Featured Fellow: Dylan Martin
Dylan grew up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He’s a South Carolina guy through and through, as he also went to Clemson University, where he graduated in May of 2020 with his degree in Finance.
Although he grew up by the Grand Strand, he didn’t have the typical experience which most might think of. He only started spending his days at the beach when he got his driver’s license in high school. Before that, he spent much of his time with his younger brother on activities like fishing and mucking through the swamp. His house was on the Intracoastal Waterway, so as kids they didn’t have to go far to entertain themselves in these ways. Dylan also grew up doing karate, and he wrestled for his middle and high school. When he wasn’t trekking through his backyard or spending time with his tight-knit group of wrestling buddies, Dylan was often hanging out with his family. “My family is very loving and kind. They are very small town-oriented and put family before everything else. In being raised that way, that stays true for me today. Growing up, all that I wanted more than anything else when I got older was a family of my own. Over any job, any travel destination, any amount of money and over God himself, I wanted a family. Although this is such an awesome desire from the Lord, this has now turned into an area of my life where I have to continually check my heart with the Lord.”
Although Dylan has always known that he wanted a family, he didn’t know what career path he wanted to pursue until high school. While in high school, he was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia). “Having cancer, as is probably fairly obvious, played a huge role in my high school experience. But because of the way that my doctors and nurses cared for me and treated me during that experience, that led me to want to be a doctor.” Dylan decided at this point that being a doctor would be the best way to help people, so that’s what he wanted to do. He started at Clemson studying Wildlife Biology, thinking that he would enjoy learning about the outdoors while also getting in all the science credits he needed to then pursue med school. He quickly realized that disciplines such as chemistry did not fascinate him as much as he hoped, and so began a process of discernment which involved changing his major several times. He ended up settling on Finance because he realized that he was good at math and he felt the Lord leading him in that direction.
“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.”
-Psalm 63:3-4
The most important facet of Dylan’s time at Clemson was the change in his walk with the Lord. “College was where Jesus met me intimately and changed my life.” Dylan was baptized and saved when he was in 6th grade, but when he looks back on that now, he realizes he never quite knew what that meant. His family was in and out of church, and occasionally dabbled in the Mormon church after meeting some kindly Mormon missionaries. It wasn't until college that Dylan truly came to understand the faith which he’d professed in 6th grade. “Though my freshman year of college was marked by loneliness and the sadly typical college story of drugs and false love played out through romantic relationships, the Father still called my name and loved me through that.”
Dylan was part of a Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) group during his first two years of college where he was encouraged to know Jesus. It was hard for him to give up the worldly passions which felt most important to him at the time, “but after getting abruptly broken up with and finding out what YoungLife is, the rest of my college career was history,” he explained. He then began pouring his time into his YoungLife friends and students, and getting to know Jesus as both his Lord as well as an intimate friend. Psalm 63 was an incredibly influential portion of Scripture for him at this time. “The phrases such as ‘I thirst for you,’ ‘my whole being longs for you,’ ‘your love is better than life,’ and ‘fully satisfied’ all began to help me see that the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have an incomprehensible depth and fullness that I really wanted to know.”
After graduating Clemson, Dylan found himself in the Greensboro Fellows program at the suggestion of a friend. It’s fairly common for Clemson graduates to pursue Fellows programs, and one of Dylan’s chose to be a part of the Orlando Heart of the City Fellows Program. After he encouraged Dylan to look into The Fellows Initiative, the Greensboro Program “jumped off the page” to him. Since being a part of the program, Dylan has loved being a part of the community which it has offered—in the smaller context of the other Fellows, the larger context of Church of the Redeemer, and the even larger context of the city of Greensboro. “I have learned so much about biblical manhood and what it looks like to love and lead as a man after God’s heart. I have learned that nobody owes me anything and that I don’t deserve anything. I have learned what it means to take ownership of my life and my mistakes in order to first be able to hand them over to God and second be able to learn from them. I have learned more deeply what love is and what love does. I have learned that I am allowed to be confident because it is not me that I am confident in, but in Christ in me. I have learned so much about myself and who I am. And by ‘learned,’ I of course mean scratched the surface of.” His love of learning is evident as he’s spent time reading book after book from McKay’s (a particularly influential one was Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin) and seeking out being mentored by church leaders and vocational speakers who have met with the Fellows in their classes.
As a part of the program, Dylan works at the Budd Group in Greensboro. He enjoys being part of a team, getting to crunch numbers, and occasionally getting to visit interesting places like the Thomas Built Buses manufacturing plant. “It has been hard at times to find a balance between understanding that I am a part time intern and also wanting to have responsibility in order to highly contribute to the overall success of the company. I’ve had to learn how to manage my ego and take advantage of every opportunity I can to learn and contribute.”
After the program, Dylan hopes to pursue a career in financial planning. He was overjoyed to learn that he’d be able to help people by helping them steward well the money which God has entrusted them with. “Who would have thought that you can help people in other ways that just being a doctor? And who would have thought that there are more verses in the Bible about money than anything else? I get excited now thinking about the ways in which I can one day help and lead others into glorifying the Lord with their money.” Dylan also has an adventurous spirit and loves all things outdoorsy—running, rock climbing, mountain biking, and snowboarding (which he just tried for the first time this winter!), just to name a few! He hopes to one day climb El Capitan and do an Ironman Triathalon. Dylan also loves spending time with Amy Grace, his girlfriend who he met while at Clemson. They both share a love of Jesus and all things outdoorsy. Amy Grace got her Masters in Food Science from Clemson this past December and is currently working as a food scientist at Chobani, so they have both recently discovered a love of Idaho (where Amy Grace is now working).
Dylan has been such a gift to everyone in the Fellows Program through his humor, his intentionality, and his love of learning, life, and Jesus. We are so thankful to know him!
