Meet Pastor Charles Antoine Tapp

Takoma Park, (June 12, 2019) If you have ever been on the campus of Washington Adventist University, you’ve got to have met Pastor Charles A. Tapp. He is both the Senior Pastor at Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church and an adjunct instructor in the Department of Religion. This upcoming semester will be his eleventh year as Senior Pastor and his twenty-third year as an adjunct professor, teaching several notable courses.

Pastor Tapp is married to Maureen Tapp, who worked as a nurse until she became disabled twelve years ago, and together, they have three lovely daughters – Maeling, Tiffany, and Victoria. When Pastor Tapp is not teaching or preaching, he enjoys gardening, playing tennis, and traveling. One of his biggest passions is music. He has a home recording studio in which he does some voice-over work, polite commercials and other smaller projects. He also has other passions for radio and, of course, teaching. These different passions came into focus during the course of his early life.

Charles Antoine Tapp was born in Evansville, Indiana and raised in a Baptist home. He had uncles who were Baptist pastors, but, he decided at a young age that this was not something he wanted to do and focused on becoming an engineer instead. So, Tapp studied to be an electrician in a dual high school. However, after becoming an Adventist in his junior year, he decided to go into the ministry his senior year and went on to Oakwood University to major in Theology and Accounting. While on campus, Tapp worked at the radio station, where he discovered his love for radio and after graduating from Oakwood, he conjointly pastored and worked at a radio station in New York for two years before attending Andrews University for graduate school.

It was at Andrews that Pastor Tapp discovered a passion for teaching after someone suggested he give it a try. Teaching younger audiences is something that he feels every pastor should try to experience. Learning how to teach in several different styles in an academy can help one to gain a ton of experience for preaching at the pulpit. “Every pastor, if you want to be a pastor in our church, should be teaching in an academy at least one year,” said Tapp. When he left Andrews, he received a call from the President of West Indies College in Jamaica and was offered a job to teach in their religion department and start a recording studio for the college. He accepted it, and in a couple of months, he became a full-time religion professor and media director at their college. It was after he had finished his time in Jamaica that he transferred to the Takoma Park area and started his ministry with Sligo SDA Church and WAU.

One of his fondest memories while teaching at WAU, took place around fifteen years ago, during his time as the pastor for young adults at Sligo. He had proposed the idea to start a class on prayer called the ‘Fundamentals of Prayer.’ This class was going to deal with the fundamental aspects of the Christian walk, a topic it seems was not yet offered at other Adventist institutions. “I think my first class had six students – I was jumping for joy,” exclaimed Tapp! “I didn’t think anybody was going to register for the class.” It became so popular over the next few years, that it got placed in the traditional program. This class is now a part of the regular curriculum; placed there this past year. Starting that class was memorable for him, and in that class, the fantastic projects that some of the students came up with have been equally as remarkable. Pastor Tapp admitted that one of them even brought him to tears. He was glad to see all these students excited about the topic of prayer.

Currently, Pastor Tapp hopes to introduce other potential courses to the curriculum that he will help young adults form a strong foundation upon which to rely on throughout their lives and relationships with God and others. He encourages his students to, “Come with an open mind, ready to learn, ready to share.” It is a learning experience for both the teacher and students and all are welcome to share their thoughts and beliefs. He is open to learning from others and believes that although there many similarities to people’s faith and a common ground. However, he makes it clear that you should, come ready to think [and] come ready to be challenged. Although he considers himself to be a shy person by nature, he is always interested in learning new things from his students. So, if you have not had the chance to meet him yet, his office is right across from Sligo SDA Church, so go drop by for a visit and please feel free to take some sweets from his candy container.