who have said they will attend we will fill that upper room about five times over when our worship services start in October. Then again, maybe nobody will come. I just don’t know how God will initially work. So, how can you pray? Pray that God’s will be done and that He will bless this new work with fruit that will be pleasing to Him.
Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)
rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!
For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280
Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.
Read more
