A Ministry Reignited: Ministry Associates Reflect on Shawn Boonstra’s Legacy at VOP

In 2013—84 years after H.M.S. Richards Sr. founded the Voice of Prophecy (VOP)—the ministry stood at a crossroads. Once over 100 staff members strong, it had dwindled to just 13 after years of confusion and administrative challenges. The team didn’t know what would happen next. But God did.

He was already tapping a man on the shoulder to lead the ministry in its newest chapter. Shawn Boonstra, who was working as an associate ministerial director of the North American Division and formerly had served as speaker/director of It Is Written, had been asked to consider if he’d lead VOP. 

Initially Boonstra hesitated, not sure he wanted to take on the task of rebuilding the ministry, but then he was impressed with the thought of resurrection morning. 

“I imagined meeting H.M.S. Richards,” he said, “and I couldn’t bear the thought that I turned down God’s invitation to help grow the ministry H.M.S. built.”

With this thought in mind, Boonstra accepted the invitation to become VOP’s fifth speaker/director in June 2013. His wife, Jean, joined him in leadership as associate speaker a month later. Soon also came Victor Pires, who had worked alongside Boonstra at It Is Written, and would now, as manager/treasurer, help his friend steer another ministry.

“We decided that the Bible School must always be cemented as VOP’s foundation, and upon the Bible School, we needed to establish evangelism and outreach.”

As summer turned to fall, Boonstra approached Pires with a mission.

“Shawn said to me, ‘Victor, I need to sit down with you. I’ve got to tell you what’s in my mind,’ ” Pires recounted excitedly.

Their following conversations were nothing short of pivotal for VOP.

Photo: Shawn Boonstra leads the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the grand opening of the relocated Voice of Prophecy headquarters in Loveland, Colorado. 2015. Victor Pires is behind Shawn, to the left; Kurt Johnson is two spots over to the right (in the dark blue shirt).

A New Vision

“We had a variety of meetings that lasted an hour, maybe a couple of hours, a day,” Pires described, “and they were all for the vision for a new Voice of Prophecy. For me, this was very significant: it was the transformation of the ministry. And God really saw to it.”

At the core of their discussions was the Discover Bible School, started at VOP in 1942 as the first national Seventh-day Adventist Bible correspondence school.

“We decided that the Bible School must always be cemented as VOP’s foundation, and upon the Bible School, we needed to establish evangelism and outreach,” Pires explained. “We now had a very real dream, a project, a sense of belonging—we had a journey to enter into.”

Like Pires, Kurt Johnson, who served as the Discover Bible School’s director for 25 years, remembers Boonstra’s appointment not only stabilizing the ministry, but also giving it renewed focus.

“Shawn helped grow the Bible School into becoming a necessity for churches to reach their communities,” Johnson said.

Under Boonstra’s leadership, the Bible School redesigned and updated the content of its signature Discover Bible Guides and their Spanish companion set, Descubra. It also began refreshing its Focus on Prophecy Bible lessons. In 2024, the Society of Adventist Communicators recognized the ministry’s redesigned Focus on Daniel study set with its top honor, the Award of Excellence. Also last year, the ministry released a set of doctrinal lessons for junior-aged kids, the Discovery Mountain Expedition Bible Guides. 

Today, the Bible School supports 2,800 local branches throughout North America. Churches across the globe utilize its lessons—a feat partially driven by Boonstra, who helped coordinate multiple Bible study translation efforts. 

By 2020, the Discover Bible Guides, already accessible in dozens of languages, were translated into 15 languages indigenous to India. Those same lessons were also recently translated into Inuktitut for the Inuit, a remote people group living in the Arctic. This particular project began years before Boonstra started leading VOP.

During Boonstra’s tenure as speaker/director of It Is Written, the ministry helped send 5,000 Inuktitut Bibles to the Inuit villages north of the Arctic Circle in Canada. At one point, Boonstra joined the distribution effort, which chartered a dogsled team to visit remote villages. Now Adventist groups in these villages need Inuktitut Bible lessons to further share the Gospel with their neighbors. VOP answered the call. For years, Boonstra and other team members have worked tirelessly to find a stable translator and ensure language accuracy. 

Photo: Shawn on the It Is Written dogsled trip to deliver Inuktitut Bibles to Igloolik, Nunavut.

Having grown up in northern British Columbia, Boonstra is famously fond of cold and isolated parts of the world. He also carries a unique love for spreading the Gospel in difficult places—whether they are difficult because of their historical resistance to Christianity or, simply, because they are hard to physically reach.

