Former 'Gold Rush' star says family relies on Jesus to persevere in challenging new Discovery series
Todd Hoffman, formerly of the Discovery series “Gold Rush,” is back with a new show. But this time around, the popular miner will be providing audiences an intimate look into his family and how they rely on their faith to help them navigate an extremely tasking gold mine in Alaska.
The show, “Hoffman Family Gold,” premiered Friday on Discovery and takes place four years after Hoffman walked away from his tumultuous mining career to focus on his family. The Hoffman family, including Hoffman’s father, Jack, and his son, Hunter, will try their best to strike it rich.
Hoffman first went mining with his father when he was a teenager. It was something that his father dreamed about. The family took the chance in 2008-2009 when gold began increasing in value and skyrocketed during the recession. This led to the launch of “Gold Rush” on the Discovery Channel in 2010.
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They began mining undercapitalized with their friends on worldwide television. They mined for many years in Alaska, Yukon, Colorado, Oregon and the jungle. The Hoffmans retired four years ago and thought they were done. Then COVID-19 hit.
“I watched my father start building a wash plant out in the parking lot of our little tiny family airport,” Hoffman said in an interview with The Christian Post, speaking of what his dad did during the pandemic. “I knew my dad’s not done.”
The family began putting things back together again to go on a new mining excursion, and the Discovery Channel “missed” them, he said.
“We think we have something to share where our faith can shine through,” Hoffman said he told Discovery. “We don’t want this to be a dark reality show where people throw wrenches at each other. I said, ‘[Yes], If you guys can agree to allow us to pray, if you guys can agree to allow us to be us, and on TV encourage everybody in the world, not just Christians, anybody.' They said, ‘You know what? We’re game. We want you guys back, the Hoffman’s back.’”
As a result, “Hoffman Family Gold” features “several things” that have never been seen on a gold reality TV show, Hoffman said.
Hoffman has been a Christian for many years, and it was vital for him to put his faith on display on the screen as well.
“I became a Christian when I was young, and I really took my faith serious. My father was an elder at the church. But I feel like maybe my faith really got cemented around 15-16 when some of my buddies decided they wanted to go drink and do certain things like that. So I just took a path on my own, and it was lonely. I got to be honest with you,” Hoffman shared.
“The Christian path isn’t the easy path. But as we all know, it is the path that takes us to salvation. We are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. Our sins are covered by His blood and His sacrifice. And I truly accepted that sacrifice,” the Oregon native testified. “Having said that, I’m no poster boy for the faith. But I’m telling you right now, my family, we love Jesus, we represent the best we can, our faith and our values.”
He thought, at one point, he wanted to be a youth pastor and went to the Bible colleges — William Jessup University, Multnomah School of the Bible. Although he’s still involved in the church, Hoffman found out his skills were more in line with business. So, he didn’t become a youth pastor.
“My faith took me into the business world. I’m a tech guy. I was in the dot-com era. I sold a dot-com company back in the day. I’m an inventor. I do a lot of different things,” he added. “We do real estate. That doesn’t mean I’m a super millionaire, because I’m not. I just really like television, the creation of it, the filming of it.”
The multitalented miner was the executive producer on “Gold Rush” and is now the executive producer of “Hoffman Family Gold.”
“For instance, in the show, talking about our faith, If there is a fight, what I tried to do is close it up,” Hoffman told CP. “So hopefully, we film maybe saying we’re sorry, coming full circle so that people can see.”
“At the end of the day, you can have all the money, you can have the best job in the world, you’re still going to die, and you’re still standing before God,” he continued. “He’s going to open up the book, and your name is in there, or it isn’t in there. He’s going to say, ‘Maybe you did a lot of good things, but I don’t know you.’”
“The most important thing in our lives, the words that we want to hear is, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.’ Because all the things of this world, including gold, all will pass away. And it’s a single journey between you and Jesus Christ. This is where the crux of everything is and that’s why I love being on television because there’s no other medium that you can reach [so many].”
Hoffman said many people may not like him, but he’s glad that he and his family can be a positive impact on the world while still working hard.
“Discovery Channel has such a huge reach. We’re talking to hundreds of millions of people around the world, 200 countries in 120 languages,” he celebrated.
“Hoffman Family Gold” takes a more intimate look at the family. The leader of the Hoffman crew really wants people to see the positive impact the patriarch of their family has on everyone.
“I want you to know how good my father is and what a wonderful person he is and how he loves people and how many people he’s encouraged in his life,” Hoffman commented. “I want you to be encouraged by my father. I want you to see the relationship with me and my son, which isn’t always easy. I want you to see that you can get around differences and do your best and see if you can support your kids because what they have to deal with nowadays with pornography and everything else that’s coming at them is a lot harder than what we had.”
“It’s difficult for them growing up in this weird world. It’s very difficult for them,” he added. “What I want you to see is 20 something-year-old kids out there living the American dream, doing real stuff, not just sitting there playing video games.”
Hoffman insisted that his family is not in this for fame or riches.
“We are supposed to be good stewards as Christians,” he noted. “What we do is we dig up the gold, we process the dirt, we put the dirt back, and then we replant over the top. It’s called reclamation.”
Hoffman has two nominations for reclamation awards in the Yukon. Because of their honest work, they believe that they have stayed in good graces with God while proudly representing Discovery Channel.
“We’re clean miners. We recirculate the water. We don’t pollute anything. We don’t use a bunch of chemicals, things like that. We’re just surface mining,” Hoffman maintained.
“We are not perfect. The show’s not going to show perfect Christians, but they are going to show our faith and that we do love Jesus Christ and we are sold out on the saving grace of Christ. We want everybody to be encouraged in that. We want everybody to know that God has already won. We have already won the battle,” he ended.
Hoffman has a message for families everywhere.
“I know that there’s times that are looking really rough right now. There are scary things that are going on in the world. This was foretold,” Hoffman stated. “We knew it was coming. So gather your family, pull them off the internet a little bit and start going out and doing some activities. Get out. If you want to gold pan or do anything, rally around your family because we are coming towards what I believe is towards the end. We need to gather as many people to Jesus as we can.”
“Hoffman Family Gold” is streaming on the Discovery Channel.
Jeannie Ortega Law is a reporter for The Christian Post. Reach her at: jeannie.law@christianpost.com She's also the author of the book, What Is Happening to Me? How to Defeat Your Unseen Enemy Follow her on Twitter: @jlawcp Facebook: JeannieOMusic
