Announcing a new ministry: The GoodLion School of Discipleship
Greetings Friends! I am thrilled to announce that next month we will be launching a new ministry effort in Oklahoma: The GoodLion School of Discipleship.
This will be a parachurch ministry serving multiple local churches, based in Oklahoma, and directed at building up young adults in the body of Christ... a cause that has been near and dear to my heart for years now.
This will be the local manifestation of everything we’ve been doing at GoodLion Ministries over the past several years. After a long season of mostly online / traveling ministry, I am so excited to be setting down roots for some local ministry work.
Our goals:
We want to intentionally invest and pour into the next generation of Christians.
We want to provide an environment where people can grow in their knowledge of Jesus through preaching, teaching, mentorships, and deep intentional discussion. I am excited to be teaching and preaching on the regular again!
We want to provide young people with a foundation of theological belief. We will be spending a year together to go through nearly every single theme video the Bible Project has produced, diving deep into times of discussion and reflection. With Bibles open, we will delve into the core themes, ideas, and principles of the Christian faith!
We want to provide mentoring relationships to young adults, connecting them with older believers in their churches to help them find guidance and support.
We want to foster missional teamwork relationships among the students, where they can learn how view themselves not merely as individual Christians, but co-laborers for the Gospel working together in their city to further the mission of the Kingdom.
We want to come alongside youth pastors, young adult pastors, and youth volunteers, providing them with encouragement, support, and resources to help further their mission.
I recently had the joy of leading the preaching for the youth / young adult winter camp at the Good Fight Church and Calvary Chapel OKC. We are praying many of these same students join this new discipleship program.
Plan for Memberships
This ministry is open to all young adults who want to participate and be filled up. However, we also have a deeper membership process for young adults who want to commit to the year-long program.
By diving deeper into the program, they can experience more intentional and relational contexts with our team of mentors and leaders and get access to tons of free resources we will be providing.
Local Partnerships
I am extremely excited to have two local churches partnering with us from the ground floor. Calvary Chapel Oklahoma City and The Good Fight Church have provided phenomenal support and encouragement to me.
Their youth and young adult leadership teams are providing us with meeting locations, mentors to connect with students, and leaders to facilitate discussions. They are encouraging their young people to get involved as we partner together for the Kingdom!
Personal Notes & Prayer Requests
Please keep me in prayer. I have never done anything like this before, but I have sensed the Lord leading me in this direction for many years now. In 2017 when I had the wonderful opportunity to help teach a semester at CCBC Murrieta, I sensed that God had given me a calling for helping people in the college stage of life follow Him more deeply.
Everything that God taught me in my season as a youth pastor has fed into the passion of where I currently feel called now, as well as the last few years of doing ministry out in the wild, not on staff at a church but instead through the more quiet, reserved, and somewhat undercover ministry of home groups, local counseling, and podcasting.
This has humbled me, encouraged me, and allowed God to minister to me in massive ways and lay a foundation of dependence and identity and calling in Him, not in what my job title is!
In the past few years, I have clung to the calling to be a shepherd of God's people, even though I did not have a local flock to regularly minister to. While the season of focus on podcasting has been a blessing, I am overjoyed and excited for the opportunity to have a group of young people that I can directly pour into through the flesh-and-blood tangible reality of presence. I am so excited to be able to sit together in a room of people once again, open up God's word, and dive deep into discussions about faith.
Please pray that God would provide guidance for me. Please pray that God would unite the leadership team. Please pray that He would give me margin and bandwidth, as I am still working full time as a bi-vocational minister, as well as trying to be the best husband and father I can be.
Ways to help
If you would like to donate to the work that we will be doing through the school, you can do so at this link. (Donations are collected by my home church / sending church Calvary Chapel Vista.)
We are starting small, but I have dreams to build this further. I stink at fundraising, but I’m just putting this out here in faith in case anyone wants to support the work!
2. If you know any young adult or late age high school students in Oklahoma that would benefit from something like this, please send them my way.
3. If you've done this kind of ministry before and you'd like to give me advice, PLEASE, send me a message. I need all the advice and prayer I can get
Love from the Salvato Clan
Thank you so much for all of you who have believed in me over the years and continue to believe in me, my wife Brooklynn, and now, my son Jack! We love you all so much and are so thankful that you are behind us and praying for us in this season.
I'm especially thankful for my friends at CGN (Calvary Global Network), who have been such amazing people to work for. It was my former boss Kellen who believed in me and in the vision of what GoodLion could accomplish that has led to what has taken shape here. I'm also so thankful for my current boss Clay, who has been such an encouragement to me through this process and has helped open up doors for us to do ministry.
Please pray that during this season, the Lord brings the exact young people He wants to be involved in this ministry. Pray that He draws people who are in need of community, a sense of calling and purpose, a theological hunger and depth, and most of all, a longing for the presence of Jesus in their lives. Then, pray that He equips us and enables us to help meet those needs!
