In this episode, Mike Train interviews Rick Wolf, the visionary behind Soul Survivor Outdoor, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting active duty military personnel. Discover how this organization is creating a lasting impact in the lives of soldiers by promoting spiritual, mental, and physical fitness. Rick discusses the origins of the organization, its growing acceptance within military circles, and the critical role faith plays in building stronger service members.
00:00:00 Introduction to Rick Wolf and Soul Survivor Outdoor
It’s Mike Train with Crawford Media Group. I’m here with founder and president of Soul Survivor Outdoor, Rick Wolf. Hey, Rick, thanks for taking the time with us.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely, Mike. Thanks so much for having me join you this morning.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, you serve our veterans in a very specific and different way. And so we’re going to get into that. But I think one of the things first is just to tell people what’s an introduction for you, why you got involved in Soul Survivor Outdoor. You’re a veteran. We’re so grateful for your service. So thank you for that. We want to honor that, too. And tell us, let’s get into what you’re doing that’s different, okay? Sure.
SPEAKER 01 :
You bet. So what’s so different is we throw this term veteran around a lot. And I think people tend to concentrate on veterans as just a population group of both those serving now and those that have served in the past. And what we’re really talking about is active duty service members who are serving now. So technically, they’re not veterans. They’re serving today, and they’re serving all over the planet. It’s an increasingly dangerous world that we live in. And active duty military, primarily under the age of 30, are serving all over the planet in places like Poland and Syria and many places that we don’t even necessarily affiliate with military service these days. And the Army, for instance, is serving in a huge way in support of our border mission and so forth, not to be political at all, but to simply call that out, that the military is heavily engaged and active duty is really where we’re focused. And so that’s really what we’re talking about is an active duty community that has in large part not had the focus of military. support from the American people necessarily and ministries in particular. And so Soul Survivor Outdoor is out there engaging the active duty military community in a discussion of faith through unique outdoor adventure opportunities so that we can target that younger age group. So that’s really setting us apart hugely because of the 100% focus on active duty service members and not folks that are necessarily in a compromised situation or so forth. We know that people come from myriad of backgrounds and can have a lot of things happening in their lives but we’re not talking about a wounded population in quotes but we’re talking about people that are serving today and going all over the planet so rick why why did you get involved was this after retirement thing for you or is that something that you just felt a pull on you even when you were serving Actually, I served about 29 years in the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve and ultimately retired from the Marine Corps Reserves. But at one point while I was serving on active duty near the end of my career, I had Marines that had served primarily in combat roles around the globe and they were suffering from a number of different kinds of issues. And that just really alerted me to the fact that I needed to be engaged in a more deliberate way talking uh faith in the community of those that are serving now because jesus made such a simple analogy about building our house on the rock or on the sand and i think most people have very sandy foundations in fact that might actually be paying them a compliment that they have a sound event found it or a sand foundation and actually have something even less secure than sand And so being able to bring a faith discussion into that arena with active duty folks so that maybe they wouldn’t suffer the consequences so severely of combat and military service as they were. And so I had a number of Marines that I was responsible for who were mostly going to be transitioning out of the military because they The wounds that they had, both physical and psychological, were so severe that they could not continue active duty service. And it really just alerted me to the fact that we need to be able to have a much more deliberate and engaging discussion of faith as foundation within the military. And that was in 2013, 14. And the military was starting to talk about holistic fitness in a much more deliberate fashion. But fast forward, we’re talking a lot more about, you know, mental, physical and even spiritual fitness. And so as a Marine, serving those Marines, it really drew my attention that we needed to be doing something. And so out of that was birthed Soul Survivor Outdoor. And so actually, I don’t talk hugely about this, but I am the founder because that situation really made me aware that here’s an area of unique need. And faith is so central to just life in general, but military in particular. So how could we bring faith into this engagement in a way that the military would allow it and where we could come alongside military commanders and leaders to bring resiliency, kind of a buzzword these days, but resiliency so that people could function better on and off the battlefield. And faith is such a huge component of that. And so that’s where it all started.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re speaking with Rick Wolf. He is the founder and president of Soul Survivor Outdoor. And Rick, so you stepped in to meet this need, and it sounds like you have found a level of acceptance and receptive individuals in the military that I think might surprise some people. Talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, this idea of holistic fitness has really grown. I think that pragmatic military leaders, regardless of faith background, say let’s put all options on the table. And so the Department of Defense, even over the last several years, and there’s been many contentious issues in our culture and so forth, but those who are looking at The whole problem in saying, okay, well, the Department of Defense now says we need to be mentally, physically, spiritually, socially, and emotionally fit. Now, it is a secular institution, so it probably wouldn’t even be right for them to say, you must be Christian. You can’t certainly do that. But we can come to the table in that environment where many options are being considered. and present faith as a foundation with no pushback, frankly, whatsoever. And so we’re really getting just an enormous level of traction. And so I talk about military leaders. These are not random engagements that we have. We have a whole team that is working with military leaders across the country. It was only a week or two ago that I was speaking with the three-star general. who is the commander of the United States Army Special Operations Command. They had actually invited us to share some of the things that we do. And there was a chaplain who, in fact, he was critically involved. But we were able to very clearly state our position in terms of why we are solid in our life and the challenges that have been thrown at us, me in particular, and how faith and faith in Christ is so critical. So I actually brought up the question, can you be a warrior and a faith person? But let’s be even more specific. Can you be a warrior and a Christ follower? And so I cited Psalms where, you know, he makes our hands for war and Zephaniah where he’s the great mighty warrior God and rejoices over us. But also that, you know, Cornelius in Acts 10 was the first prophet. gentile convert and actually an enemy of israel in the position that he was at and and peter doesn’t tell him to head off to seminary he actually you know has a whole family that comes to faith and so um we’re just having an amazing open door to be able to do that and it’s directly with these senior leaders that we’re working and uh it’s fully um Nobody gets forced to come to one of our events, but the military makes it available to them, and then they can come and participate, and we’re working directly through the military leaders to facilitate this.
