Adventist Review Podcasts

What happens when God answers your prayer, and then keeps going? A brain tumor vanishes the morning of surgery. A furious wife on a freeway sees a billboard that tells her to turn back. A pastor, sure he was only trying to help, finds himself wrestling with God before dawn. In this Lifestyle feature, retired pastor Jerry Page shares stories from decades of praying alongside his wife, Janet, stories in which the hardest healing wasn't always physical, and the answers didn't always come on schedule. What is prayer really for, and who does it change? Listen to the full...

Rick Remmers was just elected General Vice President of the General Conference, and he never saw it coming. Recorded in the GC atrium, this special edition of unScripted finds Shawn Boonstra talking with Rick about chairing Loma Linda University Health, wrestling with whether ministry was God's call or "a family script," and why One Voice 27 really matters. Rick also shares how an evangelistic series in Beatrice, Nebraska, where no one was baptized, eventually led his grandfather, his father, and Rick himself into ministry. "That evangelist probably has no idea."

Watch more unScripted on ReviewPlus.org and read...

What can a children’s Bible do in a home filled with fear? In this Beyond Borders story, Sky Bridger recalls the night eight-year-old Bella sat in a dimly lit women’s shelter, clutching her Bible and asking to hear the story of the Red Sea. What began as a quiet friendship with a struggling young mother on her street soon led to police stations, a knife at the garden gate, and a family pulled between old loyalties and new hope. Could the small seeds planted in one little girl’s heart survive the voices telling her to let them g...

Ten minutes before boarding a flight home to Egypt, Pastor Sun Hwan Kim got a call that changed his life: he had been elected president of the North Asia-Pacific Division. At Annual Council 2026, Justin Kim sits down with him just days after the election. Pastor Kim shares how the news reached him, offers a pastoral word to Korean church members discouraged by recent financial loss, and describes leading a division that spans Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and South Asia. He also names three goals for his term and asks for your prayers. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

“What’s the deal with the sanctuary? Does it really matter?” Over breakfast, a young, on-fire Adventist pastor fired off question after question, wondering whether the doctrine was just an artifact better left in the dustbin of history. Then one answer stopped him cold: “Say that again!” In this Theology feature, David Asscherick pulls up a chair and invites you into that two-hour conversation, tracing God’s longing to dwell with His people from Eden to Exodus to Revelation, and uncovering what a tent in the wilderness has to do with Jesus today. What did the young pastor hear that he’d ne...

What would you do if your neighbors piled their garbage at your door every single night? In this Lifestyle feature, Hatsarmaveth Venkaya tells of a missionary in the Middle East who faced exactly that, and chose a response few of us would expect. From the garden of Eden to a poor widow’s two copper coins and Mary’s broken alabaster flask, Venkaya traces what Scripture reveals about the true meaning of an offering, and why it may have far less to do with money than we think. What does it really mean to give the way God gives? List...

Annual Council 2026 is wrapped, and Shawn and Justin break it down from the General Conference atrium. They cover the leadership transition and a Korean financial situation that led a division president to step aside, the One Voice 27 and All Things New mission push, and plans to revise the church manual for the 2030 session. They also share membership numbers (24.7 million as of mid-2026), a 2028 plan to reach missing members, and the surprisingly entertaining auditors' video. Plus: the TED-style LEAD conference, morning worship in Daniel, and what the hosts saw behind the rumors. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

The church's Working Policy turns 100 this year, and Shawn asks the questions you've wondered about. Joined by Hensley and Tami from the General Conference Secretariat, he explores why the church has policy, how a 63-page pocketbook became a worldwide book, and whether policy slows mission or helps it go faster. They explain policy variances, how a proposal travels from a local church to Annual Council, and why none of it is secret. Plus: Shawn tests it with hypotheticals like using work email for side sales, and the centennial celebration. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

Why would anyone long for the judgment? As a young pastor, Richard Davidson was startled to find psalms in which David welcomed, even celebrated, the coming judgment, while he himself shuddered at the thought of his name coming up before God. In this deeply personal Theology feature, first published in 1988, Davidson traces his journey from years of preaching sermons “full of Christ, yet devoid of assurance” to a new understanding of grace, works, and heaven’s courtroom, and points to a surprising key hidden at the very center of the books of Moses. Can assurance and judgment truly belong togeth...

