yes, i’m a tease. fine.

not only is the new website coming soon, but so much more…

“The YMCP has been more fruitful and transformational in my understanding of ministry and leadership than any of my seminary classes or youth ministry conferences I’ve attended to date. As a 17 year veteran of youth ministry, I cannot think of a better way to stretch your leadership quotient or challenge your personal ministry philosophy than a year invested in the YMCP.”
- Brian Berry, Journey Community Church, La Mesa, CA

“There are lots of places to learn about the ‘what’ or ‘how’ of youth ministry. Mark Oestreicher’s YMCP leaves you with such strong sense of ‘why’ that all the other questions seem to fall into place. By focusing on personal growth and values, the YMCP has left me with a fresh view of ministry, a dozen lifetime friendships, and a wealth of knowledge. Truly nothing I have done in my life has ever brought more healthy introspection and growth towards the future. If you are wondering if it is for you, the answer is yes.”
- Luke MacDonald, Harvest Bible Chapel, Rolling Meadows, IL

The Youth Ministry Coaching Program is a whole-life yearlong coaching program for youth workers. Deeply rooted in the idea that a healthy, growing, learning youth worker will stay longer and have a deeper impact for the Kingdom, YMCP constantly returns participants to the formation and expansion of personal and ministry core values.

The cohort approach allows for 360-degrees of input. The lead coach acts as facilitator and guide on this journey; but the other youth workers in the cohort will become friends and co-conspirators, as you will be for each of them. We’ll wrestle with a wide variety of youth ministry subjects, but will also process spiritual, relational, and emotional growth, in a context of safety, honesty, and real life application and accountability.

Previous participants have said that the presentations made by themselves and others were one of the most valuable aspects of the program, allowing them the opportunity to dig deep into a subject or practical matter of their choosing, but also modeling a process of speaking into other peoples’ lives.

Each cohort of 8 – 10 meets six times throughout the year (every other month). In between meetings, cohort members stay in contact with a closed facebook group, homework partners, and one-on-one phone calls with the lead coach. During each two day meeting, each participant also receives a one-on-one coaching session and a 50-minute spiritual direction session.

For 2011, YMCP is rolling out 7 cohorts. Here’s the list of these seven, with their meeting locations, starting months, and program fees:
• San Diego, beginning in May, lead by Mark Oestreicher ($3000)
• Nashville, beginning in October, lead by Mark Oestreicher ($3000)
• Chicago, beginning in September, lead by Ginny Olson ($3000)
• Greenwich, CT (NYC area), beginning in September, lead by Brock Morgan ($2200)
• Atlanta, beginning in September, lead by Paul Martin ($2200)
• Kansas City, beginning in October, lead by Chris Folmsbee ($3000)
• Calgary/Vancouver*, beginning in October, lead by Matt Wilks ($2500)

*The Canadian cohort will meet 3x in Calgary and 3x in Vancouver, and is open only to Canadians.

Each of the lead coaches have been carefully selected, and will receive supervision from Mark Oestreicher, ensuring that each cohort experiences a high level of quality and the values of the program.

For a full description of the program, including expected outcomes, overview of the 2-day meetings, and the application process, click here to download a pdf summary.
If you have any questions, please contact Mark Oestreicher.
If you’d like an application, please email Marko at mark.oestreicher@gmail.com.
click here to watch the promo video.

“If you’re looking for the absolute best experience in how to stretch you and your ministry then Marko’s YMCP is for you. I have learned more in the past year in this hands on approach than in 4 years of seminary and grad school. It has been the best thing I have done both personally and professionally.”
- Robb Gossen, Carthage Nazarene Church, Carthage, MO

“The Youth Ministry Coaching Program is more than learning how to lead a small group or finding out the 10 best ways to use a pool noodle. YMCP has been designed to sharpen, challenge and encourage you personally, professionally, spiritually and relationally. This holistic approach is what makes this experience unique and successful! YMCP challenged me down to my core and I am a better Youth Pastor because of it.”
- Nikki Lowery, First Baptist Church, Stockton, CA

“Being part of YMCP has helped me better understand my calling and role in ministry. It has been great to hear what others are doing and get input into how I can better address issues in my life and role in my church.”
- Danny Long, Jamul Community Church, Jamul, CA

