Phil O’Day

President and CEO of Avant Ministries

Phil and his wife Lori have served with Avant Ministries for the past 32 years, the first 27 of which were with Camino Global prior to the merger of Camino with Avant Ministries in 2019. They served first in church-planting in Mexico City and were called to serve in leadership at the mission’s home office in Dallas in 2002.

Phil has served in a variety of mission administration and leadership roles during the past 22 years. During the early 2000’s, He directed the missions’ efforts in the mobilization, recruitment and training of new cross-cultural missionaries. Then from 2008 to 2012 he served as Director of Organizational Development and Communication. During the past decade Phil was the Executive Vice President of Camino Global in Dallas. Following Camino’s merger with Avant and the O’Days move to Kansas City, Phil served as Avant’s US Director and Vice President of Public Ministries through the end of 2022.

Phil focused several years of his leadership on leading an organization-wide rebranding effort, including a new name and ministry focus for the mission in 2012 (when CAM International became Camino Global). In the fall of 2018, when Camino’s merger with Avant was announced, he was asked to serve in the supplemental role of Integration Director, facilitating the logistics of both organizations in the more than year-long process of merging two impactful global organizations in the 21st century that had each been founded in the 19th century.

Prior to serving with Camino and Avant, Phil and Lori were part of a team which planted an urban church and launched a Community Youth Center on the south side of Chicago.

Phil is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute as well as the Seminary and School of Missions at Columbia International University.

The O’Days currently live near the Kansas City headquarters of Avant, attend Grace Fellowship Church in the Northland, and have three adult children: Nathan, a graduate of LeTourneau University living in Longview, TX; Erin, a recent graduate of Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, living in Japan; and Evan, a sophomore at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO.