Colton Burpo | Exclusive Interview | Pure Flix Insider

colton how's it going today it's going well how's it going for you it's going well it's going well we were just i was just saying to you before we started here that i think i it's been gosh you know since 2014 since i've i've seen you and you've grown up quite a bit um yeah you you're about to be 22 years old correct 22 years old now your story and just for those who are tuning in is told in heaven is for real in the book and in the film and you know that was a

time the story is told at a time when you were almost four years old right so you were you know very little at the time and those who aren't familiar with the film uh and or the book really it recounts this phenomenal story of what you went through and this heaven experience as a child that you went through but i actually want to start by talking about where you are right now what is going on right now sort of the update in your life so fill us in like what's what's been going on in colton's

life yeah um so for me i've been living here in colorado for the past almost two years now uh i did about two years at a bible college down in tulsa oklahoma it's called victory college and spent some time there and then moved up here and recently i've been working or studying becoming an electrician so i'm working as an apprentice electrician up here when i'm not doing this stuff so that's that's actually like quite the dichotomy very different that's really interesting right and you're you've been speaking sharing your story for years obviously the feature film

about your life and then learning to do that that's amazing so what let me let me ask you this because you've had a lot of time you've grown up sharing the story right and now you're an adult what what impact then we're gonna get deeper into the story but what impact on your faith and your growth has the story had in sharing that story for you well when it comes to like impacting or kind of when it comes to talking about my faith when it comes to talking about this experience so when i did go

to heaven it happened at such a young age that it's kind of helped guide and direct my faith more than like change it because before then i mean i was a pastor's kid so i was around church and at least seeing how that's helped me out later in life because i still had to go through all those questions of well is god even real like do i did i really even experience that like i still had to wrestle with all those questions because some of the stuff that i remember or some of the things that

i remember seeing in heaven or experience in heaven i still got to experience earth because i live here and i'm human so it's definitely been really cool to just see how my experience has helped change and grow me and as i've matured it's definitely helped me out a lot yeah and sharing that experience i mean what what your story tells us what you went through it's a very personal experience and a lot of people don't share those stories in fact there's data about this and it has there was a polling question i forget it might

have been pew asked this question years ago of the percentage of people who had gone through these things you know and had experienced them and it was in the 20s i think it was like 24 i forget the percentage but it was it was interesting because you don't often hear these stories what was it for you and obviously this was a decision your family made at the time what was it for you guys that not only led you to speak out about the experience but led you to continue doing that right because you could have

done it once and you could have walked away but you guys have very consistently shared what you went through well um i would say my dad definitely has a much better answer than i do because when i started traveling or when our book came out i was 11 years old and i was in sixth grade so at the time i was like you mean i get to get out of school to talk about heaven sign me up it's like perfect i know it was amazing but it's really been cooler at least for me seeing how

i've been able to help out a lot of people by just talking um able to help out hurting people or give people hope about what is to come and that's probably been the thing that's helped me keep going after i mean the book has been out for over 10 years now so i've been doing ministry for at least half my life a little bit over now but it's really cool just to see how many people that we have been able to help just because god did something awesome and then he told us to share it

and i'm very grateful that my parents did follow through because now i do get these opportunities to just share with people about what heaven is like do you see yourself continuing in ministry throughout your life i do um in what way or fashion i have no idea i've tried to have a plan and god's kind of interrupts those plans many laughs that plans you know that happens he just yeah we make him laugh we can make many plans but at the end of the day god's the one who guides my steps so that's what i

kind of go for i mean i never planned on living here in colorado but i'm grateful i do because i get to interact with a lot of really awesome people and the area where i live in colorado it's actually i think the last study that was done up here it's like four percent christian so it's really amazing because i get to be up here and just do life with some people who would never set foot in a church and may not meet i mean if you've got four percent of a population saying they're christians they

may not be encountering many christians and here you are are they aware there of your story and who you are like is that like is that something that comes up quickly or frequently so one thing that at least i like doing and my family is kind of the same way um like i just call myself pseudo famous i don't think i'm famous like i'm still a normal guy i have to work i have to pay bills i hang out with friends but it's really funny whenever i like interact with a new friend group or i

move to a new place and then they just get to know me as colton and then finally like either someone tells them or they hear my last name or something happens where finally it's like they connect the dots and it's like hold on you're that colton yeah you didn't think that was important to share like when we first met nah no that's that's kind of how i how i have fun with it because then you get to see people's gears turning because i always make like off-handed comments like uh i was with one of my

friends recently and he just started saying like yolo and i'm like yeah my friends don't let me say that with me and i'm like well technically i didn't die but they tell me i can't say it i mean listen it's one thing about your family that always struck me is that you know and this is not an indictment anybody who chooses to do something different but you all stayed very normal i mean your life stayed normal throughout the process i think i've probably interviewed you and your family numerous times throughout the years from when you

