Shawn Boonstra Will Serve as an Associate Editor at Adventist Review

He replaces John C. Peckham, who returns to Andrews University as a professor and researcher.

May 2, 2025 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review

Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders voted longtime public evangelist and media ministry director Shawn Boonstra as a new associate editor of Adventist Review (formerly Adventist Review Ministries). On May 1 the General Conference Executive Committee voted Boonstra to replace John C. Peckham, who after two years will return to Andrews University as an endowed professor and researcher.

Current Adventist Review editor Justin Kim referenced his mixed feelings as the team sees Peckham off. “We couldn’t be sadder, yet prouder of John’s recent appointment. . . . We will continue with his involvement at the Adventist Review and expand with partnerships with our denomination’s best scholars.” At the same time, Kim said the team is excited for Boonstra’s arrival. “He brings decades of devotional, evangelistic, and doctrinal experience in writing, preaching, and ministry. We are fortunate that God has smiled upon us with two wonderful communication warriors of the Word,” he said.

Boonstra was born in British Columbia, Canada, and followed political science studies before becoming a Seventh-day Adventist as a young adult. As a new Adventist, Boonstra soon began to share the newfound Bible truth. “I gave my first Bible study three weeks after my baptism; my first small campaign came three months later,” he shared.

Those events would eventually launch a career as an Adventist pastor, public evangelist, and media public speaker, who, together with his wife, Jean, have led an estimated 100,000 people to be baptized into the Adventist Church. During the past 12 years Boonstra has been speaker/director of the Voice of Prophecy, after serving as speaker/director of It Is Written Canada (2000-2003) and It Is Written International (2004-2010), and associate Ministerial Association director of the North American Division (2011-2013).

Boonstra describes himself as “passionate about the Word of God and the endless ways in which it reveals Christ through our distinctive message.” Because of his background, he states, he has “a deep understanding of how both Adventists and non-Adventists think.” Boonstra says that in that sense he is “able to navigate nearly any worldview in order to find common ground and help people understand how [the Adventist] message offers a better approach to life.”

During the past few years Boonstra has poured himself into creating easy-to-use resources specifically designed to facilitate successful outreach in churches across the North American Division—and training church members to use them. “The goal was to duplicate what my team was doing a thousand times over,” he explained.

According to Boonstra, the Adventist distinctive message is “more relevant to the culture than ever,” and he longs to share that awareness with other Adventists through print and publishing. Specifically, he said, “the Adventist Review is an indispensable touchpoint for a truly global church. From the beginning of this movement—even before our formal organization as a church—it has encouraged, exhorted, informed, and emboldened believers to go out and take the world for Christ.” He added, “It underlines that we’re all working together across the globe, exactly as predicted. . . . Nothing is more exciting than monitoring the pulse of a global movement raised up by God, contributing to its success, and keeping our people excited about message and mission. There are few vehicles as well suited to accomplishing this as the Adventist Review.”

On the other hand, Andrews University recently confirmed that award-winning author and researcher Peckham will serve as the J. N. Andrews professor of systematic theology and philosophy at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. According to Peckham, “it is a great opportunity, privilege, and an honor to be asked to fill this endowed position . . . , [as] it will provide me more time for research and writing. Andrews University is a very special place to me.”

Regarding his time as an associate editor of Adventist Review and Adventist World, Peckham said that it has been “a pleasure to work with the team and to make a positive impact on the church.” He shared that he enjoyed writing articles in which he sought to “break down complex theological concepts into everyday language for readers.” He added, “I pray that the ministry will flourish and that the message will continue to go around the world like streams of light.”