Meet the team.

I spent more than a decade doing youth ministry, and somewhere in the middle of it, a few things became impossible to ignore.

Young people were hungry. They wanted someone to sit with them, open the Bible, and help them figure out what following Jesus looked like in the world they were actually living in.

That hunger was real and it was beautiful.

Yet even healthy youth ministries face limits. Students eventually age out, questions become heavier, and many churches lack the time or structure for years of concentrated theological formation.

I kept asking the same question: what would it look like to do this differently?

In 2018, Brooklynn and I moved from California to Oklahoma after a long season of local church youth ministry. I continued teaching, writing, podcasting, speaking, and building GoodLion, but over time I began to miss the embodied pastoral work of walking with young people week after week.

I missed sitting across from young adults and watching those lightbulb moments... moments when Scripture began to make sense to someone. Moments when they finally understood who Jesus is and the Kingdom of God came alive for them! That is what drives me. I believe God made me to show up in people’s lives and help shepherd them toward Jesus.

I had a deep longing for more local pastoral ministry: to come alongside local churches and help close some of the real gaps in how we were teaching and forming young adults.

So I started writing. Just a vision. A simple idea for what a genuine school of discipleship could look like: theology that went deep, formation that went personal, and a structure that was always sending students back into their churches more rooted than when they came.

I put it all in a PDF, stuck it in my backpack, and honestly wasn’t sure if it would ever be more than a dream on paper.

Then I got invited to speak at a camp in Oklahoma, put on by two churches: The Good Fight and Calvary Chapel Oklahoma City. I taught on the kingdom of God, one of my favorite topics. After the session, the youth pastors sat me down. They told me the students were lit up. They asked me what was burning on my heart.

I reached into my backpack and put the PDF on the table.

“This,” I said. “I’m not sure if it works. It’s just an idea.”

They read it. Then they looked up and said: “Where have you been!? We’ve been praying for someone to do this in this city for years!”

That was 2023. That was the birth of the GoodLion School of Discipleship.

What started as a piece of paper in a backpack became a collaboration between multiple churches across OKC, working together to mentor and disciple young adults. It has been one of the great joys of my life.

A little about who I am: over the years I’ve been a pastor, a Bible teacher, a writer, a podcaster, and an independent missionary and ministry leader. I have worn a lot of hats.

But when I boil it all the way down, my two favorite roles are simple ones.

1. 1. Leading my family: my wonderful wife Brooklynn and our kids Jack and Ellie.
2. 2. Shepherding: I am happiest when I am in a room with people, helping lead them closer to Jesus. That is the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.

The School of Discipleship is not a platform or my personal brand. It is a room with a table. A small, serious, warm room where we open the Scriptures together, ask honest questions, wrestle with real theology, and then send you back to your local church and your everyday life better equipped to walk with Jesus.

The teaching draws on expository Bible study, biblical theology, spiritual formation, cultural analysis, spiritual direction, and pastoral care. It is visual, discussion-heavy, and designed to move from the text into your actual life without skipping the hard parts.

I teach from my own convictions. I also regularly bring in guest teachers who do not agree with me on every point, because students need to see how faithful Christians can disagree: with clarity, with humility, with love, and without burning the relationship down. Students need to see that kind of healthy disagreement practiced in the room.

My commitment is to strengthen local churches, not compete with them. I want students to go home more rooted, not less, forming young adults who know the Scriptures, love their local congregation, and bring honest questions into ordinary life as genuine apprentices of Jesus.

That is why I built this.

I would love for you to be part of it.

Aaron Salvato