What we will be doing

Baseball in a Dominican barrio

The Dominican Republic is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people.  We will have many tremendous opportunities to serve in a variety of ways through our ministry with G.O. Ministries on the island.  The bulk of my (Dan) responsibility will be split into two different roles.  The first will be as the Coordinator of Youth Sports Outreach in Churches, working with and through our sports ministry.  The second portion of the job will be related to short term team facilitation and partnership.

Kyle Bradley sharing about LDC

Coordinator of Youth Sports Outreach in Churches:
We are privileged in the US to have many churches with great youth ministry programming and staff.  In the Dominican, as is the case with many 3rd world countries, youth ministry takes on a different form and it is rare for the church in the community to have a pastor or leader dedicated to the discipleship of youth.  Part of my role will be to help identify, disciple, and equip young leaders in our G.O. churches to be investing in the lives of kids in their respective communities.  I will be working with pastors in many communities to pray about who they might have in their church that could fulfill this type of role, and then work to train them how to invest in students and kids.  We already have a great sports ministry that ministers to the spiritual needs of students with weekly Bible  studies, but its imperative that these kids have somebody in their community who has the ability to know them and invest in them beyond a few hours one or two days a week.  Often times the pastor of the church is fulfilling these roles, but we want to get some specialized focus on youth ministry and free the pastor to be leading in other ways in the community.

As things grow, we also envision youth ministry tracks being made available in our Seminary of the Americas run by G.O. so that churches can send pastors and leaders to be equipped to serve the youth in their communities. We also see this being a great way to expand on our sports ministry, as these new leaders and our G.O. coaches work together to disciple kids on a weekly basis.  Its fun to dream about and we look forward to see how God will carry this vision forward.

Adult Missions team from GEBC

Team Facilitation:
G.O. sees many groups come down to the island each year; church groups with both youth and adults, college students, sports outreach teams, and medical mission groups.  As a youth pastor, I led several short term missions trips and I learned quickly that my responsibility in leading a team was more than just the logistics of how we got from point A to point B.  I was charged with caring for the souls of our students as they process all that they see and learn from God throughout their experience.  Leading teams that come down to serve with G.O. is very similar.  There is a logistical component- leading work projects, introducing them to our ministry partners, and helping them experience the island of Hispaniola, but there is also leading these groups spiritually and helping them process and debrief their experience.