The three accounts, delivered by Matthesius in separate sermons and recently compiled into a video circulating on Reddit, present a striking contrast between the pastor’s public teachings about supernatural healing and his own response to a serious cancer diagnosis.
In the first account, Matthesius describes encountering a man in Atlanta who was using an aluminum walker. According to Matthesius, the man told him he had cancer, Matthesius placed his hand on him and prayed, and the man fell backward to the ground. Matthesius says he received a phone call approximately six or seven weeks later from the pastor of the church where the encounter occurred. According to Matthesius’ retelling, the man had previously been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, but doctors could no longer find the disease.
In another sermon, Matthesius describes being asked to visit a military family whose young son was hospitalized at Rady Children’s Hospital with what he called an inoperable tumor. Matthesius says the child was not yet three years old and that a large tumor was visibly protruding beneath his skin. According to Matthesius, he began praying in tongues and eventually placed his hands on the child. He says the boy’s mother remarked that everything suddenly felt hot, and that the following morning he received a call informing him that doctors were describing what happened as a miracle.
Matthesius says the tumor, which had been approximately the size of a softball, had shrunk to smaller than a golf ball overnight and had separated from vital organs, making surgery possible. He later told the congregation that the child survived cancer and that he possessed photographs showing him years later mountain biking, fishing and riding motocross.
Then Matthesius told his congregation about his own cancer.
“Nine months ago today, the report came back from the biopsy that I had Stage 2 cancer,” Matthesius said, explaining that he had one tumor in his neck and another at the back of his tongue.
He described immediately turning to God following the diagnosis but also made clear that he sought extensive medical treatment. Matthesius said he chose not to receive that treatment in the United States, instead traveling to Oasis of Hope Hospital in Tijuana.
“I didn’t do my treatment here in America,” Matthesius told the congregation. “I did my treatment in Oasis of Hope Hospital in Tijuana.”
He then drew an explicit distinction between the approaches, saying, “Here they treat cancer. There they cure it. If you’ve got a choice between treating and curing, go with the cure.”
Matthesius said a mass in his neck initially felt approximately like a hard-boiled egg and shrank to about the size of a golf ball over roughly four months of treatment. He then said that within another seven days, it “completely dissolved.”
The sermon does not identify precisely what therapies Matthesius received at Oasis of Hope. His own account nevertheless confirms both his cancer diagnosis and his decision to undergo months of treatment at the Tijuana facility.
That distinction is important because the recent Reddit post presenting the clips suggested Matthesius relied on medical treatment when faced with his own cancer after previously describing other people’s cancers disappearing following prayer. The videos establish that Matthesius himself publicly made both sets of claims.
They do not establish that Matthesius rejected prayer in favor of medicine. In fact, his cancer testimony presents the two as working together: he describes God speaking to him immediately after his diagnosis and providing “strategies,” while also undergoing months of treatment.
Nor is believing that prayer and medicine can coexist unusual within Christianity. What makes Matthesius’ statements noteworthy is the certainty with which he describes performing apparent supernatural cures with other people while simultaneously recounting an extended course of medical cancer treatment for himself.
Awaken Church expressly teaches that supernatural physical healing remains possible. Its statement of beliefs says Christ’s death provides healing of the human body “in answer to believing prayer,” and the church’s teachings emphasize laying hands on the sick, speaking in tongues and the continued operation of spiritual gifts.
Matthesius’ choice of Oasis of Hope adds another layer to the story. The Tijuana hospital has operated since 1963 and describes itself as a center for integrative and alternative cancer treatment, combining conventional oncology with a variety of complementary therapies. Its current offerings include chemotherapy and radiation in some treatment programs, along with immunotherapies, nutritional treatment, hyperthermia, high-dose intravenous vitamins, ozone therapies and other alternative approaches.
Oasis of Hope itself cautions that individual patient results vary and that testimonials should not be interpreted as guarantees of effectiveness. Its website says treatment programs are personalized and encourages patients to obtain medical advice specific to their cases.
The resurfaced clips have nevertheless generated an intense reaction in San Diego, particularly because one of Matthesius’ purported miracles involves a child with cancer. The Reddit post quickly attracted hundreds of votes and comments, with critics questioning why a pastor who describes cancers disappearing through prayer would undergo months of cancer treatment himself. Others expressed concern that dramatic healing testimonies could lead seriously ill people to place unrealistic expectations on prayer or alternative medicine.
The controversy also lands against the backdrop of years of scrutiny surrounding Awaken Church, which Matthesius and his wife Leanne founded in San Diego as C3 San Diego before later rebranding it as Awaken.
The church has grown into a multi-campus megachurch while becoming increasingly prominent in local political and cultural disputes. Its own website encourages political engagement, and previous reporting has documented pastors speaking about candidates and elections from the pulpit, as well as Awaken’s involvement with conservative political organizing in San Diego County.
Awaken also drew significant controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic after continuing large indoor gatherings despite county restrictions. Contemporary reporting linked multiple outbreaks involving dozens of cases to Awaken campuses, while the church became an organizing venue for opponents of pandemic restrictions. Those controversies helped transform what had once been a comparatively obscure local church into one of San Diego’s most polarizing religious institutions.
The latest debate, however, is not principally about politics. It is about an extraordinary medical claim made from a church stage: that prayer was followed by the disappearance of advanced cancer in one man and the dramatic overnight shrinking of an inoperable tumor in a small child.
And now, because Matthesius himself has publicly discussed his own cancer journey, the other half of the story is no longer speculation circulating online.
When cancer came for the pastor, he prayed. He also went to a hospital.
Originally published on September 12, 2026.