Introduction: Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Welcome to Exploring Missions, connecting mission needs with those equipped by God to meet those needs across the world or across town. And now, the host of Exploring Missions, Bert Harper.
Bert Harper: We get excited about the book of Acts, and in chapter two, we call it the Holy Spirit falling and coming upon the church on the day of Pentecost. But who was there was amazing, and I just want to read chapter two, verse 10, and it is amazing that there were people there from Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes. Did you hear Libya? Did you hear that, Egypt? The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. And when it goes forth, no matter where, I want to tell you, the power of God follows. This is Bert Harper along with Nathan Harper, and you're listening to Exploring Missions here on American Family Radio. And Nathan, we have a special guest today, and I have to admit, when we're connected with our guest, it makes it a little extra energy and kind of exciting, doesn't it?
Nathan Harper: Oh yeah, definitely. And brings back a lot of memories, and so the challenge is for me not to reminisce and go back too far and think of all the good times that have been had with some of our guests. They would be interesting for us, but I think boring for everybody else. So, we won't go there.
Bert Harper: Well, introduce—introduce our guest today, Nathan. You can do that.
Nathan Harper: Yeah, so we have a special guest with us today. His name is John Boler, and John is just a wonderful friend, a faithful brother in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's just a tremendous example for a lot of people of what it means to follow Jesus, what it means to minister in the name of Jesus. And he is that for me as well. And we go back to Blue Mountain Christian University back when it was actually Blue Mountain College. And we had to get out of there, John, before they made it a university. Did you notice that? But—
John Boler: Yes.
Nathan Harper: —but John and his family are serving the Lord in Tupelo, Mississippi at Calvary Baptist Church. John is the pastor there. And not just a wonderful pastor, but also a great preacher and teacher of God's word, but he lives it out. So, when you hear from John today, you're hearing from someone who it's real and genuine, whatever he's going to tell you. And so, John, thank you so much for being with us today, brother.
John Boler: Nathan, thank you. Brother Bert, thank you for the the opportunity. It's always good to talk about missions. It's even better to talk about it among friends.
Bert Harper: Amen. And let me just share, that voice sounds familiar. You those of you that listen to Exploring the Word, the other program I do daily, John has co-hosted with me there, and we look forward to him co-hosting in the future. But today on Exploring Missions, we wanted to talk about a recent mission trip that he was involved in, and talk about that because we want people to know, yes, you do missions where you are. In Calvary Baptist Church, with John being the pastor, they do local missions here in Tupelo, Mississippi. I've observed it, I know it, I hear about it. But they also have a vision for the world. And this vision for the world, John, has led you recently on a mission trip. Tell us about where and when, and tell us a little bit about that.
John Boler: Well, recently, we just got back from Malawi, Africa. And I was introduced to Malawi in 2023. I had not been at Calvary too long at that time, and we were praying for more opportunities to impact nations globally. We've got a lot of ministries taking place locally. At the time, we had some ministries that were taking place in the continental United States. But following the Acts 1:8—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost—we began to pray about opportunities to go international. And a ministry called Church Missions Network, which is a friend of mine is a part of that ministry, gave me the opportunity to go on a vision trip in 2023. This was end of January, first of February. About six or eight local pastors, ministers from the state of Mississippi, a couple of them from Texas. We flew over there and spent a couple of days in Zambia, and then, which is just to the west of Malawi, and then crossed the border and went into Malawi. And that has—I've been different places all over the world, the Philippines, and Ukraine, and Israel, and Peru, and—but Malawi's is different. Malawi is a very impoverished country, one of the poorest in the entire world, but one that is the most open for the gospel. So when I came home after that, began to talk with our staff, and this was in February of 2023, we had a team from Calvary there October of 2023 and have taken a team every year since then. So just returning, that would have been my fifth trip, fourth team that we've led. And we're going to continue to go until God closes that door and see what the Lord does. One of our main focus there in Malawi is working to get churches into the villages. Malawi's about 20 million people. It's about the size of the state of Tennessee, but Malawi, one-third of Malawi is a lake. So if you take out part of that, you've got 20 million people in a very closed area. There are churches in some of the major cities, but getting out to the villages where there is no transportation to come, truly living off the land, we've got to go reach them with the gospel. And to be able to go to someone and share Jesus and they've never—they've nobody's ever told them, still in 2026, it blows my mind to think that, but that's absolutely true. So the main thing that we do is evangelize and go to these villages with the mission to plant a church, so that when we come back home, it's continuing. And we have seen fruit from that over the last three or four years, even going back to churches that we started two and three years ago to come back and to see that. That is—that's a tremendous blessing.