were a kid now to you being an adult and you know you were living in the same house last time i saw you guys as you were when this happened you know all of these things that were the hallmarks of just continuing to live a really normal life despite the fact that you know it's not a normal experience to be able to be on talk shows and to travel and have a movie about your life and a best-selling book about your life but yet you guys remained very normal and that to me was pretty amazing

um did that help you to just kind of in your own existence growing up with those questions and with just the normal experience of being a young person kind of navigate that a little easier um yes and no i mean it became just a normal part of life for me whereas some people like it's very different from most people how they would live life but since i've been like doing interviews like this for a while now like it's kind of natural for me now or at least i don't get super uncomfortable with it and yeah

i mean i've kind of just gotten used to it now but yeah sometimes i get to put in fun awkward situations but it's usually not like here it's usually like when i'm talking with someone and then they'll just start talking and i'm like can you just say that okay cool so all right so now obviously for anybody who has watched the movie and if you haven't watched the film heaviness for real and you want to watch it it's on pure flicks right now but yeah you watch the film and it's your story and you're a

very little boy again we as we mentioned earlier you were a little under four years old when this happened you were you were very young this incredible experience and watching the film and seeing how this unfolds and of course film and we could talk about this after a little bit but film may not be 100 because you have to collapse characters and there's things you have to do to make a movie work but what was it what was it like for you and then i want to get into the specific story of what happened for

those who don't know but to actually have the story because the book was out and you were getting a little older and then the movie comes what was that like to have your personal story that you you had shared in a different form turned into a movie um all honesty it was a little weird just because i mean i'm from a small town of 2000 people and now a lot of people just kind of know like at least my name or recognize it and i mean it definitely was a bit of a culture shock i

mean i get to go to like we got to go to the set a few times and just seeing like how it actually works like the magic behind the films um being able to talk with some of the actors that were in our movie like um like i remember greg kinnear i got to talk with him just a little bit um conor coram the kid that played me he wasn't acting we were basically like it was like having a little mini me it was really cool um in contact with any of the people from the

film does your family keep in contact with any of them um i personally don't uh sometimes we get like updates from connor like how he's doing um but i think i don't think any of us keep in contact too much with people who are part of our film yeah i was just curious but but it was a weird process to have it was strange to watch other people portray not just you your mom your dad you know your sister and the people in your town right so so in the movie there's a the town is

sort of shocked i don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it but people are shocked by your story and there's a little bit of contention and art and sort of arguing going on about that how accurate was that to what actually happened so that was actually put in for storyline of the movie um the cool thing is in reality it wasn't as like um i don't know what word to use but it wasn't as tense or sure it wasn't as tense right at the beginning because what happened is during that time like

when i was in the hospital i think i was there for like 17 days and like people were coming to check in on my parents and it was really cool because even with um different people in our town like different churches got together and prayed for me so a lot of people in my town knew it was a miracle that colton was healed they just didn't know about the heaven stuff until afterwards and what would happen is after i had my trip to heaven and we came back to imperial i would just start saying random

things i mean i was three or four like around that age you have next to no filter so you just start saying stuff and it was really honest those kids are the most honest at that age right yeah so i was just saying a bunch of offhanded comments that my dad was telling me that basically people would just come up to him and say did you know what your son just told me no what did he say this time like it just kind of became a part of life because i was just very open about

it and it took a while for me to kind of like learn oh not everybody has this experience because i thought it was a normal experience right yeah i thought it was normal so let's talk about the experience now first of all how much of the experience do you have memories of because before you answer i think a lot of people when something traumatic happens and i'm going to use the word traumatic lightly here because this is not something that is traumatic in a negative sense but it's defining let's say you might remember it but

so how much of these memories do you still have so when it comes to a lot of the memories from like the hospital or like the appendicitis part i don't remember too much i mean i still hate needles so who doesn't that um but when it comes to my memories of heaven um how i like to describe it to people is i don't remember them as if it was like yesterday so for or think about taking your family to like disney world you go ride rides you have all the food pictures all that fun stuff

the day after you remember everything you did and then after that about three months go by you might remember a few things and then after a year you kind of remember some stuff but for me i mean i haven't had to do this math in a while but about ready to turn 22 so it's been about 19 years pretty close to that and like with a lot of my memories some of them have faded over time like i used to be able to remember the names of all the kids i played with in heaven but

now i struggle with what many people struggle with where someone will tell me their name and i will forget it right away and i have to kind of like relearn or like give myself little tricks to remember people's names but a lot of the like really big things i do remember um but it's not as like vivid as it used to be but it's still very clear like i experienced this and it's been really cool because other times i've been able to like read scripture and i'll read something and i'm like huh that's cool i