“Shawn loved to go to the most difficult cities and preach.”

Boonstra helped anchor VOP in “bringing people to Jesus,” according to Johnson, who actually met Boonstra in 2001 during a Bible school development campaign in Canada. Boonstra, then speaker for It Is Written Canada, was preparing to preach a satellite evangelistic series. He and Johnson traveled across the continent together helping churches set up local Bible schools to obtain students they could invite to the series. 

Boonstra’s positive experience with the Discover Bible School at the turn of the millennium encouraged him to lead VOP more than a decade later.

Preaching Without Ceasing

Today, some of Johnson’s favorite memories of working alongside Boonstra include spreading the Gospel through evangelistic series. As VOP’s speaker/director, Boonstra presented Revelation Speaks Peace (RSP), his own full-message evangelistic series, in several cities—most recently in Calgary, Alberta. 

Johnson recalled God changing hundreds of lives through Boonstra’s RSP meetings in Indianapolis (2014) and Minneapolis (2015). Justin Lyons, now manager/treasurer of VOP, was president of the Minnesota Conference when the ministry held RSP in Minneapolis.

“At the end of 2015, the Minnesota Conference had its highest annual count of baptisms and professions of faith ever to that point in time,” Lyons said. “As follow-up continued the next year, the number of people connecting through baptisms and professions was at 97% of the record year. The Lord blessed!”

Eight years later, Lyons helped organize RSP in Calgary. He remembers the series’ dramatic altar call—in fact, it’s his favorite memory of working with Boonstra—and the hundreds of people who came forward to give their lives to Christ.

For Lyons’ predecessor, Boonstra’s altar calls also created touching memories.

“It’s just momentous,” Pires described. “In Seattle, Shawn’s doing an altar call, and all of a sudden you have a third of the audience walking toward the stage. And that is a moment when you say to yourself, ‘Wow.’ Because that is not the expectation. Shawn loved to go to the most difficult cities and preach.”

Photo: Shawn presenting RSP in Seattle. 2017.

Photo: Shawn praying with an attendee at RSP Seattle. 2017.

Boonstra delivers the Good News in a powerful way that deeply resonates with people, said Don Livesay, a retired pastor and church administrator who serves on VOP’s executive committee.

“You know he’s really getting into the message when the shoes slip off and he preaches stocking-footed,” he added, chuckling. (The discomfort of shoes, Boonstra has shared, is a thorn in a preacher’s side.)

Livesay witnessed Boonstra present RSP in Portland in 2008. Livesay, who was then the Oregon Conference president, remembers the audience only growing in size each night, with both newcomers and Adventists commenting on the novelty of the preaching. One attending church member told Livesay: “It’s so good to hear the Advent message. I haven’t heard it preached in a long time, and it’s a wonderful message.”

Yet it wasn’t just Boonstra’s passion and impact that stood out to Livesay; he was awestruck by the evangelist’s preparation and work ethic. 

“Shawn spent himself for the Gospel,” Livesay said, “and there aren’t very many people who are willing to do that.”

Livesay saw Boonstra’s extreme dedication continue at VOP, where he was intent on not only preaching, but also preparing others to answer the Great Commission.

“Shawn brought the philosophy that everything we do is evangelism. The Voice of Prophecy’s job is to provide tools for the local church—to help them grow and lead people to studying the Bible.”

“Even though he is a profoundly gifted preacher,” Livesay noted, “Shawn is also cognizant that the equipping of a local individual is essential to spread the message in any location.”

Equipping the World

A key element of Boonstra’s mission as VOP’s speaker/director was empowering others to share their faith. He did that, in part, by strengthening the Bible School, coaching church leaders in the cities where he preached, and heading the development of Discovering Revelation, a 24-session evangelistic event based on RSP and designed for local churches. 

Using his personal sermons and decades of experience, Boonstra worked vigorously alongside his ministry team to create scripts, training materials, promotional items, and slides for Discovering Revelation—all to equip local presenters to confidently and effectively reveal the inspiring truths of Bible prophecy to their communities. The comprehensive event premiered in 2020.

“Shawn brought the philosophy that everything we do is evangelism,” Johnson said. “The Voice of Prophecy’s job is to provide tools for the local church—to help them grow and lead people to studying the Bible. Everything we did was evaluated by whether or not we were seeing people make decisions for Jesus.”

With Boonstra at the helm, VOP also created several highly engaging shorter events to help churches bring people through their doors. More than 2,000 churches across the continent have hosted Shadow Empire, A Pale Horse Rides, The Appearing, Final Empire, The Serpentine Prophecy, and MindFit—each between three and five sessions long. Several have won Telly Awards; MindFit, a series about mental health released in 2024, won three this year.