Nathan Harper: So John, let me ask you this. And many of us are part of churches, and each of the churches that we are all a part of are probably at different levels when it comes to either understanding the biblical mandate to carry the good news of Jesus into all the earth, and not just understanding that, but being involved in actually actively engaging in that mission. Where would you say Calvary was when you kind of landed there? And what sort of vision-casting did you do even toward just these trips to Malawi, even just taking that as a specific example? What sort of Bible teaching or inspiring, motivating—did you have to talk people into doing this? What was that like, John?
John Boler: So Calvary has always been a a strong mission-minded church. They have served overseas before. They have served locally. So when I came in, I didn't—thankfully, I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I did not have to create a mission culture. It was already there. When I came in 2021, a lot of the mission opportunities, the doors had closed because of COVID.
Nathan Harper: Right. Yes.
John Boler: And either we were going to have to re-engage or re-evaluate some of our other ministries, or see if there are any new doors that are opening. And, you know, when you have a a new minister come in and even some additional staff, some of the previous ministries may have been the work of a previous staff member. And when God calls someone to a different place, sometimes those doors continue to stay open; sometimes they close. But for me personally, as a pastor, I wanted something that I could be involved in because I believe the key to being a missional church, it starts with a missional pastor and a missional staff. So it has been my desire every year to go on a mission trip somewhere, if it's international, or if it's in the States, but to be able to live and be an example of what we're trying to lead our church to do. So Malawi opened up, and I didn't know four years from now, three and a half years from now, that I would have been five times. I think if you'd have told me that, I'd said, "You—you're crazy. You know how long it takes to get over there and how long it takes to recover from a trip?"
Bert Harper: Yeah, I gotta ask. Is there a straight flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Malawi?
John Boler: No. No, there's not. But we we do have a good way. It's still a long way over there, but God has blessed. And so I just came on board of a missional church, and hopefully what we're doing is growing that and expanding that. You never get settled in missions. There's always something else.
Bert Harper: Connecting that, Nathan, with history at Calvary Baptist Church, they were the mother church that planted West Jackson Street Baptist Church, where I was before I came here to AFR. I was there for over 30 years with youth ministry and pastorate as well. And appreciated Calvary and their goal and their mission and doing the history of it. Calvary had that already in their DNA.
John Boler: That's right.
Bert Harper: That DNA is strong, and if a church doesn't have it, it's sometimes difficult. And I agree with John, and I want you to speak to it, Nathan, first. The pastor leading the way, and just let me give a testimony. I with Nathan, John, he served on staff at West Jackson Street Baptist Church where I was pastor, he where he grew up and he came back and served on staff, and he helped his dad and his pastor have a vision of the world.
John Boler: That's right.
Bert Harper: And Nathan, that started early in your heart and your life. Again, we're not going to go back for memories, but God can use other people to help a pastor become missional. So we may be talking to some people, and I want you to speak to it if you would, Nathan, and then then to John. They're missional, they're minded, but their pastor's kind of okay, he's a little bit more narrow than he needs to be. How did you encourage me to become missional in your heart, doing it and sharing it? And part of it was you laying it on me, saying, "Do we need to do this?" Would you speak to that and then ask John how he does that?
Nathan Harper: Well, I don't know if I really can speak to it very in-depth, but one thing that's kind of in my mind is simply seeing, John, you mentioned Acts 1:8, and just seeing that you can break that apart into parts of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the world, the ends of the earth. Or you can just simply just say, "Hey, there's local work we're a part of, and then there's global work that we're a part of." Some people have even put those two words together and coined a word like "glocal," as hard as that might be to to say. But the idea is that missions both locally, wherever you are located, and globally, somewhere if you want to just say overseas or across a border from you, then both of those are to be done like simultaneously at the same time. You don't do one and when you master it, you move on to the other. They're both to be engaged with at the same time. And then they both inform the other. So you learn from your local missions of what to do or sometimes what not to do on the global mission field, and then vice versa. And so, I guess that's a one starting point is just that having that Acts 1:8 vision. But John, I am curious, there might be a pastor listening right now who is either in a local church that's not like Calvary was, not already geared for missions, or maybe the pastor himself just doesn't have any experience or exposure to that. What would you say to a pastor like that who's maybe serving in a church where they sort of have to invent the wheel to a degree, or at least dive into scripture? I'm assuming I know you, that's probably where you're going to go is talk about God's word, but what else? What would you say to a pastor like that?