Was the Advent movement just another religious experiment born in the ferment of nineteenth-century America, or something more? In this Experiences article, Alberto R. Timm traces the prophetic roots of Adventism back past William Miller to the evangelical scholars whose work Miller built on. Along the way he looks at a principle that once seemed settled: that in symbolic prophecy, a day stands for a year. Why did Miller push it too far in places, and why do so many Christians, including some Adventists, now set it aside? Timm argues that what is at stake is more than a...

In December 1844, five grieving women knelt in prayer in Portland, Maine. Among them was a 17-year-old girl weighing barely 80 pounds, too ill to finish school, her voice little more than a whisper. Why would God choose her, of all people, when capable, educated men stood ready? In this Sabbath School Reflection, Cindy Tutsch traces a surprising pattern through Scripture, from a flawed Abraham to a rugged Elijah, a ruined Isaiah, and a desert-dwelling John the Baptist, and asks what that pattern means for anyone who has ever felt too young, too old, or too ordinary to matter. Listen to...

Robbie Bergen grew up a staunch atheist in Brisbane, Australia, convinced that people of faith were foolish. Today he's vice president of Hope Channel. In this conversation with Shawn Boonstra, Robbie shares the three defining moments of 2001 that unraveled his certainty: a figure in a nightclub mirror, a roadside lightning storm and the thought "If there is a God, you're lost," and the morning of September 11. That led him to read the world's religious books, test the Bible's claims, and land in the book of Daniel. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

Is Christianity a "white man's religion"? Is Adventism an American church? Dr. Jongimpi Papu, editor of Ministry magazine and Associate Ministerial Secretary at the General Conference, grew up in South Africa and says there's truth in the charge, and a lot of misrepresentation too. Shawn Boonstra and Dr. Papu discuss what missionaries carried along with the gospel: wool suits in tropical heat, hymns that don't translate, and a worldview that left no room for the spirit world. Plus: why every people pictures Jesus as one of their own. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

Shawn Boonstra grew up in a strict Dutch Calvinist church in Canada. Sikhu grew up in a young, busy Adventist church in Zimbabwe. Both moved to America, and both noticed how different church looks here. In this unScripted conversation, they compare notes on megachurches, church shopping, segregated congregations, the prosperity gospel, and whether church is starting to feel more like a show than worship. They also ask if business and politics have quietly merged with the church, and what Adventists make of that. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

As Christ grows greater in our minds, we lose our need to be authorities over what others think and do.

The deepening awareness that we have been wrong more than we have been right—that we are only now approaching the starting point of faith—creates a gentle tolerance for those now camped where we once stopped, or mired in the stuff from which Christ freed us. We learn to smile at vehemence and vitriol, remembering how frequently we used them for bad causes or when we were still unsure.

Grace makes us gracious to the...

What does a pastor actually do all week? Shawn Boonstra and Justin Kim, Adventist Review editors with about forty years of clergy life between them, pull back the veil for Pastor Appreciation Month. Shawn shares his early years: five churches, long highway drives, and a night in a baptistery with no budget for a motel. They talk about why pastors don't have magic bullets, what Ephesians 4 says the job is, how a consumer-church mindset piles on expectations, and where your tithe actually goes. Honest and often funny. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

So you’ve lived a good life, a moral life, a life of treating others as you wish you would be treated. You pay your taxes when they’re due. You let the elderly go first. You rescue fledglings fallen from the nest. Your colleagues count on you for steady work. Your dog adores you.

Does all of this not matter when it comes to final reckonings? Is God not suitably impressed with upright choices we’ve made—with gifts we’ve given to the poor, with candles lit, with self-denying sacrifice? Surely, righteous deeds must tip the scales...

What happens when the rules you were given for purity don't match the life you end up living? Beth Hill grew up inside purity culture's strict guidelines for dress, dating, and desire, and in this Lifestyle column she traces how those rules shaped her sense of self, her marriage, and even her faith in God. Some of it was good. Some of it, she came to realize, went further than Scripture ever did. Beth Thomas joins her to unpack what purity culture got wrong, what it's cost a generation now raising kids of their own, and what a healthier...

What does a 380-year-old fight over censorship have to do with the Seventh-day Adventist Church? In 1644, the poet John Milton published a furious defense of free speech — and Shawn Boonstra suggests it may have quietly helped set the stage for a movement that wouldn't emerge for another two centuries. From book burnings to Bible societies, this Perspectives column traces a trail of "coincidences" that looks suspiciously like design. Was it chance, or the finger of God nudging history forward without violating human free will? Listen to the full article and decide for yourself.

