May 2003, I came home from doing perhaps my 500th Soul Winning seminar and was very tired. I was tired, because I’d spent the past 10 years traveling, working, preaching, and training people to become more effective Soul Winners. It all began when I won my first soul in 1992 and have been addicted to Soul Winning since that Sunday night when my friend was baptized in Jesus name. I can’t even describe the depths of my passion to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with every single human being on earth. It has been an incredible journey, and I have personally watched hundreds of thousands of precious and sincere people develop a burden and faith for personal Soul Winning. It’s exciting to see such an awakening and hunger for personal Soul Winning throughout the world. It seems everywhere I go and everyday I’m getting new emails and calls about people that have caught fire for reaching lost souls and serving the poor.
When I was a freshman in Bible College, I had a vision about Hell and for about 10 minutes received a view of what Hell was going to be like. I’ve never been the same, and since that moment, I’ve given nearly everyday of my life towards motivating people to become better Soul Winners. I’d be safe to say that I’ve preached over 10,000 times in every state, overseas, in mega churches, living rooms, conferences, camps, and many seminars; I’ll bet that out of 10,000 messages, at least 9,400 of them have been about Soul Winning. I wish I could answer the million dollar question that I am asked on a weekly basis, “Matt, how do you do it and how do you keep such a passion and burden for people?” I’m really not sure, except for the fact that I am driven by God’s love for people and eternity. I am driven, motivated, passionate, and consumed with seeing people come to Jesus, receive the Holy Ghost, and be baptized in Jesus name. It moves me, causes me to weep, keeps me awake at night, and drives me beyond my comfort zone. My burden to see people changed and saved goes beyond anyone or anything that I’ve personally ever seen in my life. While it’s been lonely, painful, exhausting, heart breaking, and many times frustrating, it has been the most incredible and miraculous past 15 years of my life. I’ve seen millions come to God and literally hundreds of thousands of churches and people catch fire for Soul Winning.
I’m especially excited and humbled to see what God has done through the ministry of Tim Downs who is as valuable to the Kingdom of God as anyone on earth. I’m excited to see the thousands of youth groups, pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and people that have been challenged, encouraged, and driven to radical, compassionate, real, aggressive, and passionate Soul Winning. We now have thousands of churches doing block parties, homeless dinners, bus ministry, campus ministry, and serving the poor. It’s so awesome and exciting to see what God has done; we give him all the glory, especially when I remember the nights of praying all night, weeping at cemeteries for people lost without God, attending funerals of people that committed suicide, and reaching in the ghettos of New York City, St. Louis, Miami, Tampa, Philadelphia, Detroit, and many other cities throughout America. It’s been so encouraging to watch what God has done through Soul Winners Boot Camp. Never in one million years did I ever believe that something that was intended to only be a one time trial would turn out to be the thing that God is using to get churches and people out of the four walls and into the streets.
Travis and I were sitting in Pizza Hut having lunch when I told him that I was very tired of the travel and watching so many people get so excited in my seminars but never being able to experience what we see on a weekly basis. That is when Travis said, “Matt, you should do a Soul Winners Boot Camp and bring 25 people to St. Petersburg to give them hands on training.” Well, to make a very long story short, we attempted what we thought was the impossible and had over 270 people come from all over America in hopes that they would experience St. Petersburg, “catch my spirit,” and see with their own eyes how to feed the poor, take it the streets, and do an effective block party. They showed up from everywhere with such passion, expectancy, and fervency for something fresh, new, and out of the box. I taught 6 sessions on evangelism, and then we took it and immediately applied it. Within the next 3 days, we had served thousands of hurting and hungry people, baptized 67 people, and God filled 77 people with the Holy Ghost in the streets. Ladies and gentlemen, here we are 6 years later, and we’ve done 6 Soul Winners Boot Camps, trained a total of 2,270 people, God has filled over 520 with the Holy Ghost, and we have baptized a total of 510 in Jesus name.
We are currently preparing to do 17 more Soul Winners Boot Camps across the world within the next 2 years and plan on taking this on an international level with the goal of eventually training over 1 million Soul Winners. It is our plan and mission to do an average of 10 Soul Winners Boot Camps per year and continue to spread the fires of Soul Winning until all have heard the gospel and every Christian has awoken to their potential in Soul Winning. If you have never been to one our Boot Camps, then I highly encourage you to make it a priority, and let your life be changed forever. For more information, please
visit our website at bootcampamerica.tv or call our office at 727-522-1022.
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