John Boler: Well, scripturally, it would certainly be in—into the word of God to have a missional heart to begin with. But let me just give some—some practical ways. So every pastor wants to see their local church grow, they want to see spiritual fruit in their local church, they want to see a difference in their local community. We love going to Malawi. We embrace the 18-hour flight home in just one leg and that count on the other ones. But we come back home and want to see the difference in our own local community. So I would encourage a pastor who may be listening, you know, there's—they—you know, I've heard it say sometimes, you know, "There's lost people in Tupelo. There's lost people in this city or that city. Why go all the way to Malawi?" Well, I—I don't think you look at it through that lens where it's this area is more important than that area. I think the Lord died for people. But one of the things that changes your heart is when you go to a different context and see things a little differently. We go to be a blessing to the people of Malawi. It's the warm heart of Africa, but we come back so blessed ourself.
And as a pastor, if you want to get people to see a vision where some of the things that we may struggle with here—if you go to Malawi, you realize that's not a major issue in life—it helps people to—to see things from a different perspective. And as a pastor, when you have three years behind you, and four years behind you, and five years behind you, and you're beginning a sixth year and you're continuing to go to places, you begin to look at your congregation and now 10% of your congregation has been on an international mission trip in the last five years. In two or three years from now, it may be up to 15 to 20%. And if you continue to invest in international missions, you begin to have a congregation where most everyone has a passport, and a lot of them have been international. It changes.
So if there's a pastor there, my encouragement and how to get involved: take a vision trip. There are organizations—I'm a Baptist, so International Mission Board, Church Missions Network—the churches that we're starting are Baptist in nature. But whatever your denomination may be, there are vision trips where you just go and see, and see if there's an opportunity or a door that is opened where you come back home and, "Hey, this is what I believe God's leading us to do." And there, you know, for Calvary, our international focus right now is Malawi. In the States, it's Yreka, California and some other things locally. But we can't change the world, but we're trying to change the world that God has us, and that's a huge difference. So you look at it not where there's lost people everywhere—there is—but wherever God opens the door, wherever he—we sing the song, "Where He Leads, I'll Go." And that's been our mission.
Bert Harper: The benefit of going back to the same country. Nathan and I experienced that as we were teaming up to go, and I would go and, you know, use my gifts in that ministry, and then Nathan would follow up and use his gifts in that area, which is better in discipleship in small groups. But the benefit of going back, do you see the growth? And what does that do? Does it add fuel to your fire when you see what you've done last year and the benefits of it when you go back?
John Boler: Absolutely. One of the biggest encouragements—so our local missionary there, his name is McLean, has invested and discipled so many young men to be pastors. And when we go, a lot of these pastors are our translators. Chichewa is not a gift of language that I have, so I have to have a translator along with the rest of our team. My first year that I went—in fact, the first two or three years that I went—I had a young pastor who just touched my heart, we hit it off, and he was great encouragement to me. Well, the last two years, he has not been my translator, because he's not just a local pastor, he is leading the entire field mission ministry in the whole country of Zambia. And he actually came back for our team when I left a couple of weeks ago and I came back a couple of weeks ago, because his sister—he's from Malawi—his sister's getting married, so I got to see him. But to see from a—a local disciple pastor now God's using him, and to see the other pastors that I know, that we've been in their churches, we've shared the gospel with them, we've gone village by village, it is—we know them by name. We communicate not just while we're there—through technology and the internet, praise the Lord, we can communicate and be an encouragement to them as they are an encouragement to us. So next time we go back, we—we know people. We know our translators, we know the church that we're working with that will help us and encourage us. And they want to see us because they say we encourage them. I say, "Yeah, we may, but no, no, no, you encourage us." You encourage us.
Nathan Harper: So John, give us a little bit of the actual specifics, maybe from this trip or even previous trips, that you and your church as you've gone to Malawi and you've built a partnership, and you've returned and seen growth. You mentioned church planting, you may have briefly touched on pastor training or leadership training. What are some of the ins and outs of things that you do, just boots on the ground, when your group is there? What are the day-in, day-out activities that you guys are a part of?
John Boler: That's a good question. So our organization that we partner with is called Church Missions Network. They are currently in nine different countries in Southeast Africa. They have some ministries in El Salvador and a couple other places, but primarily in Southeast Africa. In Malawi, when we bring a team, there's a couple of different things that you can do. I've known some other teams that have come in and have done some medical ministry. Our teams that we've taken have been primarily evangelism teams. So we'll—we will spend three or four days when we get there and we get a good night's sleep and we get up the next day, we will drive out to these villages that the local pastors that I mentioned a few minutes ago, they've done some of the groundwork. They've gotten permission from the chief to come in to their village and evangelize. So we will go hut-to-hut and share the gospel with our desire to—to plant a church.
