Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Dow.
Hi Michael, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My life didn’t begin on the trajectory that I am currently on. My father was in the United States Air Force. My whole upbringing was spent traveling from place to place every couple of years, in traditional style of military life. By the age of 12, I was already in a sexual lifestyle and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. By 15, my parents were separated, though my home was filled with sorrow and pain from long before that moment. I was expelled from high school a the age of 17 and had a restraining put on me from all of the school campuses in my county (Hillsborough County- I went to Brandon High School). I sat in a doctors office at the age of 17 and was told that because of the way that I was living my life there was now a disease that was ravaging my bloodstream. I found out that day that I had contracted a STD- a sexually transmitted disease. That afternoon I was informed that I had herpes.
By 20 years old, I had been arrested many times, had different stints of jail time, and was getting into a lot of trouble. I was a full-blown drug addict and was drug dealing. I couldn’t keep a job and also had a five-year suspension on my driver’s license. I was living in a continual down spiraling of darkness and there was no real hope of a future that I had. In my late teen years heading into my twenties, I honestly did not think that I would live to see my thirties. I thought I would die out on the streets, sitting in a jail cell somewhere, a drug overdose, or from the current disease that I had contracted, if not something else. I was broken, hopeless, angry, violent, and lost. I wanted to change, I just didn’t know how, and I knew that I in my own strength, had been rendered powerless to produce the change that I knew was needed. I felt like a prisoner to the life that I was living and the person that I knew how to be.
Two weeks after my 21st birthday, I walked into a local church in the Plant City, FL area. I was there to fight one of the Pastor’s sons. I had two friends with me and a backpack full of drugs. Our intentions were to fight in the parking lot once church was over that night. It was pastor appreciation day, October 6th, 2002. I ended up at the altar that night through a somewhat crazy (at least to me) series of events and praying a prayer. I honestly did not think that anything was going to happen. I had only ever been to maybe 1-2 Ash Wednesday services over the course of my entire life. My Mom held a form of Catholicism, but nothing that ever necessarily had a great impact on mine or my younger sister’s life. I didn’t believe in what was happening in that moment. But then it happened… All I can say is this- as I began to pray, I broke into a visionary experience. I saw a man in the distance. He was far off at first that I knew was Jesus Christ. I knew He was the Son of God. I knew He was alive from the dead. I knew He was the Savior of the world and that He had paid the price for my sins. When He saw me His face lit up, like you would when you saw a loved one that you had not seen in a long time, and He came running in my direction. He grabbed me and held me close. He began speaking things over my life. I broke down and began to weep uncontrollably.
All of this seemed to just be a matter of a couple of seconds, but when I pulled my face out of my hands, I realized that it had been 40-45 minutes. From this moment of encounter that I had with Jesus, I was a radically different person. I was what the scripture would define as a “New Creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). I was instantly delivered from drug addiction, alcohol addiction, lustful perversion, rage and violence, and more. I was brand new! After that night, my whole life changed. I was baptized publicly shortly after that. Everything that I had ever known seemed to change. In January of 2003, in the same church, where I had now fully given my life to God and this family of believers, I responded to an altar call after the pastor had been preaching about miracles.
The team prayed for me that morning and believed with me about my sickness/disease. It felt life someone dumped a hot bucket of water on my head and it literally felt like it ran down over my entire body. I returned to the doctor for blood work sometime later. Doctors are now puzzled as to why the blood disease that was once in my bloodstream is no longer there! The blood of Jesus has given me an answer that science doesn’t have. I am healed. My wife, now of 14 years, is whole and perfect. My four children are all beautiful and whole and perfect. And we are about to have another baby boy, which will give us two girls and three boys total. Now, we have committed our lives to travel throughout the world in hopes of leading people to the One that came looking for me. I have given Jesus my life because He gave me His!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Like any other dream, there are always challenges. Vision is costly. Carrying a vision comes with great tension. Once your life has been gripped by a dream, a vision, an inspired thought of what could be, it is that very thing that begins to wrestle with you. You’ve seen something that you feel could be, should be, needs to be, and now it is difficult to be satisfied until you actually see the birthing of what it is that you feel you carry. This has been our process. We began with a vision and a wet pillow- from nights of weeping, not knowing how we would ever be able to see the fulfillment of things that we knew God has spoken deeply into our hearts.
We have had to be faithful in moments and seasons of life where it didn’t look like what we knew we saw in our hearts. We have had to go through times that looked the exact opposite of what we felt like we were carrying and were jealous to see come to pass. God uses it all. He uses it all in order to ready our lives to be faithful with what He has spoken to us. He uses it all in order to develop the grit and resolve that is necessary to not just see something barely survive but to equip us so that we can thrive when we are released to birth and build what He has revealed to us. We are grateful for the ups and downs, failures and celebrations, ebbs and flows that life has brought our way because it has made us who we are today and has helped to ready us for the moment of fulfillment that we are living in.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Burning Ones?
After many years of serving and being faithful in a variety of places we ended up establishing our international base for Burning Ones here in the Orlando area. We were a part of a beautiful church family in Plant City, FL, where we were married for a little over ten years and did just about anything and everything to serve in our local church. From there we moved to Charlotte, NC. In Charlotte, we spent three years planting house churches with a powerful team of people who love Jesus and carried a real burden to see the city and region transformed by the power of the Gospel. We then moved again to the Orlando area to join an incredible international evangelistic ministry that has seen tens of millions of people reached all around the world, with a special emphasis on Africa.
From here, we launched out into what is now our full-time mission, Burning Ones. Burning Ones is helping people all around the world experience the love and power of Jesus and live more passionately devoted to Him. We are seeing this happen through a variety of initiatives: Churches, Crusades, Conferences, Writing, Worship, Media, Israel, and more! Churches: We have a relationship with the Church locally and globally and serve in a variety of ways to help enhance the mission of the Gospel in the specific places they may be planted and serving. Crusades: We host evangelistic crusade gatherings where we preach the Gospel, pray for the sick, and bring deliverance to those who are bound. These gatherings can be a few hundred people, up to tens of thousands of people on dirt fields in Africa, Stadiums in Guatemala, Massive Tents in Brazil, Church to Church in Colombia, out on the streets, school auditoriums, and more. Conferences: We host conferences throughout the world with an emphasis on awakening a burning love for Jesus and living faithfully for Him in the moment of history that we have been chosen for. Writing: We have launched a publishing company. Burning One’s Publishing is “Publishing the Prophets; those who have an ear to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying.” From conception to completion, we are helping to assist authors in the process of seeing the fulfillment of their writing dreams. Worship: Burning Ones Worship is putting out worship projects, cd’s videos and leading in gatherings of all kinds throughout the world. Israel: Our team hosts an Israel Tour where we lead small groups of people (50 max) throughout the land of Israel as we preach, teach, worship, and experience the land and people of Israel in a life-changing way. Media: Our team is preaching the Gospel and providing life-changing content and reaching millions of people through media avenues and social platforms; YouTube, TV, Radio, and a variety of other ways. Our team is in the Orlando area. Burning Ones is a 501.C.3. We have given our lives in a full-time way to preaching the Gospel throughout the world.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
No, there’s obviously a ton more that could be shared, but I think this is a great starting point.
Contact Info:
- Email: team@BurningOnes.org
- Website: www.BurningOnes.org
- Instagram: www.Instagram.com/_burningones
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/burningonesinternational
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaeldow
- Youtube: www.YouTube.com/c/burningones
