About

I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in a great family and wonderful youth ministry. By the time I was a senior in high school, I knew I was headed into youth ministry. After college and grad school at Wheaton College, I worked for a bit at Scripture Press Publications, as a Junior High Curriculum Editor. At the same time, I was a part-time Junior High Pastor. Using that combination, God birthed a life-long love of young teens in me middle schoolers are still some of my favorite people on earth.

I worked as a Junior High Pastor in a few churches, and started writing curriculum and other books for multiple publishers. Along the way, I started speaking on Middle School Ministry at YS’s National Youth Workers Convention, and developed a deep love for Youth Specialties. When working on a project with Mike Yaconelli in the late 90s, he found out I’d just become the executive pastor at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California. A few weeks later, Yac called me and asked if I would explore, with him, the idea of my coming to YS in some kind of leadership role. We talked about it for a year, and I moved to San Diego and joined Youth Specialties in 1998 as the vice president and publisher. A few years later, Yac asked me to move into the president role.

These days, I’m doing four things:
1. Speaking for youth and youth ministry events (if you’re interested in having me join you for your event, please contact tim grable: tim@thegrablegroup.com)
2. Writing: I’ve got a couple books in development, and I’m going a bit of free-lance writing also.
3. Consulting: I’m helping organizations with a justice/relief/global issues/advocacy/education focus think through any issues pertaining to youth and young adults. This is also extending to some work with publishers and individual churches.
4. I’m launching the ‘Youth Ministry Coaching Program’, a year-long 360 process of whole-life coaching for a small group of youth workers.

check out my website for more info on all of these.

I’m still living out my middle school ministry calling, and volunteer with young teens at Journey Community Church in La Mesa, California. I lead a small group of middle school guys each week, in my home.

I married Jeannie 24 years ago, and have two awesome kids: Liesl is in High School, and Max is in Middle School.

I started blogging quite a few years ago now, and find that it’s a great outlet for me to riff, rant, wrestle and share. It’s somewhat of a spiritual discipline for me at times, and at other times just plain fun.

Feel free to contact me at: mark.oestreicher@gmail.com