saw that like i remember one of the times when i was reading um i was reading through i think it was ezekiel and it talked about god the father sitting on his throne he talked about he was like clothed in white fire and then he had like some sort of sash of ember and i'm like what is ember so i looked it up it's yellow and i'm like oh i remember got out of yellow sash nice so i have little moments like that but yeah how did this so and so this experience of of and

just again for clarity here you have this near-death experience you're in the hospital you almost lose your life and you and you have this experience for anybody who's tuning in now where you where you visit heaven and you see these incredible things and you know it's amazing to me the the way that you had even mentioned before having to navigate even after having that experience having to navigate the questions we all have about god and his existence and what you saw how has that experience though as a frame of reference of what you saw and

exp and experienced as a child always brought you back and helped reaffirm your belief like what what about that has shown you no matter what this is true i know i experienced this and i know that that the bible is true well for me being able to kind of bring it back to at least when it comes to when i talk about heaven i see at least how it does help out a lot of people and another thing for me is at least one thing i've kind of had my whole life but i didn't like

really understand it till like later on in life but um usually i can kind of feel the holy spirit whenever i start talking about like god's stuff or if he's ever like in a room or something like um how i kind of feel it is it's almost like warm honey just like starting on the back of your neck and just going all the way down it's like these good chills just like all throughout your whole body but you don't know how to explain it and i've had many times where i've had i've experienced that it's

like okay what's god trying to do because you feel that way all the time in heaven and it's something that nothing can replicate like when you experience god's presence so powerfully in a way that it's undeniable that's one of the things that just helps me always bring it back to okay god's here god's with me i don't have to freak out about this i'm doing okay and even just that reminder i mean one thing that i have been doing recently um growing up i did not do but in the last few years i have incorporated

like reading the bible every day into my life like spending time journaling letting god speak to me making sure i pray every day like spending time with him and i've seen a drastic difference in my life where instead of being super worried about everything like i'm able to just kind of go you know what at the end of the day he's god i'm not he's a lot bigger than every issue that i'm facing right now so he's got this that's amazing and when you start to do that when you start to start the day with

the bible i journal too that's huge for me writing because i find that like i drift off when i pray if i'm not writing it down so i write my prayers out that's how i do it for me uh and i pray sometimes regularly too but writing it out is really helpful when you do that every day though it changes everything and so i'd encourage people who aren't doing that and in just what you just said to start doing it make the time for it because it's so easy to make excuses but that is the

most important thing is fostering that relationship right and so you've seen drastic changes in your life how would you why why do you think god gave you this experience because a lot of other people don't get this experience right so why do you think he gave it to you um when i have a like definitive answer i'll let you know you can come back and talk about it there's there's many times where i i just ask i'm like god why'd you pick me like definitely growing up i've had my fair share of like shortcomings mistakes

but at the end of the day the really cool thing i've noticed is because god let me experience heaven at such a young age that when you describe heaven as a child or in the context of being a kid it keeps everything so simple that people can kind of go oh well that makes sense like we don't have to over complicate everything i mean for me now that i am an adult i realize that i complicate everything i overthink everything you're a human being i know but it's really cool because with this experience and being

able to experience heaven as a kid and even though now that i am older my vocabulary is increased i'm still able to describe or talk about heaven in such a simple way that is able to help people and at the end of the day that's what i want to do i want to be able to give people hope and tell them how to get to heaven so that they can experience it too that's incredible and it's really the most important thing that we could be doing is telling people about jesus right i think it's so

easy to be distracted by everything else and our other priorities which that doesn't mean those things aren't important but the most important thing that we could be doing is just that and so it's amazing that you're still doing that that you're still sharing your story my final question for you if somebody picks up the book heaven is for real or goes onto pure flicks right now and streams the film what are you hoping they feel or think or experience at the end of that at the end of seeing your story well one of the things

or at least a few things i don't really know like if it's a list or anything but a few things that i do pray and hope that some people get to experience is first off the heaven is real that there is hope like we get to have a relationship with god we don't have to wait till we're off this world to have a relationship with god but there is something better waiting for us and many times what like you don't have to convince someone that the earth is messed up that us as human beings are

messed up so it's really cool that even though we are messed up that god chose to come and have a relationship with us to help us walk through this life so that we can live a life that is full of joy because there's so many amazing things about earth so while we're here take advantage of it but this is only temporary and heaven one of my favorite ways to describe heaven is it's like a perfect version of earth because you get to you get to experience a lot of the things you do down here on

earth like there's people there's animals there's angels there's grass trees water skies there's food like so many things you get to experience in heaven but the main thing is you get to experience god's presence without any distractions and that's probably one of the things i miss the most and look forward to but while i'm here i can give people some hope or point them in that direction listen i so appreciate you taking the time today i really do thank you so much for coming on you're welcome