Join host Dr. Chrysandra Brunson as she welcomes Luke Bodley, an inspiring figure with a lifetime of pursuing dreams and defying the odds. Discover how Luke’s early experiences shaped his path, leading to the creation of Heaven Fest, one of Colorado’s largest music festivals. Luke shares heartfelt stories of faith, including miraculous provisions and divine interventions that propelled him forward, offering fresh insights for anyone hesitant to embrace their calling.
Welcome, everyone, to The Calling’s radio show to all the dreamers. I’m your radio host, Dr. Cassandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling. It is such an honor to be with all of you today. You know, at The Calling, we have realized that so many people are afraid to go after the dreams that Jesus has put inside their hearts because they are afraid to fail. And that is just plain wrong because if God has given us a dream and we’re not living it out, we are wasting it. And we do not want you or anyone else to die with regret. That’s why at The Calling, we love to inspire, empower, and equip people to, after God’s calling on their lives, to reach the best kind of eternal legacy possible to have immediate impact on themselves and their families. We love to do this through so many different avenues, through custom tools, programs, workshops, seminars, but especially through this radio show where we bring on world renowned guests who share how they’re going after their God given dreams and how you can do the same. Today is no exception. We have the one and only Luke Bodley on with us. Luke, welcome to the show.
LUKE BODLEY :
Thank you so much, Cassandra. Thank you so much for having me on.
CHRYSANDRA :
This is so special. And Luke, people have heard your name and they’re like, oh, I know Luke or I’ve heard of Luke. Can you just share a little bit of your background and some of the leadership positions that you have held thus far?
LUKE BODLEY :
Well, I’m so happy to be on here again. It’s such an honor. You know, you and I have known each other for such a long time. And, you know, you and I are some of the people that have had big, big dreams and we’ve gotten to see them come true, you know, which is such a cool thing. I feel like for me, I get to inspire other people because it seems that that’s not the case with a lot of people. So one of them is, you know, back when in my 20s, I had a dream of putting on a Christian music festival with 10,000 people. I had this dream for years. It’s all I could think about. And after a couple of years of working on it, a festival called heaven fest which some of your listeners may know um the very first year over 12 000 people showed up to my heaven fest music festival if you remember chrissandra it was that first year 70 bands on seven stages across 70 acres and you know also i was like oh wow And I remember it being so stressful. I never wanted to do it again. I remember when it got done, I was like, oh my gosh, you know what, you know, sometimes it’s, what do you do when you’ve accomplished what you wanted? You know, where does that place you? But we ended up doing it again. And the next year had almost about 23,000 people. Did it again the third year, 30,000 people. And then the fourth year with volunteers, everyone, almost 40,000 people showed up. And so that made it the, let’s see, here was the largest music festival in Colorado, bar none. It was the second largest Christian music festival in the country. And it’s still, I think, one of the biggest Christian events to happen in Colorado in the last like three decades. So it was quite an experience. And looking back on it, I’m not sure how it all happened. It felt like… it you know what it felt like the entire time um it felt like you ever when you go to the airport and they have those flat escalators uh-huh and you ever get on those flat escalators and you’re just walking normal but you know you’re walking so much faster than everyone that’s walk that’s not walking on it so i think i think that’s a really good metaphor to kind of be in god’s will and being kind of the flow of what he was doing because we were just walking normal yeah but we were going. So that’s probably the one thing that most people would know me for.
CHRYSANDRA :
We know this on this journey.
LUKE BODLEY :
And it wasn’t just me, of course, you know, by that time, you know, the wonderful Dave and Tara Powers were there, the Jeannie Rhodes, Tredessa Rhodes, you know, it was our team of five that made it happen. And that’s a good segue into, you know, God’s always going to bring people to come, not just alongside, but with you and for you to make that happen. There’s no way I could have done it without all of them, of course. I just had the idea and was dumb enough to go after it.
CHRYSANDRA :
Well, it was the perfect tribe. And each one of those people are kingdom shakers like yourself. And Luke, on this journey, when you look back as a little kid, how do you see the Lord just fashioning these threads in your heart to now be doing what you are today? Tell us about some of those experiences as a youth.