Training pastors is a big part of the mission in Malawi, but also in the other countries there in Southeast Africa. So when we go to plant a church or to help, McLean and the local missionary there and pastor has already got someone when we leave, they're going to be there that Sunday. It may be the next pastor, it may be another pastor who is going to help get the church started. So we'll go hut-to-hut and evangelize. We'll do this for three or four days.
Two things that we do that helps with that is we have, for the last two years during Vacation Bible School, children—we take up an offering and it's dimes and quarters and sometimes dollar bills, but we collect all of that and we take it to Malawi to help feed the orphans and widows. Straight out of the New Testament. That helps draw a crowd to where we can give us an open opportunity to share the gospel, so we do a couple of orphan feedings in the afternoon.
But the biggest thing that we come alongside to do is soccer evangelism. Soccer is huge! It's football—we call it soccer here in America—it's huge in Africa. And if there's a soccer game in a village, I have not seen a crowd less than a thousand people. This past year, there were two to three thousand people. So we come in, McLean's got brand new soccer balls. They—we brought them, but we didn't give them out. Everything that we do goes through the church. So we've got brand new soccer balls, the community is there, and at halftime, we get to share the gospel. And you talk about in an open field, we do have a sound system to share the gospel with a couple of thousand people, and to see those hands—not every hand is raised, there's people that will listen, there's people that won't—but to see those hands raised, but not just for evangelism, but at the end, to have them sign up to say, "I want to be a part of local church," that is something that we do as well. So those are your three or four main things that we do from our trips.
Bert Harper: Soccer, football! I mean, it is the national—we just got through with the World Cup here in the United States, and you remember the movie Field of Dreams, "Build it and they'll come." Bring a soccer ball to a Malawi and other places like that, and you'll have a crowd.
John Boler: It—it is, because—and when we go to these villages, so when you go to a village, you have to have permission from the chief to be able to evangelize. What we've seen the Lord do is the chief at certain villages is reaching out to McLean, "Can you come?" Because the soccer has helped reduce the crime, has given the kids something to do. So word has spread, "Can you come to our village? Can you bring your soccer team?" Well, we sure can, here's the stipulation: we're going to share the gospel at halftime. And it's been neat to see that's been the foundation to get these churches to—kind of the life to get these churches started, is—is through soccer. And we love our football here in America and baseball, but it doesn't compare to soccer in Africa, I can tell you that.
Bert Harper: Go ahead, Nathan.
Nathan Harper: Yeah, so we're kind of wrapping up our time with John Boler. He's pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. And John, you've mentioned Church Missions Network. Their website is churchmissionsnetwork.org. But either through that network or, as you mentioned earlier, taking vision trips with maybe your own denomination or a network that you might be a part of, going back to that pastor or church leader who is just maybe scratching the surface when it comes to leading a people into God's global redemptive mission around the world somewhere, that God has an open door for that congregation, that people to serve internationally—just a maybe 30, 45 seconds of encouragement for that leader, for that pastor, what would you tell someone like that?
John Boler: So, absolutely. Church Missions Network is an organization that, you know, I had a friend that introduced me to that, so it's something that I am encouraged by because it's not just a friend of mine, it's not just a local missionary that is there, but it is an organization that is continuing to grow and to reach more people, and is open for other people to come alongside. If that's a—if the Lord's leading you that way, there's vision trips that the Lord can lead you, whether it's Malawi, or Zambia, or Kenya, or other parts of Southeast—Southeast Africa. I mentioned El Salvador as well. International Mission Board through the Southern Baptist Convention is another big way to connect churches with ministers or ministries.
And so that—that would be my prayer, is to—is to make a phone call. Look at a website and see where the Lord may be leading you, and I promise you, if you pray to have an open door for missions, the Lord will open that door. It's not a question whether the Lord's going to open it, it's the question: will we be obedient to walk through it?
Bert Harper: John, thank you for being with us. Thank you for sharing your purpose, your vision, and your goal. And we want you who are listening to have a vision for the world. "God so loved the world that he gave his Son." Let's love the world and go on mission to tell people about Jesus. Thank you for listening to Exploring Missions, and may you be blessed as you follow Christ.
Introduction: Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Welcome to Exploring Missions, connecting mission needs with those equipped by God to meet those needs across the world or across town. And now, the host of Exploring Missions, Bert Harper.