Did the Adventist Church invent the investigative judgment to cover for a failed prediction in 1844? Shawn Boonstra and Justin Kim open the September and October issues of Adventist Review and take on the heavenly sanctuary head-on. They ask why Jesus ascended, whether he entered the Most Holy Place at the ascension or in 1844, what Hebrews' two veils and one Greek word have to do with it, and why Daniel 7 ends with a verdict. Justin explains why he used to fear the judgment, and why he now finds it good news. From unScripted, the Adventist Review video podcast.

Drive in snow and overcorrect one way, and you'll end up in the ditch on the other side. Theologian John Peckham argues the same danger lurks around one of Christianity's most contested ideas: sola scriptura. Push too hard toward reading the Bible in total isolation, and you land in one ditch. Push too hard toward letting community or tradition control what Scripture means, and you land in the other. So where's the road between them — and how did Jesus himself model staying on it? Listen to the full article to find out.

Between this moment and the final triumph of God’s love, there will be many moments when the outcome may appear in doubt.

Hard-edged, hard-hearted people flourish in a world chilled by greed. Deceit—in all its printed, spoken, filmed and digitized dimensions—settles like a toxic fog over what was once a landscape formed by trust. Unforgiveness grasps our culture by the throat, insisting that no war can ever truly end; no feud can ever fully finish.

And still the Word of God insists that grace personified in Jesus will sweep the world’s stage “b...

Should Adventists be preppers? Shawn Boonstra and Justin Kim take on the culture of prepping, from bunkers and buried shipping containers to a bucket of freeze-dried strawberries on the studio table. Adventists at the ASI convention weigh in, and the hosts look at Joseph and the ant, Elijah and the ravens, and the rich fool in Luke 12. Where does wise stewardship end and fear begin? Is preparing a lack of faith, or just locking your front door? Along the way: Hurricane Sandy, retirement, water filters, and why Jesus' first command about the last days is "don't be afraid." From...

And you thought grace was just for individuals.

When God’s mercy and affection are much-welcomed and deep-trusted, lasting impacts start to flow to all within the circle.

Grudges soften at the edges; ancient bitterness begins to fade. Forgiveness flourishes in crevices, even between those who never thought they could be anything but enemies. Gentle, subtle acts of kindness replicate themselves like wavelets traveling outwards, touching lives far distant. Other souls are softened, watered, warmed, enriched. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”...

3 billion people on Earth have never heard the name of Jesus — and most of them live in cities the Adventist Church has been quietly leaving for decades.

Gary Krause, Director of Adventist Mission at the General Conference, sat down with Shawn Boonstra to explain what's actually being done, where it's working, and the 4-word principle that changed how both of them think about mission.

A minister who's raised his kids and an editor still in the trenches sit down over one question: what do you do when the most addictive thing your child will ever hold fits in their pocket? No easy answers — just honesty about the fear, the failures, and the grace that carries parents through.

Shawn Boonstra and Justin Kim talk screens, dopamine, the anxious generation, the "bubble" trap, and why every parent they know has "gone nuclear" and regretted it — plus the stranger's words that changed Shawn's life at 16.

Three churches. Three continents. One thing they all figured out that most Adventist congregations still haven't.

Shawn Boonstra opens the mission reports that reach the General Conference building — the ones most members never get to see. A district in the Scottish 
Highlands that filled a Gospel Fest with people who'd never set foot in an Adventist church. A youth ministry in wartime Ukraine that sorts every person 
they meet into five levels — starting with "haters." And a congregation in Seoul's professional district that stopped waiting for growth to happen organically.

The pattern connecting all th...

She once heard voices telling her she was about to hurt someone. Now she hosts one of Hope Channel's most-watched shows. This episode asks the question most Christian parents are afraid to say out loud: is it ever loving to let someone hit bottom?

Years ago Shawn Boonstra signed the guest book at a church that wasn't his own, just to see what would happen. They called him back in 32 hours. Meanwhile, interest cards from his own television broadcast were sitting in a filing cabinet for three months.

Tim McTernan spent 30 years in marketing before he brought it into the church — supermarket brands, telecommunications, a million pieces of direct mail a week. Now he leads innovation and marketing for the South Pacific Division, and he says the Adventist Church is leaving people on the table who already raised their hand.

Shawn joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church six weeks before Waco burned. Justin comes from a country whose own society files Adventism as an official cult. So they took the actual checklist — the warning signs people use to identify a cult — and ran the church through it, line by line, including the ones it doesn't pass.
Filmed at the General Conference world headquarters. No script, no talking points, no PR department in the room.