SPEAKER 02 :
Man, Rick, what a blessing. God’s just opening these doors for you guys. And as you told me in our pre-interview discussion, it sounds like more and more places, different locations, you’re able to have operations and people working together.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. And so we’re in California. That’s where we started. We’re in Colorado now. We’re in Florida. We’re in Kentucky. We’re in Texas. That’s where we have permanent team members. But we’ve actually been in 11 states over the years. We even served the U.S. Army in Poland, which was quite, it’s a story all into itself. We could have a radio program just talking about how we got to Poland and what happened there. And so in Colorado, where you are, we have a Team leader, an area director there who lives in Black Forest. He’s mainly engaged with Fort Carson. They hosted about 500 or 600 soldiers from Fort Carson and some of the peripherals. So we had some Air Force. We had some Space Force last year, and we’re already off to a good start. start here this year in 2025 with service members there in and around the Colorado Springs area and even up near Buckley, so Denver area. It’s really blossoming and each one of the teams in these areas having similar kind of effect.
SPEAKER 02 :
Why do you think that is, Rick? Do you feel like there is that whole, that emotional need? And, you know, obviously you do because you got involved with this. Tell us about that. What is the health of our people that are serving, first responders and others, you know, people that are serving in our military?
SPEAKER 01 :
You bet. Well, I think that we have a generation that’s very hungry for truth. I think they’re told on a daily basis, even from a very young age, that truth is relative or perhaps it doesn’t even exist. But I think, as Solomon refers to, we each have a sense of eternity in our hearts that God put there. And so, interestingly, when we address what we do, it’s having a huge impact on the resiliency of these service members, but it’s also getting a massive response on the faith side. So when we talk to a group and we say, you know, faith is a foundation, it’s for you, our identity, we have small identities and other things, some of those things can be healthy, some are rather unhealthy. But ultimately, our identity is rooted and grounded in Christ or God who made us from the very beginning. And they just look at you like, oh, my gosh, I’ve never heard this before. And then they’re responding in huge ways. So for those who are interested, you know, last year when we hosted over 2,500 activity military in, I think, eight states, We had over 900 that either professed Christ for the first time or recommitted their lives to Christ. So when you’re getting numbers that are close to half of the participants that are showing up, it’s affecting mission accomplishment because these people are just more healthy as a general rule. So the commander loves that, right? We’re at peace with all people as much as we’re able, and we’re producing an environment where people are thriving and doing better just in their day-to-day lives and also while they’re deploying. And then for Christians who want to know what’s happening with the military, It’s much like ministry that’s happening across college campuses, across the U.S. You see Greg Laurie, you see other pastors and people that are having these successes, even college campuses where things spring up and kids get baptized by the thousands. This is happening in the military as well, and I think it’s important for people to know that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Rick, this work, if somebody wants to get involved, what is the touch points? Is it volunteering? Is it donating? What does that look like?
SPEAKER 01 :
so both of those are super critical and uh you might add prayer to that because there’s definitely some prayer warriors out there that are sure uh clearly the doors are being open to this and so we need that and for protection and so forth uh volunteerism is certainly important um but also you know people don’t always want to talk about money but that’s really important uh it takes about a million close to a million dollars to do what we do at this stage of our development And so that’s, you know, donors that are donating $10 a month all the way through, you know, a foundation or two donating close to $100,000 each. And so it takes everybody to be committed financially so that we can see a heavenly, you know, treasure. But it takes earthly gain to be able to see that heavenly treasure laid up. So, yeah, those two are really closely connected. But prayer, volunteerism, and then funding is massively important.
SPEAKER 02 :
It seems like prayer first, pray, how can I help? How can I get involved and help Rick and these teams? And then some can give. Some can give, some can volunteer, some can do both. How do they get a hold of you, Rick? What’s the best way for them to get connected?
SPEAKER 01 :
So the best thing to do is to simply go on our website at soulsurvivoroutdoor.org, and it’s S-O-U-L.org. S-U-R-V-I-V-O-R, outdoor.org. And I think everybody can find us there. And then there’s a way to link into us by email as well. And so start there. And there’s just a whole lot of information about us there that makes it very clear that we’re having this huge impact.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Rick, what you’re doing in your teams for people that are protecting us, protecting our nation, and protecting us here in the States as well, your folks are involved in all of that. So it’s soulsurvivoroutdoor.org, soulsurvivoroutdoor.org. And, Rick, thank you for taking the time with us. We’re really honored to have you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Mike, it’s incredible to have this opportunity and get the word out there. And so thanks again for having me on the show this morning.