LUKE BODLEY :
Well, I mean, I can look back at one of my first jobs as a 16 year old was I was a chicken wing delivery driver. OK, that’s what I was doing every night. You know, after school, I worked just for a small mom and pop place. But that’s actually when I look back where my faith really grew, because I was in a car all the time by myself and I would listen to a radio station like this. And I would just listen to preaching or whatever I could listen to. Back in the day, I think it was like the Bible Answer Man and Jay Sekulow Live and other various preachers. But when I look back on that for like two and a half years, being a chicken wing driver, I was listening to five or six, eight hours of preaching a day. You know, and that kind of helped my little heart, you know, kind of figure out what I wanted to do and why I was doing it. And, you know, that led to it. I mean, from there, I grew up in kind of the rave culture, rave techno music. What we now know is EDM. But back then it was raves. And I founded with a couple other great guys, John Burgess and Tim Heil, a rave production company called Transform Productions. And that’s how we cut our teeth on doing events. We would put on a monthly rave and it helped us or I guess it gave us permission to be downtown Denver on the streets passing out flyers. So back in those days, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, we were on the streets of Denver from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. passing out flyers for our rave ministry. And trying to get people to come to either our events or come to our coffee shop parties. But, you know, it just got us in the cycle of constantly putting on events. So, you know, it’s kind of like a David and Goliath thing. Remember what he said? David, you know, by the time he got to Goliath, you know, David had already taken out lions and bears. I mean, it was just progressive. So when it came to putting, it wasn’t just like all of a sudden. Hey, I decided to put on a music festival. I have no nothing about events. By that time, I put on hundreds of events. There was a progression. Now, putting on that festival, that size was bonkers crazy to me. I can’t believe even to this day it happened. But I’d say those are some things that really shaped me there in that time leading up to it.
CHRYSANDRA :
You mentioned David and Goliath, and we love asking that question here on the show, Luke, about encountering a Goliath and not knowing how you were going to be able to make it through at that moment. But you were able to see God’s deliverance and to be able to see this, see the miracle story. Can you just share a David and Goliath story with us?
LUKE BODLEY :
Well, I’m in the middle of one right now, I think. So again, God’s always step-by-step preparing you. So I just talked about being on the streets of Denver and getting to know and love the streets. Well, these days I’m back downtown at 9th and Lincoln with a ministry called Christ Body Ministries. And we’re a mystery to Denver’s people that are experiencing homeless. Our tagline we say is to, is we share Christ’s love and we care and we share with the, with the, with the least of these. And so these days I’m now back on the streets again, only this time I’m not in the raves anymore, but now ministering to Denver’s homeless. And so as far as the David and Goliath situation, I’d say it’s, The problem that Denver is experiencing with homelessness and drug addiction, it feels insurmountable. I mean, this is a Goliath I haven’t defeated, nor has almost everyone else in Denver defeated yet. And it’s a big problem. And that’s almost a to be continued, like almost like a next step of what God is starting to grow. And there’s people getting set free and people getting into jobs. I mean, we’re seeing I’d say on a daily basis, absolute depravity and despair, and then also hope and joy simultaneously. As that book said, it was the best of times and the worst of times down here in Denver right now. And so that’s a great example of a David and Goliath right now.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes, yes. And Luke, I mean, I love that you said it’s to be continued because it is an ongoing Goliath that has come up, but hopeful for that change. What has been just in the journey, Luke, one of the miracle stories of providence provision where it looks like it was a dead end road and that you didn’t know? that you could make it through, that there was any way to pioneer through a trail to what God was calling you to, but there was the seemingly impossible that happened.
