Reverend Shawn Boylan

I was born in Salem, MA. In my early teens, my family moved to Southern California. I attended Concordia University in Irvine, California, where I met my wife, Jill, and we were married in 1981. Our passion together has been to share the Word of God and the love of Jesus. We joined Lutheran Bible Translators in 1988. Our assignments took us to Sierra Leone, Guatemala, the USA and Namibia. I have served as a translation advisor for indigenous teams working on Old and New Testament projects. I really wanted to be a Reverend to further my preaching and teaching career. So, from 1997 to 1999, I attended Concordia Seminary and was ordained after my vicarage at All Saints Lutheran Church in Guadalajara, Mexico. My first call was to Grace Lutheran Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida. After a couple of years at Grace, we received a call to serve as Translation Advisor at the Bible Society of Namibia. In 2003, we moved from Florida to Windhoek, Namibia.

By 2010, the projects in Namibia were finishing up. We were very active in the leadership in our church in Namibia, but we knew that God was leading us on. So, saying goodbye to our friends and co-workers there, I accepted a call to Christ Lutheran Church in Hilo, Hawaii. The Lord used us in many wonderful ways in Hawaii (and the ocean is pretty awesome too!), but we knew the Lord was leading us on to Illinois where I’m blessed to serve at Christ Lutheran High School in Buckley, and at Trinity Lutheran Church in Urbana.

The Lord is good! Jill and I give him thanks and praise for keeping us in the goodness of his grace. We have three wonderful children: Rachel, Matthew (along with his fiancé, Madeline), and Timothy; and we thank God for all that he’s doing in their lives. There’s no greater joy than sharing the Word of God and seeing people grow in the love and knowledge of Jesus.

Be blessed in Christ!