Bert Harper: We get excited about the book of Acts, and in chapter two, we call it the Holy Spirit falling and coming upon the church on the day of Pentecost. But who was there was amazing, and I just want to read chapter two, verse 10, and it is amazing that there were people there from Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes. Did you hear Libya? Did you hear that, Egypt? The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. And when it goes forth, no matter where, I want to tell you, the power of God follows. This is Bert Harper along with Nathan Harper, and you're listening to Exploring Missions here on American Family Radio. And Nathan, we have a special guest today, and I have to admit, when we're connected with our guest, it makes it a little extra energy and kind of exciting, doesn't it?
Nathan Harper: Oh yeah, definitely. And brings back a lot of memories, and so the challenge is for me not to reminisce and go back too far and think of all the good times that have been had with some of our guests. They would be interesting for us, but I think boring for everybody else. So, we won't go there.
Bert Harper: Well, introduce—introduce our guest today, Nathan. You can do that.
Nathan Harper: Yeah, so we have a special guest with us today. His name is John Boler, and John is just a wonderful friend, a faithful brother in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's just a tremendous example for a lot of people of what it means to follow Jesus, what it means to minister in the name of Jesus. And he is that for me as well. And we go back to Blue Mountain Christian University back when it was actually Blue Mountain College. And we had to get out of there, John, before they made it a university. Did you notice that? But—
John Boler: Yes.
Nathan Harper: —but John and his family are serving the Lord in Tupelo, Mississippi at Calvary Baptist Church. John is the pastor there. And not just a wonderful pastor, but also a great preacher and teacher of God's word, but he lives it out. So, when you hear from John today, you're hearing from someone who it's real and genuine, whatever he's going to tell you. And so, John, thank you so much for being with us today, brother.
John Boler: Nathan, thank you. Brother Bert, thank you for the the opportunity. It's always good to talk about missions. It's even better to talk about it among friends.
Bert Harper: Amen. And let me just share, that voice sounds familiar. You those of you that listen to Exploring the Word, the other program I do daily, John has co-hosted with me there, and we look forward to him co-hosting in the future. But today on Exploring Missions, we wanted to talk about a recent mission trip that he was involved in, and talk about that because we want people to know, yes, you do missions where you are. In Calvary Baptist Church, with John being the pastor, they do local missions here in Tupelo, Mississippi. I've observed it, I know it, I hear about it. But they also have a vision for the world. And this vision for the world, John, has led you recently on a mission trip. Tell us about where and when, and tell us a little bit about that.
John Boler: Well, recently, we just got back from Malawi, Africa. And I was introduced to Malawi in 2023. I had not been at Calvary too long at that time, and we were praying for more opportunities to impact nations globally. We've got a lot of ministries taking place locally. At the time, we had some ministries that were taking place in the continental United States. But following the Acts 1:8—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost—we began to pray about opportunities to go international. And a ministry called Church Missions Network, which is a friend of mine is a part of that ministry, gave me the opportunity to go on a vision trip in 2023. This was end of January, first of February. About six or eight local pastors, ministers from the state of Mississippi, a couple of them from Texas. We flew over there and spent a couple of days in Zambia, and then, which is just to the west of Malawi, and then crossed the border and went into Malawi. And that has—I've been different places all over the world, the Philippines, and Ukraine, and Israel, and Peru, and—but Malawi's is different. Malawi is a very impoverished country, one of the poorest in the entire world, but one that is the most open for the gospel. So when I came home after that, began to talk with our staff, and this was in February of 2023, we had a team from Calvary there October of 2023 and have taken a team every year since then. So just returning, that would have been my fifth trip, fourth team that we've led. And we're going to continue to go until God closes that door and see what the Lord does. One of our main focus there in Malawi is working to get churches into the villages. Malawi's about 20 million people. It's about the size of the state of Tennessee, but Malawi, one-third of Malawi is a lake. So if you take out part of that, you've got 20 million people in a very closed area. There are churches in some of the major cities, but getting out to the villages where there is no transportation to come, truly living off the land, we've got to go reach them with the gospel. And to be able to go to someone and share Jesus and they've never—they've nobody's ever told them, still in 2026, it blows my mind to think that, but that's absolutely true. So the main thing that we do is evangelize and go to these villages with the mission to plant a church, so that when we come back home, it's continuing. And we have seen fruit from that over the last three or four years, even going back to churches that we started two and three years ago to come back and to see that. That is—that's a tremendous blessing.
Nathan Harper: So John, let me ask you this. And many of us are part of churches, and each of the churches that we are all a part of are probably at different levels when it comes to either understanding the biblical mandate to carry the good news of Jesus into all the earth, and not just understanding that, but being involved in actually actively engaging in that mission. Where would you say Calvary was when you kind of landed there? And what sort of vision-casting did you do even toward just these trips to Malawi, even just taking that as a specific example? What sort of Bible teaching or inspiring, motivating—did you have to talk people into doing this? What was that like, John?
