Matt Bodden has bright eyes; he is affable and frank. He is an evangelist at heart, and his demeanor is warm and experienced without being hardened. Bodden has faced genuine adversity; his path to salvation was long and difficult and in 2016, Matt and his wife, Stacy, lost their third child to illness. Yet, for Bodden, the hope of the gospel has been not only a means to understand suffering but the driving force behind his evangelism.
Though Southern California has been his home most of his life, Bodden was born in Belize. For the first ten years of his life, his family practiced Roman Catholicism; when they relocated to South LA, they refrained from any particular religion. In college, Bodden’s immersion in Hip-Hop led him to seek a higher knowledge of God. First, he got involved with the Five Percent Nation, an off-shoot of the Nation of Islam. Then he committed himself to studying Hinduism, reciting mantras every morning.
This pursuit was driven largely by a sense of depression he sought to alleviate. For Christmas one year, a friend gave him a Bible, which Bodden promptly hid in his garage.
“Ten months later, I went into the deepest depression I’d ever experienced in my life,” he said.
He realized he had tried Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, and self-medication, yet was still seeking peace.
“The thought came to me, ‘Find out who Jesus Christ is.’”
Bodden began to read his Bible, particularly the book of Matthew. By the time he got to chapter 21, he had decided to get help from a psychiatrist to deal with the depression. While he was waiting to hear back from the various local offices about appointment availability, he read about the disciples’ amazement upon seeing the results of Jesus cursing the fig tree; it withered before their eyes. Then Jesus said “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (Matt. 21:21-22).
The thought came to me, ‘Find out who Jesus Christ is.’
Bodden repented of his sins, accepted Christ as his savior, committed his life to follow Christ, and ended his prayer by asking God to heal his depression.
“By the grace of God, I came out of that prayer instantly and miraculously healed… I’ve never experienced depression again. I know he doesn’t do that for everyone, but we do know from the past 2000 years of church history that at the point of salvation, sometimes God performs miracles.”
He said he has often been told his long, painful road was necessary for him to arrive in right relationship with God, but Bodden isn’t so sure.
“The reason why I am so fired up, even all these years later, to share the gospel with everyone that I come into contact with… is to try to prevent them from experiencing the pain that I went through, and of course, for them to be blessed with the gift of salvation,” he said.
The LucStrong Foundation
Matt and his wife run a non-profit called The LucStrong Foundation. It is named after their third child, Luc, and it was founded in 2017, a year after Luc died at the age of ten.
“Even now God is using Luc’s legacy, his suffering, and our suffering to advance his kingdom, and from that standpoint God also uses it to comfort us,” Bodden said.
Luc was born with sickle cell disease. When he was seven years old, the family pursued a bone marrow transplant in order to significantly increase Luc’s lifespan. The first attempt failed, but the second succeeded with complications. Luc went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy to prepare for the bone marrow transplant and the process severely impaired his immune system. He developed graft-versus-host disease and doctors warned the Boddens they did not expect Luc to live.
However, Luc persisted. For 11 months, Luc recovered in an isolated hospital room only his immediate family could visit. By the time Luc walked out, his nurses had taken to calling him Lazarus; as though they had seen God raise Luc from the dead. For three years, Luc grew stronger at home. His initial battery of 22 medications dropped down to two over that time.
But then Luc contracted a blood infection. The infection led to a stroke and five weeks later Luc passed away.
“One of the scriptures that just anchored my heart and mind throughout his three-year journey, and continues to do so practically every day, is 1 Peter 5:10,” Bodden said.
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:10
“If you want to point to one scripture that answers the question as to the purpose of our suffering, God says everything right there.”
“God uses it to confirm us, to perfect our character, to perfect our faith; and I’ve had to trust in that truth. And yes, that theology has been tested, and by the grace of God, it continues to bear fruit in my life,” Bodden said.
“I continue to cling to it with every breath, each and every day, and that’s what God used to comfort me; the truth of His scripture.”
During Luc’s illness, the Boddens were unable to find a non-profit that supported families going through sickle cell disease treatment. Before Luc’s death, they decided they would start one if they had the opportunity; a year after Luc’s death, they launched LucStrong.
I continue to cling to it with every breath, each and every day, and that’s what God used to comfort me; the truth of His scripture.
LucStrong is partnered with 17 children’s hospitals including CHLA, City of Hope, and the children’s hospitals at Stanford University and Yale University. They offer grants and vouchers to help offset the financial burdens placed on families with children suffering from sickle cell disease.
“People say the greatest pain that a person can experience in this world is a parent losing a child, and I like to say I haven’t been in everyone’s pain, but that’s probably a true statement, because [the pain] is out of this world,” Bodden said.
Bodden mentioned Job 5:7, “but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,” while discussing the hope of Christ.
“You’re going to have trouble whether you’re a believer or a non-believer, right? The difference is we have hope in the midst of our troubles; in the midst of our trials,” he said.
“Hope is what continues to carry us on; the hope that we have in God and the hope that he will continue to comfort and bless us, continue to use our suffering and our son’s suffering for His glory, and the ultimate hope of seeing our Lord and Savior one day and bask in his glory and worship Him for all of eternity and explore the wonders of heaven right along our son, Luc, who we hope to see once again.”
LucStrong is currently conducting their End of Year Giving Fundraiser. If you’d like to make a tax deductible donation to help them meet their goal of raising $10,000 to help 5 families with children fighting sickle cell disease, please do so at the link below.
The Application of Evangelism
Today, Bodden is preparing to plant a church with NAMB in Oak Park, a small city in Ventura County. Having planted a church previously, he is well aware of what a call to church planting entails. He took six months to pray about this calling he was sensing. Midway through this period, Bodden’s wife heard a neighbor screaming outside their home.
The neighbor’s 22-year-old son had climbed on top of the Boddens’ home and was preparing to jump. Bodden called out to the young man but within seconds he turned his back on Bodden and plummeted from the roof.
“We hear stories of people getting into fights and after one punch their head hits the cement and they die. He leapt from three stories up onto hard concrete and survived by the grace of God,” Bodden said.
The young man has recovered from his injuries. Bodden viewed this visceral and immediate experience as an affirmation to his calling to church planting. During his six months of prayer, he had begun to question whether Oak Park needed another church; there are two strong Evangelical churches in a three-mile radius from his home.
“God used that to show me that even though there are churches in both directions, there are still lost people in our community who hadn’t been reached with the gospel.”
Bodden began to search for a missions organization to serve as a church planting partner and decided to work with NAMB’s Send Network.
“I’m an evangelist at heart, God has blessed me with that gift and a heart for evangelism and the level of investment, not just from a verbal standpoint, but from a literal resource standpoint that the SBC pours into proclaiming the gospel and planting churches and seeing people come to be saved is truly impressive. It is unlike any other denomination I’ve ever experienced.”
As Bodden sees it, suffering began in the Garden of Eden.
“All of the suffering that we experience, from the wars, the diseases, even children being born with diseases when they seem so innocent, is a result of our fall from grace.”
But the end of suffering is its redemptive application to our lives: “Jesus will perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. That’s the purpose of our suffering,” he said.
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