Rev. Dave Roberts was ordained Bishop of The Church of the Cross in California in 1976 and Church of the Risen Christ in 1992 where he currently serves as Senior Pastor. From 1987 to 1991 he did regular volunteer clergy visitation at the Utah State Prison and served as the Utah Chaplain for the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys until 1994. Currently, he is the Pastor and Chaplain of the Cowboy Christians of Utah which draws ranch and rodeo people from several western states and Canadian provinces. Dave has served as a deaf interpreter and a keyboard musician at several area churches in Salt Lake City.
He became a Christian in 1961 in New Haven, Connecticut after having been nearly converted to Mormonism, Christian Science and Unitarianism, in succession.
He was licensed as a preacher at Olivet Baptist Church (1963) and graduated from The United College of Gordon and Barrington in 1966 with B.A. degrees in French, Secondary Education and Bible. He was then certified as a secondary level, foreign language teacher in Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1966 and Maine in 1969. He worked part time with Teen Challenge in New York City (1966-1967) while working on a Masters’ Degree in Russian at New York University in Manhattan. To support his education and ministry during those years, he worked at Yale University, the New York Daily News, the Sherbooke Daily Record and La Compagnie de Telephone Bell (Quebec).
He has lived as a self-employed Christian worker/missionary and pastor in the South Bronx, Greenwich Village, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Toronto, Los Angeles and Utah.
He speaks several languages (two of them for the deaf) and has traveled, served short missions and lectured throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union, the United States and Canada.
Jeff Freeman and Dave Roberts were sent out from southern California as missionaries to Utah in 1984 by West Angeles Church of God in Christ where Rev. Dr. Charles Blake is the Pastor and Bishop and by the former Laguna Church, pastored by the late Dr. Jack Wheaton.
Currently, Dave is the founder and director of Intermountain Christian Ministries in northern Utah, Church of the Risen Christ in Sandy, Utah and a founding member of the South Valley Pastors’ Prayer Group. He also holds memberships in the Rutherford Institute, Cowboy Christians of Utah, the Antique Telephone Collectors Association, Telephone Collectors International, the American Association of Retired People, and past memberships in the Episcopal Synod of America, the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys and the National Rifle Association.
He maintains a worldwide correspondence ministry and prayer list of nearly 2000 names and has published a free regular newsletter/prayer letter since 1978.
He is listed in Who’s Who in American Religion.
By being single for the sake of the Kingdom of God and under vows of Holy Office (I Corinthians 7:32) he is able to devote himself more fully to an ever-changing ministry and mission field.
He is available for speaking and pulpit supply as well as sacramental needs in the Body of Christ.