John Boler: So Calvary has always been a a strong mission-minded church. They have served overseas before. They have served locally. So when I came in, I didn't—thankfully, I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I did not have to create a mission culture. It was already there. When I came in 2021, a lot of the mission opportunities, the doors had closed because of COVID.
Nathan Harper: Right. Yes.
John Boler: And either we were going to have to re-engage or re-evaluate some of our other ministries, or see if there are any new doors that are opening. And, you know, when you have a a new minister come in and even some additional staff, some of the previous ministries may have been the work of a previous staff member. And when God calls someone to a different place, sometimes those doors continue to stay open; sometimes they close. But for me personally, as a pastor, I wanted something that I could be involved in because I believe the key to being a missional church, it starts with a missional pastor and a missional staff. So it has been my desire every year to go on a mission trip somewhere, if it's international, or if it's in the States, but to be able to live and be an example of what we're trying to lead our church to do. So Malawi opened up, and I didn't know four years from now, three and a half years from now, that I would have been five times. I think if you'd have told me that, I'd said, "You—you're crazy. You know how long it takes to get over there and how long it takes to recover from a trip?"
Bert Harper: Yeah, I gotta ask. Is there a straight flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Malawi?
John Boler: No. No, there's not. But we we do have a good way. It's still a long way over there, but God has blessed. And so I just came on board of a missional church, and hopefully what we're doing is growing that and expanding that. You never get settled in missions. There's always something else.
Bert Harper: Connecting that, Nathan, with history at Calvary Baptist Church, they were the mother church that planted West Jackson Street Baptist Church, where I was before I came here to AFR. I was there for over 30 years with youth ministry and pastorate as well. And appreciated Calvary and their goal and their mission and doing the history of it. Calvary had that already in their DNA.
John Boler: That's right.
Bert Harper: That DNA is strong, and if a church doesn't have it, it's sometimes difficult. And I agree with John, and I want you to speak to it, Nathan, first. The pastor leading the way, and just let me give a testimony. I with Nathan, John, he served on staff at West Jackson Street Baptist Church where I was pastor, he where he grew up and he came back and served on staff, and he helped his dad and his pastor have a vision of the world.
John Boler: That's right.
Bert Harper: And Nathan, that started early in your heart and your life. Again, we're not going to go back for memories, but God can use other people to help a pastor become missional. So we may be talking to some people, and I want you to speak to it if you would, Nathan, and then then to John. They're missional, they're minded, but their pastor's kind of okay, he's a little bit more narrow than he needs to be. How did you encourage me to become missional in your heart, doing it and sharing it? And part of it was you laying it on me, saying, "Do we need to do this?" Would you speak to that and then ask John how he does that?
Nathan Harper: Well, I don't know if I really can speak to it very in-depth, but one thing that's kind of in my mind is simply seeing, John, you mentioned Acts 1:8, and just seeing that you can break that apart into parts of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the world, the ends of the earth. Or you can just simply just say, "Hey, there's local work we're a part of, and then there's global work that we're a part of." Some people have even put those two words together and coined a word like "glocal," as hard as that might be to to say. But the idea is that missions both locally, wherever you are located, and globally, somewhere if you want to just say overseas or across a border from you, then both of those are to be done like simultaneously at the same time. You don't do one and when you master it, you move on to the other. They're both to be engaged with at the same time. And then they both inform the other. So you learn from your local missions of what to do or sometimes what not to do on the global mission field, and then vice versa. And so, I guess that's a one starting point is just that having that Acts 1:8 vision. But John, I am curious, there might be a pastor listening right now who is either in a local church that's not like Calvary was, not already geared for missions, or maybe the pastor himself just doesn't have any experience or exposure to that. What would you say to a pastor like that who's maybe serving in a church where they sort of have to invent the wheel to a degree, or at least dive into scripture? I'm assuming I know you, that's probably where you're going to go is talk about God's word, but what else? What would you say to a pastor like that?
