Southwestern student Ben Bolin leads life of following God’s call

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Doctor of Philosophy student Ben Bolin felt called to ministry early in life.

At the age of 5 he gave his life to Christ and at 12 surrendered to a call to ministry. Soon after he was helping lead backyard Bible classes for his church and assisting his music minister father. In high school, Bolin taught a second grade Sunday school class and by 16 was preaching a youth revival for his city.

“When I look back at those sermons, I shake my head and go, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing,’” Bolin recounted, while adding the confirmations by others of his call to ministry were “encouraging.”

During Bolin’s senior year of high school in Carbondale, Ill., his father felt called to Texas and began searching for places to serve, eventually accepting a position leading worship at Lakeside Baptist Church in Canton. While his family prepared to go, Bolin, at first, planned to stay behind to finish out his senior year with his friends and continue taking the college courses he was enrolled in. But the Lord had other plans.

“The Lord just kind of said, ‘No, you’re going to go.’ And I fought Him, kicking and screaming, because it was leaving friends and what I knew,” Bolin said. “But looking back a few years later, God knew exactly what He was doing, that was for me and where He wanted to lead me.”

After high school, Bolin would pursue his bachelor’s degree in music education from Dallas Baptist University and eventually receive his Master of Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary in 2010. Upon graduating, Bolin participated in a short mission trip in Vladivostok, Russia, where he met Julie, a fellow missionary from South Florida, who would later become his wife.

“I tell people I searched to the ends of the earth to find her,” he said jokingly.

The couple married in 2011 and soon found more meaning from their initial meeting in the harsh climate of eastern Russia, as Bolin was given the opportunity from the North American Mission Board to serve at a church plant in New Prague, Minnesota.

“When the call came to Minnesota, what was unique about that was it was on the same longitude as Vladivostok,” Bolin said. “Even the Minnesota Zoo has a whole Russian area with animals from up in Siberia, because it’s the same climate.”

Bolin and his wife would spend the next seven years in New Prague, helping build and establish the church as a thriving community. More than that though, what stands out to Bolin as the most personally touching from his work in New Prague, was seeing those he helped lead to the Lord grow not just in their own faith, but to become integral members of the church.

“I led someone to the Lord there in the early years and then saw them disciple and grow,” Bolin recounted. “They were on the elder board when I left and seeing that growth of discipleship I count as sweet.”

Bolin said he witnessed “sweet fruit” despite the sometimes “tough soil” in Minnesota, adding “The reason I say the fruit is sweet is those that we saw changed were genuinely changed and are still walking with the Lord.”

In 2021, despite having a new building project on the horizon for their Minnesota church, Bolin began to feel called to move back to Texas while a desire to pursue a PhD began to weigh on him as well.

Bolin had long desired to pursue his doctorate and had even begun the application process to Southwestern Seminary prior to being called to Minnesota. He began praying for guidance, asking the Lord to open the door if that was His will. It was soon afterwards that Julie encouraged him to stop at the seminary for a day while they were back in Texas attending a funeral in Canton

“I had some incredible conversations with guys that just affirmed, I think, my passion for growing in education and my passion that Southwestern was the place that I could do that,” Bolin said.

Returning home, he and his wife continued to pray for guidance. While he felt called to go, he still hesitated due to the timing of a large building project.

“Once we were going to start the building process, I wasn’t going to leave,” Bolin said of the circumstances. “That was a five- to seven-year commitment, and we were all in, but we just wanted to be sure that’s what the Lord wanted us to do.”

After a time of prayer, Bolin described walking into his room and grabbing his phone to find a message from the pastor at Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth. He said he had been thinking of Bolin, heard that he was considering enrolling at Southwestern, and invited him to become the church’s missions and church planting minister.

“Not generally have I seen the Lord moving in that way, but it was a really encouraging thing,” Bolin said of the event.

Ben and Julie moved with their four children, and in August 2022, Bolin was on campus pursuing his PhD in preaching with a minor in worship studies.

For two years, Bolin served as Travis Avenue’s missions and church planting minister during which time he was proud to help create a ministry residency program, which has seen successful fruit in its four-year tenure. He also oversaw some church plants before shifting roles and becoming the lead teaching pastor in 2023.

“It’s fun because the Lord has brought me to a place that is, in many ways, the exact opposite of where I was,” Bolin said of his time so far at Travis Avenue. “From a church plant, one year old, to a church that’s 120 years old and to see that difference, but yet also so many things are the same in how we just love and care and pastor people in that process.”

In his studies, Bolin has found what he described a “breath of fresh air,” adding he is thrilled to be participating in the academic community, learning and contributing to the specific areas he loves: preaching and worship. He said he feels being a part of the Southwestern community has specifically contributed to this love of academia.

“I think what has set Southwestern apart for me is the rigorous study that is applicable to my ministry,” Bolin said. “It is a great academic program, but it also has been intensely practical in the way that I’ve utilized it and continue to.”

Through a lifetime of service that has led him from teaching second graders and in backyards, to helping spread the Gospel in Russia, from the heat of Texas to the cold of Minnesota and back again, Bolin is familiar with the nature of God’s call, ready to follow should he be called.

“You look back at how the Lord moves us to where we are,” Bolin said. “I’ve always been a firm believer that you serve Him with everything you have in where you’re planted, instead of always looking for what’s next. And in every way, He has blessed that to next steps.”