LUKE BODLEY :
Oh, there’s so many examples, but I’ll give you a real specific one. You know, I feel like I’ve always had a special gift or God’s given me a special gift for provision. And we’ve seen absolutely crazy, miraculous things. Let’s use a heaven fest one. So in the festival world, we always called six weeks before you put on the festival D-Day because that’s when you owe all the deposits for the bands. And if you don’t pay those deposits, which is usually about 10%, you aren’t going to have a festival. And I remember on, I think it was the second or third year, D-Day came where we owed a ton of money and we were $30,000 short. Okay. And for us, $30,000 might as well have been 300 billion. I mean, no way to get it. And at this time, I think it’s important to note we are officing at a church near Brighton called Northern Hills Christian Church. And that wasn’t public. If you wanted to mail us a letter, you had to send it to our P.O. box. Right. So no one knew where we were. No one knew where our office was. It wasn’t public. And I remember that morning with all of us, we were sitting there and Dave and Tredessa and Jeannie and Tara and a few other volunteers. We were crying. I mean, and we were crying and praying, but we were more crying because it was over. I mean, you don’t pay the money, you don’t have an event. I mean, it’s the biggest black eye you can have because in the festival world- I feel like we feel the agony in our hearts. Oh, it was, I mean, just, I remember just, we were just looking at each other and being like, all this work, I mean, we’d worked almost an entire year up to this point, and we’d seen miracles up to this point, provision happen, but this was just, it was just like, it was almost like a, not a knowing, but just like, it was over. It was over. And, You’ll never believe it. This is a 100% true story. We heard a knock on our office door and we opened the door and there was this short Asian lady. I’ll give her a shout out, Lonnie Delifka. And she was there and we’d never seen her before. And she just kind of timidly said, is this the Heavenfest headquarters? By the way, the Heavenfest headquarters was like a small room with like eight desks shoved into it. Might as well have been a sweatshop, you know, at that point. Yeah. It wasn’t anything special at all. And she said that God had woken her up this morning and said that we needed money. And she had a $30,000 cashier’s check made out to us saying, and it wasn’t real. It didn’t feel real. I have goosebumps. It didn’t feel real. She even handed us the check and all of us kind of touched it like it was like waiting for it to disappear. Like it felt like a dream. Everything was in slow motion. The very definition of what you would call surreal. And saved the day. I mean, all of us just exhaled. We were able to pay. I mean, again, it wasn’t a check, right?
CHRYSANDRA :
We’re going to pause you right there, Luke. We have to go to a short break, but we want to hear what happened after the exhale and the surreal moment. We have the one and only Luke Bodley on with us. Stay tuned. Liquid Acre is the world’s first crypto to land marketplace, allowing you to own fractional acreage through non-fungible acres. Don’t let the dream of owning a piece of the trillion dollar real estate market slip away. Visit liquidacre.com to invest in real survey land in seconds and start building your real estate legacy. Twist and shout with Lee & Co. They are the premier oldies band delivering the rock and roll vibes you’ve been missing. Great songs, great memories. Book them at LeeAndCo.com. Have you heard you have an opportunity to come with The Calling and I to Greece this fall? You don’t want to miss it. Go to The Calling Nonprofit’s Instagram to find out all the details.
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CHRYSANDRA :
At Ignite Brilliance Coaching, you will get 34 years of science teaching, a decade of university level instruction and over 10 years of instructional coaching to empower educators with the tools, mindset and confidence to thrive. Contact Ignite Brilliance Coaching on Facebook. We are back. Thank you for listening to all the Dreamers radio show. I’m your radio host, Dr. Cassandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling. And we have the one and only Luke Bodley on with us. And Luke, you were just sharing before break about an instance with Heaven Fest. There was a moment where you guys did not see the future, that it was it was a dead end road. And then this lady knocked on the door.
LUKE BODLEY :
Yes, so there was Lonnie, who we later found out was the founder of Watermill Express, and she had this check and it just wasn’t real. And I think one of the most interesting things about that is, by the way, we needed more than $30,000. That wasn’t our only bill, but that was the only bill due that day, right? And I’ve always fascinated, why not 50? You know, why not? You know, as long as we’re passing out money, let’s make it 100, you know?
LUKE BODLEY :
But it was what we needed that day. And it was able to enough to get us to where we needed to be. And, you know, kind of like a live to die another day type of thing, you know, because it’s just this constant fight of that. And so even here at Christ Body Ministries, I play the role of marketing director and do communications and basically begging donors for money all the time, we see provision come in in the weirdest, wacky ways. We just had, case in point, there was a day that we needed some money, a week that we needed some money, we were short on some stuff, and some lawyer who had made a promise to himself 10 years prior that if he won a certain case, he was gonna donate 10% of the money to a homeless ministry, and literally just got on the internet and was just like, Denver Homeless Ministry picked us and then all of a sudden dropped us off a $50,000 check. And so this was 10 years in the making. No relationship, never heard of us, just kind of eeny, meeny, miny mode. And so again, God will get it to you. I had an old mentor said, as far as provision goes, said, if God can get it through you, he can get it to you. We’re always supposed to be in a place of service to other people. You know, there’s a person that needs that their $30,000 check today is just 50 bucks. Yeah. 50 bucks to them might as well be 50 million.
LUKE BODLEY :
And, you know, being obedient and that thing that we realize that if God can get it through you, he can get it to you. And so there’s kind of a there’s a goal. I always like that line.
