Where Are They Now: RA Matthew Dobson
If Matthew Dobson, health officer for the Florida Department of Health in Santa Rosa County, could tell a boy or girl in your missions discipleship group anything he wanted, first he would tell them God loves them.
Second, he would let them know God has given them specific and very special talents and gifts to help people.
He speaks from experience.
Dobson’s father was the Santa Rosa Baptist Associational Royal Ambassadors (RA) Director in Milton, Florida, for over 20 years (1966–87), which means Dobson grew up around RA his whole life.
He recalls going to the Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center in Leesburg, which is in central Florida. He has fond memories of Florida’s Royal Ambassador Congress meetings in the 1980s, as well as the State RA Track Meet where he won track and cross-country races.
His dad also took him to the National RA Congress in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1986. There he won the Hunger Race Two Mile Run his senior year in high school.
Dobson says these exciting experiences and opportunities to meet new people helped him have fun while also learning about Jesus and doing local missions projects. More importantly, he says he learned how missionaries meet the needs of people from different cultures. His advancement work as a Lad, Crusader, Page, Squire, Knight, and Pioneer helped Dobson hide God’s word in his heart, which he uses in his ministry to this day.
But we all grow up. And life doesn’t get easier.
Dobson says he has faced many challenges throughout his life, first as a college athlete and later in U.S. Army officer leadership training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He says that when his sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he struggled to understand how God would let that happen.
But God — the one Dobson met as a young RA — was his anchor mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually through it all. He says that in his desperation and cries, specifically over his sister’s diagnosis, the Holy Spirit spoke to him through the words of Matthew 28:18–20 (The Great Commission). “I have tried to be on mission in every area of my life since that day,” he says.
And he has no doubt that Royal Ambassadors prepared him to live a life on mission for Christ. In fact, RA helped him develop a passion for community service and local community missions.
Dobson became a state RA consultant for the Alabama Baptist Convention in the 1990s. He was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1995 and has served several churches in Alabama and Florida as pastor while working as a state employee in Florida. He was endorsed by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) as a U.S. Army Reserve Chaplain, and is now a community service chaplain in his home county of Santa Rosa in Florida.
“Missions discipleship is critical for all Christians — young and old. Because that is what Jesus tells us to do,” Dobson says. “A missions-minded lifestyle should characterize all Spirit-filled believers.”
He encourages missions discipleship leaders of all groups to pray for the children they minister to. “Be patient with your participants and know the investment of your time in their life can impact them for a lifetime,” says Dobson.
He speaks from experience.
