Trail Life USA provides faith-based experience outdoors
Trail Life USA Nashville Troop 2456 director Brad Dodson chats with a family about his organization during a recent event at Clark Community Center. Trail Life USA is a faith-based outdoor organization.
Many people who are avid weightlifters often talk about building their core to strengthen not just one part of their body but all parts of it.
Trail Life USA took a page from that playbook, designing its programs, values and culture around helping young boys understand the core values that they hope will help them develop a balanced, well-rounded life that will help them grow into future leaders in their communities, families and churches.
Trail Life USA is a Christ-centered outdoor adventure program that is built around safety, courage, leadership and family, and while teaching many valuable skills and traits in its young people is central, there is also a focus on something else: Having fun away from the screens and gadgets that seem to take up an increasing amount of young people’s lives today.
Trail Life USA Nashville Troop 2456 director Brad Dodson, who always serves as the head minister at Nashville Church of Christ, said the group continues to grow in membership at a rapid pace, and they soon hope to approach the 100-member area over the next two years.
“This all started out as a group of dads who wanted to develop a way to have fun fellowshipping with their sons,” Dodson said. “What’s really unique is that we will have 25 dads who meet together, too. We’ve built a great friendship through this, and we are extremely active and hands-on.”
Hands-on activities are very much at the heart of what Trail Life USA provides for youth, with camping, canoeing, hiking, and life skills like doing construction work or small engine maintenance on the docket. It also includes overnight excursions like the Daniel Boone Base Camp experience.
In addition, they have visited farms to learn more about agriculture, learned about race cars and visited Hilltop Speedway, visited a chicken farm, a lamb farm and many other activities that are created to be fun and educational.
“We have the dads get together and talk about what they’d like to see in the program,” Dodson said.
Dodson went on to note that Trail Life USA allows its local leadership teams to create their own agendas and activities that suit their area and the youth they serve.
Trail Life USA devotes itself to creating a series of core values to teach young men how to grow into mature men of character. The first is Christ-centered activities with an outdoors focus. Safety, courage, leadership, volunteering and service, character-building and family growth are all part of the Trail Life USA experience.
Trail Life is divided up into three age groups, including youth, junior high and senior high.
“For the younger kids, it’s all about teaching,” Dodson said. “Junior high is where we try to implement the things they’ve learned, and in senior high, we want to develop leadership, so they start to work with and train the kids in the youth group.”
While the outdoor life and activities are a mainstay, Dodson said Trail Life USA is unapologetically faith-based. He said building these boys into young men of faith and character through Biblical teaching is instrumental in their growth.
He said the senior high boys are involved in the “Band of Brotherhood,” a group that gets together once a month to lead Bible studies.
“Trail Life USA is purposeful about building strong principles and values into these young men’s lives,” Dodson said. “It’s about developing character that truly matters and can make a difference in the world today, and we don’t apologize for being a Christian-based organization. We don’t hide that in any way. It is the Biblical core values of faith that we want to instill in these boys. We think this is the right time to instill these values in our children.”
The group has gone to the Holmes County Fair annually, where it has a tent set up to connect with community families. Nashville Trail USA is not just for local boys. Dodson said they have kids from Orrville, Ashland and Brinkhaven and many other towns throughout Holmes County.
For those interested in seeing exactly what Trail Life USA revolves around, visit: www.traillifeusa.com. The Nashville Trail Life group meets every first, second, third and fifth Tuesday at Nashville Church of Christ from 6:45-8 p.m. You can also find Trail Life USA Nashville Troop 2456 on Facebook.
Dodson said any local youth who would be interested in joining can also call him at Nashville Church of Christ at 330-378-2601.