CHRYSANDRA :
Oh, it’s so good. It’s so good, Luke. I, well, and just for those that are tuning in, a huge shout out to Luke throughout all these years, being such a mentor and coach along the way. And Luke, you have spoken a lot of different tips and tools and wisdom into my heart to impact the calling. For instance, Red Rocks Amphitheater when we did our event with Switchfoot, but also just this mindset where, Would you just be able to share with our listeners about what it really does take to have that mindset to follow after what God’s called you to in all the highs and lows? A little, I mean, for instance, something that, you know, you shouldn’t be doing it unless like you’re, if the Lord hasn’t told you exactly to do it, then don’t do it. But if so, then go all out.
LUKE BODLEY :
I think ultimately it comes down to, are you taking the time to every day to get first off, get your daily bread, right? That’s what, that’s part of the Lord’s prayer, but that’s a very special part for me. What’s that mean? That means get your, your spiritual provision for that day in the way that suits you or the way that you have a relationship with God through prayer or meditation or walking through the park, touching grass, whatever it is, because I think that’s, that’s the only time that you can feel confident. The Bible says the steps of the righteous man are ordered of the Lord. And so, you know, it says if we pursue his righteousness, all of our, everything else is going to be added onto us. And so I found as far as provision and as far as walking the line that, that a lot of times for me, I don’t get words. I don’t hear like a deep voice. I accidentally do the right thing when you’re walking with the Lord. Some other people have called it stumbling into the blessing, which I think is a great metaphor because it’s, I found that if I’m focusing my time on pursuing God, and as the Bible says, in his righteousness, everything else just starts happening. And it kind of feels magical, right? You know, it feels like why, you know, you’ll accidentally say the right thing, or you’ll accidentally, you’ll just think of someone and you call them and stuff happens. And quite the opposite is true if you’re not pursuing righteousness with him. You know, you’ll start doing just… bad stuff on accident all the time because that’s not there. And so I think that’s important is just remember just to follow what the Bible says, to pursue his righteousness first, pursue the kingdom of heaven and everything else will eventually work out.
LUKE BODLEY :
You know, it takes away that toiling, I guess you would say, you know, trying and trying, where it’s just, again, we’ll go back to the original metaphor in the beginning. It feels like you’re walking on a flat escalator at the airport.
CHRYSANDRA :
Mm hmm. So good. And Luke, I think just the spiritual warfare that we do go through and pursuing what God’s called us to, you have also seen that on full, you know, full spectrum high, the highest it could go. How would you be able to give a scenario of the spiritual warfare that you have encountered and how you were able to make it through on the other side?
LUKE BODLEY :
Whew, man, again, I’m opening my mind going like, what story do you want to hear? For me, when I think about spiritual warfare, you know, I think we sometimes give too much credit to the devil, give too much credit to demons. And we’ve got to remember that only a third of the demons were cast out of heaven, right? For every one demon, there’s two angels. And, you know, I look at it as really just trying to, as we follow God, his righteousness, also manage our own Sin identity, right? We call it, you know, it’s called thresholds. You know, are there open avenues in your life that you’re letting these things come in? That’s very important, especially where I work now with the homeless. Seeing demons manifest is pretty common. And, you know, you have to really watch it. So people, you know, we talk about, oh, don’t sin because God will get mad at you. I don’t. One of the main reasons I don’t sin is because if I do, there’s going to be a rippling effect of something that I’m letting that thing in that that’s going to be able to control me like a puppeteer.
LUKE BODLEY :
And so. And they will. I mean, you know, I can think of one lady that I was ministering to just like three months ago. Even at the name of Jesus, she went from this sweet old lady to growling at me, you know, and having to sit there and also be like, you know, that’s not the time you want to be asking yourself if you put on the full armor of God that day. Right. You know, and so the spirit world is absolutely real. Right. It’s in and all around, and it is waiting for you to make the mistake of not being in line with God that day. I’m telling you, they will always come at your weakness point, always. So hopefully that answers your question.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yeah. Well, and they’re not, you know, they know no respect of waiting for the right moment for you. They go all out on that attack at your weakest moment. Luke, we’re coming up at the end of our show, but we have a few things. And we would love to have you back sooner than later. There are quite a few things that we want to touch on before you have to go. We want to know. your wisdom someone’s tuning in right now and they’re afraid to go after what jesus has called them to and they don’t know how to take the next the next step of faith what would be your piece of wisdom a quote that comes to mind that you would tell them and leave with them i’d say uh
LUKE BODLEY :
This is totally non-spiritual, but I always love the quote, the secret to getting ahead is getting started. I think a lot of times people, they have that paralysis by analysis. And, you know, if you really, if you’re saying out loud to your friends, I feel like this is the way I should go. It probably is. And so, you know, I’d say, what’s that first small step? Everyone just blows things up a proportion to where it becomes big. If I quote another quote, Cassandra, how do we eat an elephant? Right. One bite at a time. And, you know, for people that have a calling, it’s almost like when you’re dreaming about something and you’re not doing it. your dreams get bigger and bigger to where you almost build this monstrosity of something to that, that it’s, it’s becomes too big. And it really just comes down to today. What is just one small step I can take just one call someone, you know, is it spend 15 minutes to write down something, you know, from your mind, just one small step is probably the best advice I can give to people.