Imagine sitting in biology class, staring at a diagram presented as settled fact—when a quiet voice whispers, what if they're right? For one pastor's kid, keeping faith in a public school meant missing Homecoming, sitting out the band parade where scouts handed out scholarships, and wondering whether her beliefs were costing more than they gave. This is an honest account of doubt, sacrifice, and the surprising things her parents said that changed everything. What does it really take to stay "fully, unapologetically blue" in a world pulling you toward purple? Listen to her story.

Of all the stories Jesus told, this one is our favorite.

An arrogant, entitled son demands his inheritance from his father, but wastes it in riotous living. When the money and the morals are lost, he remembers his father’s house, and begins the awkward journey home, offering to be a servant, not a son. But the father runs to meet him, sweeps him up in his arms, and completely reinstates him in the family. Scroll the closing credits on “The Prodigal Son.”

But that’s not the end of the story Jesus told, even though w...

Does God need a perfect generation of humans to prove His critics wrong? In 1947 one Adventist theologian argued exactly that—launching a debate that still divides believers today. If God's character is on trial before the universe, who actually clears His name? Us, through flawless obedience? Or someone else entirely? This piece digs into what Ellen White actually wrote, and the answer is bigger and more surprising than either side of the argument tends to admit. It reaches from the cross to the final destruction of evil. Who really vindicates the character of God? Listen and find out.

Two red cars came screaming around a mountain curve at over 70 miles per hour—headed straight at Michelle and her friends, with a rock wall on one side and a hundred-foot drop to the river on the other. There was nowhere to go. "This is it," she told her friend. "We're gonna die." Then came a deafening snap, the smell of sulfur, and silence. When Michelle opened her eyes, the car that should have killed her was somehow on the other side of the road. And nine teenagers in two black trucks had seen exactly what happened. Listen.

Yes, we remember all too well.

The teacher whose volcanic mood made one day bright and hopeful while the next we hardly dared to draw a breath . . . The parent who turned what should have been our safest space into a house of vigilance, where anger flashed erratically . . . The colleague whom we tiptoed past, just praying we didn’t trouble him . . .

From all such stories, we deduced that God was just as changeable—a deity who one day welcomed us to Him and next day chased us far away.

The truth—at last—is healing...

If grace was as fragile as many believe it to be, we could never be truly confident that our lives have been fully redeemed and deeply restored.

We would always be unsure of what God wants us to be most certain of: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Psa 103:11-12).  

Our fears and doubts about the durability of grace don’t begin to change the way...

Imagine publishing a book at twelve years old—one that started with nothing more than nature walks and a mother's simple question: "Where do you see God in that tree?" In this piece, a teenager shares how she's read the entire Bible four times, why one word in the story of Daniel changed how she makes decisions, and what she's learned about choosing right when convenient is so much easier. She's honest that she still stumbles. But she's found something steadier than her own intuition. What does it take to "purpose in your heart" before the hard choice ever co...

Why do you believe what you believe? Because your parents told you? Because you grew up in church? The author says that kind of faith can crumble when life gets hard—and he's after something sturdier. He loves true stories: prison escapes, wartime survival, missionaries in danger. What makes them powerful, he says, is that they can be checked. So can faith. He points to a prophecy Isaac Newton called the foundation stone of Christianity, and to a teenage girl who once held an 18-pound Bible overhead for thirty minutes. God didn't just give us religion, he argues—He gave...

If you are truly saved through faith, then you are daily praying grace down into the cracks and crevices of life, into the dim and unlit corners where fear and fate and faithlessness more often hold the keys.

Understanding—really understanding—grace rarely happens through a flash of intellectual enlightenment: Paul’s own Damascus Road was just the first of many miles spent learning grace.

Each week we find how weak and meager is our faith, how little we actually trust the great bold verities announced by Jesus and His gospel, how much we fear that w...

It started with a nervous breakfast: a Seventh-day Adventist pastor across the table from an ordained Buddhist minister, both unsure what to expect. Then she explained what she does before eating—a silent thanks to everyone who made the meal possible, from the farmers to the bacteria in the soil—and the awkwardness melted away. There are 500 million Buddhists in the world. How much do we really know about them? This piece walks through what Buddhists believe, the surprising values they share with Adventists, and how one Buddhist landlady slowly came to faith—not through argument, but experience. What builds...