About
Minutemen Ministries is a ministry that is passionate about reaching teenagers with the truth that Jesus saves!
Whether at home in our churches, youth groups, and Christian schools or abroad in our public schools, neighborhoods, or cities, our mission is to reach them all with the good news of Jesus Christ. Some teens need deliverance from hell, others need deliverance from vice. It doesn’t matter what they need delivering from—Jesus is the answer!
Evangelists
Jim Van Gelderen
Evangelist Jim Van Gelderen is a 1982 graduate of Bob Jones University. He also received an MA from BJU in 1984. Since 1984 he has traveled with the Minutemen Evangelistic Team. Jim and his wife, Rhonda, have three daughters.
Jim has been with the Minutemen Evangelistic Team since it began. He and his wife Rhonda were married in 1984 and have been travelling ever since conducting The War and the War of Special Forces.
For fourteen years (until 1998) Jim served as a staff evangelist with Bob Jones University. In addition to traveling with the Minutemen Evangelistic Team, Jim serves as the Vice President of Baptist College of Ministry, a position which he has held since 1999.
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Bobby Bosler
Evangelist Bobby Bosler is a 2008 graduate of Baptist College of Ministry. He also received an MA from BCM in 2011. Since 2012, he has traveled with the Minutemen Evangelistic Team leading The War every Spring and the Cola Clash every Summer. He also serves as staff evangelist of Falls Baptist Church.
Bobby also serves as director of Thee Generation, a ministry dedicated to calling young people to "total surrender to God and total dependence on His power to turn the world upside-down with the gospel of Jesus Christ." Along with this, every Fall since 2015, Bobby has coordinated and led the Thee Generation Youth Summit, which is a national youth conference and exciting four-team competition that gathers young people from across the nation to be encouraged and inspired in their walk of surrender and dependence.
Bobby and Abi have been married since 2008. They have four children: David (12/10/11), Eva (1/19/14), Jude (1/17/18), and Faith (4/27/21).
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History
In 1979 Jim Van Gelderen had just come home from college when he asked his youth pastor (which happened to be his older brother Wayne) if they could have a series of tent meetings the coming summer. This had been done in the past at Jim’s home church, Marquette Manor Baptist Church in Downers Grove, IL. Pastor Wayne Van Gelderen, Jr. suggested the idea of using camp type competition they had experienced at nearby Camp Joy and then having a Gospel message to conclude. The first year it was done in conjunction with Bible school in the morning, and the week for Jr. High and Sr. High teens was called Country Chaos. The competition was between the Hatfields and McCoys. In 1980 it was called Cactus Chaos and became a western theme between the Daltons and the James and Younger gang. In 1981 the program was moved to the evening and was called the Uncivil War between the Yankees and the Rebels.
In that same summer of 1981, Dr. Wayne Van Gelderen, Sr. set up a couple of meetings for his son, John Van Gelderen. He decided to turn them into the same program that had been conducted at Marquette Manor. God greatly blessed. John invited Jim to come over for one of the meetings, and both young men were stirred at the teens that came and their response to the Gospel.
In 1982 after Jim Van Gelderen’s senior year of college a couple of college friends traveled with him to about ten churches conducting the Uncivil War. Although they did not really know what they were doing, the Lord blessed with many crowds over 100, and many souls saved. Jim Van Gelderen saw things he had never seen before, and he saw the Gospel’s power like he had never seen. This ignited a fire in his heart to continue to move forward.
In the summer of 1983 while Jim was youth pastor at the Marquette Manor Baptist Church, the decision was made to send out three teams. Jim stayed home and directed things from afar while Tim Chevalier, Juan Moreno and John Van Gelderen led teams all over the US. Marquette Manor financed the teams and lost $10,000 over the summer. Dr. Van Gelderen, Sr., Jim’s dad and the pastor of MMBC, was glad to help birth the ministry but knew the church could not sustain those kind of losses. He called Dr. Bob Jones III and asked if Bob Jones University would be interested in having the teams operate from there. Dr. Bob was glad for the call because there had been some talk about starting something like this, but the consensus was that the Van Gelderens were starting something and everyone wanted to see how it was going to go. Well, the Lord was in it, and BJU became the new home of the Minutemen Evangelistic Team. At the same time a new theme was developed called The War. The teams were Army vs. Navy. The change was due to the ministry becoming nationwide, and there was a sense that a theme was needed that had nationwide appeal.
In 1984 after being married to Rhonda Cross of Greenville, SC, Jim and his new wife began traveling conducting The War (Army vs. Navy). Again, the Lord did some amazing things in that first year that stirred the Van Gelderens concerning the power of the Gospel.
In 1994 the War of Special Forces was birthed. This adapted The War theme and program to Christian schools. Since that time Evangelist Jim Van Gelderen has primarily led that team and ministry. Its burden is not only for the evangelism of lost teens, but has added a burden to see Christian school students revived in their walk with God.
In 1998 the Minutemen Evangelistic Team became an independent ministry. The Lord burdened Jim that his was the step that was needed. Bob Jones University was extremely gracious to the ministry and assisted in their launching out. Jim has a deep appreciation for the key part BJU had in the development and nurturing of the ministry.
Over the years Mark Kittrell (1989-1991), Frank Bailey (1992-2002), Billy Ingram (2003-2007), Jonathan Barber, (2008-2013), and Mike Fisher (2008-2014), and Bobby Bosler (2012-present) led teams in addition to Evangelist Jim Van Gelderen. Now there are several teams associated with the ministry. Jim leads the War of Special Forces in churches with Christian schools. Evangelist Bobby Bosler leads The War each Spring semester and the Cola Clash ministry each summer. The Cola Clash team is sponsored by Baptist College of Ministry.
This is not a program driven ministry. It is theologically driven. The Lord has raised it up for such a time as this. We trust our best days are ahead!
Beliefs
We believe in the fundamentals of the faith as expressed in the inspired Word of God: the inspiration of both the Old and New Testaments, the creation of man by the direct act of God, the virgin birth, the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ for our sins on the cross, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ form the dead, a literal burning Hell, the power of the Gospel to save men from sin and Hell, the rapture of the church, and the literal return of our Lord.
We reject theological liberalism and regard it as unbelief. We also reject new evangelicalism as a philosophy that is deficient at the foundation.
We are grieved at the worldliness that has infiltrated God’s people. We are concerned at the cultural demise brought about by influences such as Hollywood, the pop music culture, feminism, etc.
We are pretribulational, premillennial in our eschatology. We are dispensational in our approach to the Scriptures and, thus, believe in a literal hermeneutic when interpreting the Scriptures. We are not Calvinistic or Reformed in our views. We believe that Jesus died for all mankind and offers salvation to all. On the other hand, we do believe in the security of the believer. We also acknowledge that God is sovereign and when it comes to understanding how His sovereignty and man’s free work we rest in the truth that “his ways [are] past finding out!” (Romans 11:22).
We believe that revival is for today. We believe revival is the need of the hour in our churches and Christian schools.
We believe in the inspiration of Scipture. We believe God has preserved His Word today. We are concerned about the intellectual approaches to preservation that are found in many of the models of preservation that use the eclectic or critical text approach. We prefer the TR and MT and thus, we use only the King James Version of the Bible in our ministry.
Contact
Office
(414) 397-1427
W125N6862 Ruby Rd,
Menomonee Falls, WI 53051
office@minutemenministries.org
Scheduling
Need help with scheduling? Check out our full schedule for open weeks and other ways to request a meeting.