Photo: Shawn reading his script during filming for Shadow Empire. About 2015.

“VOP has produced numerous bridge events that local churches use to attract the spiritual interest of seekers,” explained Rick Remmers, assistant to the president at the North American Division. “This has served to multiply by hundreds the impact of the ministry. Shawn Boonstra’s vision and passion for sharing the Gospel with secular-minded people has revitalized VOP and, by the Holy Spirit’s power, brought transformation and hope to countless people.”

But Boonstra’s work was not motivated solely by the value of multiplying ministry by equipping others. He profoundly empathizes with local church leaders.

During his younger years, Boonstra served as a local pastor. In his attempts to reach people, he often felt overburdened, underprepared, stretched too thin—lonely, even. Decades later, as VOP’s speaker/director, this experience inspired him to befriend and mentor several pastors, organize evangelism boot camps, and hold conventions like the believe conference (2019) and the Summit Leadership Conference (2024), multi-day training events designed to provide church leaders with proven evangelistic tools and refresh them through fellowship with people facing similar challenges.

Tony Anobile, vice president for Church Ministries at the Southwestern Union Conference and VOP executive committee member, described Boonstra’s unique drive to strengthen local ministers as “franchising VOP.”

“The idea was that VOP will be a resource and available 24 hours a day to help you—the local pastor, the local elder, or a layperson—be successful in your part of the world, to do it yourself,” Anobile said. “That was visionary: it was teaching people how to fish.”

When discussing how Boonstra helped transform VOP, Anobile also emphasized the ministry’s humanitarian efforts, such as the rehabilitation home in India that VOP helped establish with Child Impact International. The home has helped dozens of young girls rescued from human trafficking, offering them safety, job training, and support of all kinds. 

“What a great vision—to be engaged in things that are very tangibly affecting lives,” Anobile reflected, “getting them out of bad places, dark places, and providing them with a future and a great hope.”

From One Heathen to Another

Like Remmers, Anobile also mentioned Boonstra’s heart for sharing the Gospel with those living outside of Christianity.

“Shawn has a special feel for the non-Adventist. All throughout his journey with me, he would talk about his friends. He would talk about those who did not know Christ.”

“Because Shawn didn’t grow up in Adventism, his approach to evangelism made it a priority to not offend people,” added Anobile, “and that was a fresh approach.”

Pires explained that Boonstra’s greatest concern is helping everyone he comes in contact with to know that Jesus is real.

“Shawn has a special feel for the non-Adventist,” Pires said. “All throughout his journey with me, he would talk about his friends. He would talk about those who did not know Christ.”

Boonstra’s life is permeated with conversations about and with people who have not yet accepted Jesus—and, of course, with “recovering heathens,” a term he often uses to describe himself as someone who was not always Christian and still grapples with his faith.

“When Shawn came into Adventism, he felt stuck in the middle with nowhere to fit in, and I think that allowed him to resonate with individuals seeking truth, because his message was never condescending,” Anobile observed. “It was, ‘Hey, I’ve been where you’re at, and I know the struggle, because I’m still kind of struggling. I believe in the message. I believe in the church. But I’m not a fifth-generation Adventist, so I’m not sure where I fit.’ 

“I think people can relate to that,” he continued, “and that’s one of the qualities that made him such a successful evangelist for the Voice of Prophecy.”

Boonstra never attempted to project perfection or saintly wholeness in his demeanor or leadership. He understood that his target audience was more likely to embrace the Gospel if they clearly saw how much he needed Jesus, too—every single day.

Boonstra used his testimony, evangelistic experiences, and vast biblical knowledge to help VOP create time-tested outreach tools for churches. These included a workable model for the cycle of evangelism (viewable at EvangelismCycle.com) and bridge events expertly designed to intrigue people whom the Holy Spirit had already been working on, gently nudging them through church doors. Boonstra’s leadership also steered the ministry’s upcoming evangelistic video series, Silenced: The Untold Human Story. 

This four-part docuseries, hosted by Boonstra, will dig into primeval history and the mysteries of buried civilizations, uncovering a host of shocking similarities between some of the first stories ever told and the book of Genesis. Boonstra aims for churches to use Silenced to point their communities to Scripture.

Encouraging people to read the Bible always stood as a core pillar of Boonstra’s mission at VOP. Viewers and listeners of Authentic, the ministry’s flagship TV and audio show, know that each episode is likely to end with Boonstra giving a call to Bible study—something like “I’m daring you to read this Book,” or “Head on over to BibleStudies.com,” or “I challenge you to read your way through the whole Bible sometime.”