CHRYSANDRA :
Oh, it’s so good. And it’s so true. And that’s usually.
LUKE BODLEY :
I would say too, that one small step snowballs.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yeah.
LUKE BODLEY :
Because all of a sudden that makes the next step easier. Then once you start getting momentum, then it just takes care of itself.
CHRYSANDRA :
Amen. That is very powerful. And look, we want to know all that you’re up to right now with Christ Body Ministries, as well with all the different activities that you are involved with. How can we be part of this movement as well as any upcoming events that we might be able to partake in?
LUKE BODLEY :
Well, so I’ve mentioned Christ Body Ministries down here at 9th and Lincoln in Denver a bunch of times. Go to their website, christbody.org. We are the island of misfit toys down here. Of frontline street ministry people. The best toys. Yeah. Or maybe you call it, we’re just a pirate ship of Christians that are just trying our best to serve God. And what I usually tell people if they want to get involved with serving the homeless, they just come and pour some oatmeal in a bowl. for some people in the morning. It’s not dangerous. There’s a lot of things that people can do behind the scenes for making burritos and stuff. Or if you’re like me, wanna get frontline on the streets where it is dangerous, come on down, baby. Come hit the streets with us. We feed about 100 people in the morning, Monday through Friday, right here on site. And that’s probably the best place just to start. We get people showers, they get clean clothes, they get food in their bellies. But then right after that, we go out to the streets and we’ll feed another 200 people. And again, you know, that’s not as dangerous, but it can be. I mean, we like to say that, you know, you have a lot of people that with mental disorders, they’re on drugs. Mm hmm. They carry weapons and they didn’t sleep good last night. OK, so there is that element. But to me, that fires me up. Yeah. So, you know, I would say if anyone out there gets fired up at the idea of some danger, you don’t need to go to Africa. Come down, down timber. Come on. We’ll show your mission field. And these days, as a person that’s been in Africa and done missions there. Yeah. It’s starting to look and feel eerily similar. So unfortunately.
CHRYSANDRA :
Luke, can you tell us one really quick story of just an encounter where a person’s life was changed through Christ’s body? 30 seconds.
LUKE BODLEY :
They’re everywhere around here. I mean, come meet Robert the coffee guy. He did 35 years in prison. See his joyful smile. He’ll embarrass people. We see people all the time. We get people in the jobs. We get people off drugs, into detoxes. And we see them come back and serving the Lord. I mean, there’s too many to even count, especially not within 30 seconds.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes. And just to tell everyone that I have been able to… I we can kind of hear the siren. Well, and I it’s one of my most favorite places to serve and challenge everyone to be able to to have their lives changed through Christ body ministries. And Luke, where can people go sign up to volunteer to donate clothing, donate financial resources? Where where would be the best place for that?
LUKE BODLEY :
They can find us online at christbody.org. So that’s Christ plural. Or they can find us on Facebook or Instagram. So all roads will lead to that. But go to christbody.org. You can volunteer, donate, and also donate financially and donate clothing.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes. And time. And Luke, where can people find you?
LUKE BODLEY :
You can find me on the streets almost every single day. Perfect. I don’t have a presence these days. I mean, sometime maybe I want to get back into that. But I don’t think you can find me anywhere these days. It’s wonderful.
CHRYSANDRA :
Well, we might be able to find some way. So you guys can come to our social media. But right now… You’re listening to this for such a time as this. And just as we are taking one step at a time, this is your next step to get involved, to change a person’s life. Luke, thank you for going after Jesus’s calling on your life fearlessly in all the different chapters. Challenge everyone. Go find Luke. You can find him. Luke Bodley and Christ Ministry, Christ Body Ministries. Yeah, Christ Body Ministries. As Paul said in Ephesians 4, 1, as a prisoner of the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Till next time, dreamer. Keep dreaming big.
