Rev. John Burger serves as Missionary at Large for Metanoia Ministries, a role shaped by more than three decades of pastoral leadership, mission work, and congregational ministry. A 1986 graduate of Concordia University, Nebraska, he earned a degree in Speech/Drama before attending Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. During seminary, he married Angela (Phipps) after they spent a summer serving with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks at Glacier National Park, Montana. Following his vicarage in Moore, Oklahoma, he received his Master of Divinity in 1990.
Rev. Burger served congregations in Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa, including long tenures at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Marshfield, Missouri, and Faith Lutheran Church in Adel, Iowa. His ministry included congregational growth initiatives, preschool development, major building projects, and participation in the Pastoral Leadership Institute. Alongside his wife Angie, he also supported the founding of Accessible Home Healthcare of Des Moines.
A passionate missionary and teacher, Rev. Burger traveled to Southeast Asia, helping train future LCMS pastors in Vietnam and Cambodia by teaching Luther’s Small Catechism. In 2019, he founded Metanoia Ministries, and in 2020 transitioned fully into his current calling. Today, Rev. Burger partners with Christians worldwide to share the love of Jesus with the unchurched and unbelieving.
Mr. Burger, for those who may not know your story, can you share a bit about your time as a pastor at Faith Lutheran Church of Adel, Iowa, and how that led to your current role as a missionary at large with your trucking business? How has this shift allowed you to witness to your faith in new ways?
I served as a pastor for 30 years across four congregations, most recently at Faith Lutheran Church in Adel, Iowa, from 2009 to 2020. I loved serving there; the church has a strong mission focus, starting as a mission congregation itself. We equipped and sent many on short-term mission trips, and I joined several myself.
While I enjoyed pastoral work, much of it was administrative, focused on helping Christians grow in faith. I longed to emphasize outreach to unbelievers, sharing Jesus’ hope. Nearing my 30-year mark, I discussed a sabbatical with church leaders to pursue mission work, noting most pastors serve 3-5 years per congregation, I’d been there 10. They supported exploring my next calling as a missionary at large.
Coincidentally, an 80-year-old widow and church member asked if I’d considered full-time missions. She helped form my nonprofit, Metanoia Ministries, with seed funding. In 2020, I resigned from Faith Lutheran to focus on it, planning hospital/nursing home visits, Bible studies, and online resources.
But COVID restrictions halted that. Instead, like Apostle Paul’s “tent-making” ministry, I entered trucking, buying a semi with a friend’s help. I discovered a vast mission field on highways, truck stops, and distribution centers.
That’s inspiring, John, your Faith Lutheran foundation clearly shaped this path. Transitioning to trucking as a missionary at large must have been an adjustment. Can you describe your daily life now? How do you integrate faith-sharing into your trucking business, like at truck stops? Any specific God-at-work moments?
The excitement is realizing trucking is my mission field, it’s not separate. Vocation means our job or life role (student, parent, employee), where God places us to serve. Scripture shows He positions us intentionally. Through vocations, we live faith via service, even simple smiles amid rushed dockworkers and truckers. Kind words spark conversations, opening doors to be God’s hands, feet, and voice.
Before sharing how I’ve helped others, here’s how I received help on the road, highlighting vocational service. In Chicago’s narrow streets, I reached a dead-end dock for a drop-hook. Unhooking, my brakes locked, skidding wheels. Dockworkers and truckers assisted; it’s common (like interstate skid marks), but safer there than highway speeds.
A maintenance worker/mechanic inspected, finding a broken spring in the brake can. He couldn’t fix it but bypassed it and led me to a nearby shop. Roadside repairs typically cost $185/hour plus $300 call-out, often over $1,000 with waits and markups, especially in Chicago.
But these Polish immigrant Christians opened space immediately, fixed it in under an hour for $174 (less than parts alone). They shared faith tracts about Jesus. I thanked them as a gift from God, encouraged their witnessing, and offered to pay the worker, he refused, urging “pay it forward.”
This inspired me: Being on the road is tough; God places us to spot needs. Ask: “What good can I do today? Who is God putting before me to help or share faith with?”
What an incredible story, John, it shows God using vocations like mechanics’ or yours for His work. As a former Faith Lutheran pastor now trucking as a missionary, can you share when you extended kindness, leading to a faith conversation?
Well, as you learned from the previous story, one of the things that is important in the trucking business is having a good, reliable, and affordable mechanic who can keep your truck going. In addition to forming a relationship with a mechanic who’s not a churchgoer and sharing my faith with him on a regular basis, there was one particular occasion where I encountered an individual who was having problems with her car. She was living in her car, and her brakes went out, and she had no money to get her brakes fixed.
She saw a cross that I displayed on my truck and asked me for help, money, actually, to get her brakes fixed at a repair shop.
Fixing brakes isn’t my specialty, but it is my mechanic’s specialty. My mechanic is used to meeting me on the road wherever I have breakdowns and problems and doing whatever it takes to get my truck up and going. So I asked him if he would be willing to help me repair the car’s brakes in the parking lot where she was living in her car, rather than having her go to an expensive mechanic shop.
I was able to buy the parts and get my mechanic to the location, and my mechanic, in the spirit, charged a reduced rate that I was able to pay him to fix the brakes in the parking lot for this person in need, rather than having her go to an expensive mechanic.
When she asked why we helped her, it was quite natural to say that the cross that she noticed, which gave her reason to believe we would help, was the reason that we helped. That we believe God puts us in situations to be able to help other people, and that the Lord is the one who moved the mechanic and me to help her, and that He loves her very much and is looking out for her always. We specifically shared the good news about Jesus with her. We said a prayer with her before we left.
John, that’s a profound testament to living out faith through action, your stories from Faith Lutheran Church of Adel to the open road truly illustrate how God uses our vocations for His purpose. As we wrap up, what final words of encouragement would you offer to our listeners who might be feeling called to witness in their own everyday jobs, whether they’re behind a desk, on a factory floor, or anywhere in between? How can they start seeing their work as a mission field today?
It begins by realizing for ourselves the great love that Jesus has for us and being filled with that love each day as we meditate on His word and start the day with prayer, being deliberate about looking for those opportunities. I also need to remind myself to do that, to look for those opportunities to witness, help, and share the hope that we have in Jesus. And then just know that as you pray that prayer, God honors it. It might be a simple act of kindness that you don’t even know you did, and that’s wonderful because that’s faith in action too. It might be a smile or look that you gave someone, or just a greeting that you gave someone who was having a difficult day. But the main thing is that you realize that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing in your everyday vocation, you are truly God’s hands and feet and His mouth to share an encouraging word and the love of Jesus with others. And that when you ask God to open your eyes to see those opportunities, that’s one prayer that He will definitely answer with a yes!