A New Media Age

Authentic, now having finished its ninth season, began airing more than four years ago. An avid reader of Scripture, history, and philosophy, Boonstra combined his passions and speaking experience to host over 100 episodes centered upon humanity’s deepest questions and our knack for failure, as well as heaven’s radical remedy. Hundreds of thousands have found the show via TV stations like 3ABN, podcast platforms, and social media (particularly YouTube). 

Before Authentic there was Disclosure, a talk show that aired from 2016 to 2021 and explored Scripture in light of current events and trends. Jean joined her husband as a host of Disclosure, and they sometimes interviewed guests with fascinating testimonies or perspectives on Christian life. Jean also used her writing talents and passion for children’s ministry to create Discovery Mountain, an audio adventure series for children.

“Shawn made VOP programming simple. He made it practical. He brought in video as well as audio.”

Now eight years old, Discovery Mountain recently marked its thirty-third season. Families around the globe have grown to love its exciting, relatable stories and solid biblical content. The show received more than 1.5 million downloads on podcast platforms last year and now averages 5,200 downloads each day. From its conception on a shoestring budget to its current success, Boonstra never stopped keenly supporting Discovery Mountain. He’s even had a semi-regular role on the show as Chaplain Simon.

In the past year, both Authentic and Discovery Mountain premiered on Pray.com, one of the world’s leading apps for faith-based media content, drawing in a large batch of new listeners.

According to Anobile, Boonstra helped usher in a new media age at VOP—never abandoning the ministry’s radio legacy, but honoring it while also updating the production methods and content to align with the ways people are currently consuming media.

“He made VOP programming simple. He made it practical,” Anobile noted. “He brought in video as well as audio. I think Discovery Mountain will likely be one of the greatest legacies of the ministry. There’s no stopping this thing. It’s wonderful, and it meets a need.”

“Shawn has been in tune with where media reaches people,” Livesay added, “so he adapted and perfected the ministry’s methods of touching people’s lives through online programs.”

However, Livesay clarified, Boonstra always recognized that VOP should not be, first and foremost, a “media ministry.” Instead, Boonstra utilized media as a tool—he hosted shows, produced video series, and wrote books—all to equip his ever-growing audience of listeners, watchers, and readers to dive into Scripture themselves and share what they learned with others.

Turning the Page

During his 12 years as speaker/director of VOP, Boonstra led the ministry during its monumental move from Simi Valley, California, to Loveland, Colorado. He helped operations continue through the COVID-19 pandemic. He renewed VOP’s focus on evangelism, and his fresh ideas helped the ministry connect with new audiences and empowered churches to connect with their communities. Through it all, Boonstra maintained the Bible School as VOP’s foundation and strived to connect every person touched by the ministry with Jesus.

“Shawn understood that the Three Angels’ Messages cannot be preached by evangelists alone . . . it had to be preached by every one of us, and so the Voice of Prophecy was molded to satisfy that need.”

He left the ministry in May with a revived legacy of “equipping the world for Christ to come”—VOP’s official motto. Due to its open rebellion against the devil’s plans, VOP will never be free of struggle. But its resilient team continues to support churches, lead people to God’s Word, and audaciously seek the Lord’s help and guidance in all things.

Photo: The VOP team celebrates the 95th anniversary of the ministry. October 2024.

“Shawn was pivotal in transforming VOP, but he also had a great ability to rely on the people that God brought to the ministry,” Pires shared. “Part of the success of VOP’s journey with Shawn was not only God’s vision through Shawn and our application of that vision, but the people that God brought to the ministry who embraced the vision and walked with us every day.”

The Discover Bible School is growing—in just the first five months of 2025, it saw nearly 3,600 new requests for Bible studies. Discovery Mountain continues to reach more and more young people. The Inuktitut Discover Bible Guides are nearly complete.

“Shawn understood that the Three Angels’ Messages cannot be preached by evangelists alone, or even by pastors alone,” Pires said, “that it had to be preached by every one of us, and so the Voice of Prophecy was molded to satisfy that need.”

The VOP family will miss Boonstra—his desk covered in books, his authentic spirit, and his fire for the Lord. Yet the ministry is excited to see how he’ll continue to serve God as an associate editor for the Adventist Review.

“Shawn’s departure did come as something of a surprise to me,” Lyons admitted. “But God was not surprised. He has carried this ministry forward for over 95 years. I’m excited for the future—to see what God will do next.”