John Boler: Well, scripturally, it would certainly be in—into the word of God to have a missional heart to begin with. But let me just give some—some practical ways. So every pastor wants to see their local church grow, they want to see spiritual fruit in their local church, they want to see a difference in their local community. We love going to Malawi. We embrace the 18-hour flight home in just one leg and that count on the other ones. But we come back home and want to see the difference in our own local community. So I would encourage a pastor who may be listening, you know, there's—they—you know, I've heard it say sometimes, you know, "There's lost people in Tupelo. There's lost people in this city or that city. Why go all the way to Malawi?" Well, I—I don't think you look at it through that lens where it's this area is more important than that area. I think the Lord died for people. But one of the things that changes your heart is when you go to a different context and see things a little differently. We go to be a blessing to the people of Malawi. It's the warm heart of Africa, but we come back so blessed ourself.
And as a pastor, if you want to get people to see a vision where some of the things that we may struggle with here—if you go to Malawi, you realize that's not a major issue in life—it helps people to—to see things from a different perspective. And as a pastor, when you have three years behind you, and four years behind you, and five years behind you, and you're beginning a sixth year and you're continuing to go to places, you begin to look at your congregation and now 10% of your congregation has been on an international mission trip in the last five years. In two or three years from now, it may be up to 15 to 20%. And if you continue to invest in international missions, you begin to have a congregation where most everyone has a passport, and a lot of them have been international. It changes.
So if there's a pastor there, my encouragement and how to get involved: take a vision trip. There are organizations—I'm a Baptist, so International Mission Board, Church Missions Network—the churches that we're starting are Baptist in nature. But whatever your denomination may be, there are vision trips where you just go and see, and see if there's an opportunity or a door that is opened where you come back home and, "Hey, this is what I believe God's leading us to do." And there, you know, for Calvary, our international focus right now is Malawi. In the States, it's Yreka, California and some other things locally. But we can't change the world, but we're trying to change the world that God has us, and that's a huge difference. So you look at it not where there's lost people everywhere—there is—but wherever God opens the door, wherever he—we sing the song, "Where He Leads, I'll Go." And that's been our mission.
Bert Harper: The benefit of going back to the same country. Nathan and I experienced that as we were teaming up to go, and I would go and, you know, use my gifts in that ministry, and then Nathan would follow up and use his gifts in that area, which is better in discipleship in small groups. But the benefit of going back, do you see the growth? And what does that do? Does it add fuel to your fire when you see what you've done last year and the benefits of it when you go back?
John Boler: Absolutely. One of the biggest encouragements—so our local missionary there, his name is McLean, has invested and discipled so many young men to be pastors. And when we go, a lot of these pastors are our translators. Chichewa is not a gift of language that I have, so I have to have a translator along with the rest of our team. My first year that I went—in fact, the first two or three years that I went—I had a young pastor who just touched my heart, we hit it off, and he was great encouragement to me. Well, the last two years, he has not been my translator, because he's not just a local pastor, he is leading the entire field mission ministry in the whole country of Zambia. And he actually came back for our team when I left a couple of weeks ago and I came back a couple of weeks ago, because his sister—he's from Malawi—his sister's getting married, so I got to see him. But to see from a—a local disciple pastor now God's using him, and to see the other pastors that I know, that we've been in their churches, we've shared the gospel with them, we've gone village by village, it is—we know them by name. We communicate not just while we're there—through technology and the internet, praise the Lord, we can communicate and be an encouragement to them as they are an encouragement to us. So next time we go back, we—we know people. We know our translators, we know the church that we're working with that will help us and encourage us. And they want to see us because they say we encourage them. I say, "Yeah, we may, but no, no, no, you encourage us." You encourage us.
Nathan Harper: So John, give us a little bit of the actual specifics, maybe from this trip or even previous trips, that you and your church as you've gone to Malawi and you've built a partnership, and you've returned and seen growth. You mentioned church planting, you may have briefly touched on pastor training or leadership training. What are some of the ins and outs of things that you do, just boots on the ground, when your group is there? What are the day-in, day-out activities that you guys are a part of?
John Boler: That's a good question. So our organization that we partner with is called Church Missions Network. They are currently in nine different countries in Southeast Africa. They have some ministries in El Salvador and a couple other places, but primarily in Southeast Africa. In Malawi, when we bring a team, there's a couple of different things that you can do. I've known some other teams that have come in and have done some medical ministry. Our teams that we've taken have been primarily evangelism teams. So we'll—we will spend three or four days when we get there and we get a good night's sleep and we get up the next day, we will drive out to these villages that the local pastors that I mentioned a few minutes ago, they've done some of the groundwork. They've gotten permission from the chief to come in to their village and evangelize. So we will go hut-to-hut and share the gospel with our desire to—to plant a church.
Training pastors is a big part of the mission in Malawi, but also in the other countries there in Southeast Africa. So when we go to plant a church or to help, McLean and the local missionary there and pastor has already got someone when we leave, they're going to be there that Sunday. It may be the next pastor, it may be another pastor who is going to help get the church started. So we'll go hut-to-hut and evangelize. We'll do this for three or four days.
