Dawson Campbell has been in ministry for seven years and serves at Landmark Church in Diamond Bar, California. He's passionate about preaching the Gospel, raising up leaders, and coaching high school football while mentoring young men in faith and life.

https://www.instagram.com/dawsonscreek57?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, His creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you Dawson.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in Chino, California.

Now, I would love to know what's responsible for the smile that I've seen on the profile picture of you.

Yeah, you know, I get to serve God professionally.

And so I think that's obviously one of the biggest blessings ever.

But you know, God has been so good to me.

And I can never ever stop showing at least a little bit of joy or laughing through the pain or something like that.

Because you know, God has been way too good.

Tell us how did you get to meet Jesus?

I was born and raised, I call it a white picket fence Christianity kind of home, you know, everything had to be perfect on the outside, but on the inside, it wasn't.

And I accepted Jesus at a young age, I'd say, I didn't really fully understand, you know, what Jesus could do for me, you know, that, hey, I needed healing, I need I needed guidance.

You know, it wasn't till later, especially in college, where I finally made Jesus Lord of my life, you know, I saved absolutely, but making him Lord of my life didn't come till college.

And it really, you know, showed me that no matter what, that Jesus was going to be there.

And he loved my authentic self, not this plastic version, or this makeshift version that I thought presented really well.

Even before that, I just can't stop smiling about it that, you know, I've been in the darkest depths, and there was Jesus, and he loved the real me, not the fake me.

I love people catching that as a result of the genuine heart you share for Christ.

Absolutely.

It's very contagious, I would say, you know, especially working in ministry, you know, even adults, what do you have to smile about all the time?

coaching football, you know, being at least nice to the referees, or even just interacting with teenagers, whatever it is, people go, man, why are you so upbeat, no matter what?

One of the jokes that a couple of my co workers, when I was coaching, even coaching now, they call me the eternal optimist.

But you know, God has always made good come out of anything.

That's even scriptural.

And we just sometimes get caught up in the bad of the situation rather than what God can do.

It is contagious, because eventually I start hearing, you know, some of the kids in the youth positive, rather than negative towards each other, or just people in my circle, you know, they celebrate good things instead of Okay, well, I'm glad that happened.

So it has been very contagious, I will say.

What's been the variation in your relationship with Christ from then to now?

That was a guy who was ready to change the world, no matter what, and had a lot of great philosophies in his mind, but not a lot of practicality.

And I tell people this that are just freshly graduated college students, one of my sayings is, there's nothing more dangerous than somebody who just graduated Bible college.

And as you get in the ministry, you Why aren't we doing this?

Why aren't we doing this?

Why aren't we doing this?

Well, there's a lot of things that necessarily, you have to look at humanity, right?

If Jesus could have done a lot of things, he could have done insane things.

But there's a practicality aspect to it.

Of, you know, bringing people along in leadership decisions, you can't just say, Well, this is how it should be, you have to bring people along.

And that's a big thing of leadership that I had to learn then was, hey, you know, you've got to earn their trust, you've got to sit where they sit, stand where they stand, suffer where they suffer, cheer when they where they cheer, and then slowly, you know, steer the ship, steer the organization, whatever it is where it's supposed to be.

Servant leadership is truly getting in the mess and dealing with it.

And those people will love you back, even tenfold, even tenfold.

And so that young man, he had a lot to learn.

And I still have a lot to learn.

I don't have it all figured out.

When did you first realize that?

That I had a lot to learn?

No, that I think we have that done well.

When did you first realize that serving would take the time that it does take to actually create the culture, the community that you desire?

Yeah, I mean, I would say five years ago about, yeah, I started, when I finally moved out to California, the church had a few more resources, and it was a more of a bigger build of what I was doing then.

And it took a while just to learn how to interact with these people.

You know, I was from the south of the United States for all my life.

And then I come out to the West Coast, and this is just a different type of person.

And so having to learn some cultural things, but also just, you know, making decisions because, well, I've done this before, I know it works.

Well, it doesn't work that way.

Especially in church, people are searching for something they're broken, but also they're comfortable sometimes.

So you kind of have to break some of that up.

And so there was a decision I remember I made.

It was during a service, it was just a little, we would take the youth away during Sunday services.

And I tried to get rid of that.

And I was totally wrong about it.

I didn't meet with the parents first.

I didn't bounce the idea off of my leaders first, I just made the decision.

And I had to have so many meetings, so many meetings, and just like, we're a little bit of that mistake.

But then ever since then, I made it just a very clear cut decision.

Okay, no matter what, I'm going to earn their trust first.

I'm not going to come in hot and make a million decisions.

I'm just going to settle down, love these people well, let them get to know my heart and what I want to do and why I want to do it.

And ever since then, we've seen, you know, the youth group was nine people at that time.

Now it was even last night, it was 65.

So God has blessed it.

Thank you know, God, it's a God thing.

And we baptized probably that many.

And so God has blessed us beyond all we could ever say.

Do you have a dong count, a baptismal count of how many people you've baptized up to now?

The competitive side of me is that we should keep a scoreboard.

But I feel like if I did that, I'd be the wrong reason.

But if I had to guess, I would say close to 60 something.

That's amazing.

And you know, God's been so good.

And just seeing teenagers even on the football field, except Jesus, just because they want what their friend has, or what I have, or whoever else that's been really a blessing.

Wow, what's on the horizon for you?

It seems like my church is really wanting to invest in me for the long haul.

So I am moving into a new role.

I'm still in youth right now.

But eventually, I believe that I'm eventually going to move out of youth and move into an outreach position where I reach out to the community.

I'm already really well into the community by coaching high school football.

You learn a lot of parents and community members that way.

And so it seems like one day, they're just training me up to be sort of an associate pastor.

And then my calling in life is to be a head pastor one day, a senior pastor.

So I'm praying on that.

And when the right time is, when God sees that I'm ready, we'll jump at the first chance we can get.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for the future, Dawson?

Stay authentic, stay true.

God is always as good as you think He is.

He's better at His job than you think He is.

You know, never lose that edge of where you came from.

You went through everything negative now and just walk in the blessings that He has for you now.

That's a marvelous testimony in terms of how you actually know God is going to do what He does.

Why not walk in it?

Sounds simple, right?

But again, being the person who's in the position, your sight, it gets blurry, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You get hemmed up on the little details.

You get hemmed up on the big and little details when they're all really just small details in the grand scheme of things.

This has been a great pleasure, Dawson.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share?

If you're out there and you're just looking for somebody to bounce ministry ideas off of, I would love to connect with you on social media, whatever it is.

I'd love to have you on there.

So yeah.

Dawson, again, a pleasure.

I treasure.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired?

Bye to everyone at Converse.