Two things that we do that helps with that is we have, for the last two years during Vacation Bible School, children—we take up an offering and it's dimes and quarters and sometimes dollar bills, but we collect all of that and we take it to Malawi to help feed the orphans and widows. Straight out of the New Testament. That helps draw a crowd to where we can give us an open opportunity to share the gospel, so we do a couple of orphan feedings in the afternoon.
But the biggest thing that we come alongside to do is soccer evangelism. Soccer is huge! It's football—we call it soccer here in America—it's huge in Africa. And if there's a soccer game in a village, I have not seen a crowd less than a thousand people. This past year, there were two to three thousand people. So we come in, McLean's got brand new soccer balls. They—we brought them, but we didn't give them out. Everything that we do goes through the church. So we've got brand new soccer balls, the community is there, and at halftime, we get to share the gospel. And you talk about in an open field, we do have a sound system to share the gospel with a couple of thousand people, and to see those hands—not every hand is raised, there's people that will listen, there's people that won't—but to see those hands raised, but not just for evangelism, but at the end, to have them sign up to say, "I want to be a part of local church," that is something that we do as well. So those are your three or four main things that we do from our trips.
Bert Harper: Soccer, football! I mean, it is the national—we just got through with the World Cup here in the United States, and you remember the movie Field of Dreams, "Build it and they'll come." Bring a soccer ball to a Malawi and other places like that, and you'll have a crowd.
John Boler: It—it is, because—and when we go to these villages, so when you go to a village, you have to have permission from the chief to be able to evangelize. What we've seen the Lord do is the chief at certain villages is reaching out to McLean, "Can you come?" Because the soccer has helped reduce the crime, has given the kids something to do. So word has spread, "Can you come to our village? Can you bring your soccer team?" Well, we sure can, here's the stipulation: we're going to share the gospel at halftime. And it's been neat to see that's been the foundation to get these churches to—kind of the life to get these churches started, is—is through soccer. And we love our football here in America and baseball, but it doesn't compare to soccer in Africa, I can tell you that.
Bert Harper: Go ahead, Nathan.
Nathan Harper: Yeah, so we're kind of wrapping up our time with John Boler. He's pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. And John, you've mentioned Church Missions Network. Their website is churchmissionsnetwork.org. But either through that network or, as you mentioned earlier, taking vision trips with maybe your own denomination or a network that you might be a part of, going back to that pastor or church leader who is just maybe scratching the surface when it comes to leading a people into God's global redemptive mission around the world somewhere, that God has an open door for that congregation, that people to serve internationally—just a maybe 30, 45 seconds of encouragement for that leader, for that pastor, what would you tell someone like that?
John Boler: So, absolutely. Church Missions Network is an organization that, you know, I had a friend that introduced me to that, so it's something that I am encouraged by because it's not just a friend of mine, it's not just a local missionary that is there, but it is an organization that is continuing to grow and to reach more people, and is open for other people to come alongside. If that's a—if the Lord's leading you that way, there's vision trips that the Lord can lead you, whether it's Malawi, or Zambia, or Kenya, or other parts of Southeast—Southeast Africa. I mentioned El Salvador as well. International Mission Board through the Southern Baptist Convention is another big way to connect churches with ministers or ministries.
And so that—that would be my prayer, is to—is to make a phone call. Look at a website and see where the Lord may be leading you, and I promise you, if you pray to have an open door for missions, the Lord will open that door. It's not a question whether the Lord's going to open it, it's the question: will we be obedient to walk through it?
Bert Harper: John, thank you for being with us. Thank you for sharing your purpose, your vision, and your goal. And we want you who are listening to have a vision for the world. "God so loved the world that he gave his Son." Let's love the world and go on mission to tell people about Jesus. Thank you for listening to Exploring Missions, and may you be blessed as you follow Christ.
In this episode, we explore the transformative power of missions with special guest Dr. John Boler, pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. Join Bert and Nathan Harper as they discuss John's impactful mission trips to Malawi, the importance of local and global outreach, and how churches can cultivate a missional mindset. Discover the stories of lives changed through the gospel and the role of community engagement in spreading hope across the world.
(01:58) Introduction of Dr. John Boler
(03:05) Recent mission trip to Malawi
(07:21) Calvary Baptist Church has always been mission minded
(10:43) Inspiring others to missions
(17:36) The benefits of returning to a previously visited missions location
(20:03) Church planting and soccer outreach in Malawi
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