“Even after one meeting, this program had made a significant difference in my personal and professional life. I have already addressed issues in my ministry that would not have been possible without this group. It is exciting to think about what this will mean to me personally and to the congregation I serve. I’m grateful to know that I will always have this group to lean on.”
- Glenn Meschko, St. Helena’s Episcopal Church, Boerne, TX

“Benefiting from the experience Marko brings to the group has been great. He has an ability to discern truth that is, frankly, amazing. Marko’s love for students and youth ministers is apparent. He believes in the value of youth ministers and has a passion for developing us into better leaders.”
- Chuck Hilman, Grace UMC, Geneseo, IL

today is my 1 year anniversary of getting laid off from my role as president of youth specialties.

before i reflect on that in writing, allow me to make a few things very clear:

first, i have nothing against youth specialties. just the opposite: i love ys. always have, always will. i remain close friends with the remaining staff, am speaking at their conventions this fall, and hold onto nothing but hope for them as they continue to move forward with integrity and a missional passion to serve youth workers.

second, ys didn’t really lay me off. zondervan, our then-parent company, laid me off. while i might not have agreed with the choice at the time, there’s nothing about the decision itself (particularly from the distance of a year) that doesn’t make sense. ys was being sold, and there was no longer a role for me. i have lots of dear friends at zondervan also (who i miss, since i don’t get to spend time with them anymore), and my next book will still be released with them.

third, youthworks! (the new-ish owners of ys) are good people. really. and i’ve been so deeply pleased to hear from tic and others how supported they’re feeling during this convention season.

now, let’s talk about me!

leading up to my lay-off, i was riddled with anxiety. as i wrote in an earlier post, i had a zombie soul. the work of trying to re-make ys into a profit machine was not my calling, and — really — beyond my ability or desire. but the two months after the lay-off put that anxiety and hear into hyper-drive. when i spent a bunch of days in silence, giving presence and space to the various emotions i’d been frozen in, i journalled about my fears. i wrote things like (these are straight out of that journal):

I’m afraid I won’t find a meaningful job.

I’m afraid whatever job I find – meaningful or not – will be such a dramatic lowering of income that our family will suffer (which will, as much as I try to convince myself otherwise, totally feel like “my fault”).

I’m afraid I’ll lose my voice.

I’m afraid I’ll lose interest in the things I’ve been passionate about, especially if I’m in a role that doesn’t give me cause to think on them and speak about them.

I’m afraid my kids won’t be proud of me, and think my job is cool.

I’m afraid I’ll have a cool opportunity that will require a move, and a boring opportunity that allows us to stay in San Diego, and that I’ll have to choose, knowing that one seems selfish, and the other feels like death.

I’m afraid of losing our house.

I’m afraid of losing what little retirement we have saved.

I’m afraid of losing my dreams, whatever they may be!

I’m afraid of becoming a shell of myself. I’m afraid that I’ve “peaked”, and nothing else – work wise – will come close to providing the meaning and fun that I’ve experienced.

I’m afraid I’ll have to wear a suit and tie, or at least “business casual”, and give up some of my individuality in order to get work.

I’m afraid I’ll be bored, and even boring.

and here i am, a year later; and i can honestly say that not one single thing on that list has even remotely been realized. not one. in fact, just the opposite has been the experience of my year. i’m more fulfilled than ever in my work; i have more time for my family; i have more space for rest; i get to exercise my gifts (and not spend a large chunk of my time on stuff i’m not passionate, like profitability spreadsheets); i get to speak into the lives of youth workers and churches and ministries; and i still get to wear shorts and t-shirts to work!

even in the early months of 2010, when my new plans started to take shape (oblique as it was at that point), i still wondered if i could make it work. what has become imminently clear to me, especially as i look back, is that i didn’t make this take shape. god did it. god provided for me, met me in my anxiety and fear, and brought a freshness to my life and calling that i would never have been bold enough to “claim”.

this past weekend, the pastor leading a time of communion at a junior high event i was speaking at led the students in that slightly cliche response: god is good, all the time; all the time, god is good. but it struck a chord in me; and the vibration of god’s goodness in my life is the hum of my days.

i look back on a horrible firing i experienced early in my youth ministry career, and i can say with complete truthfulness that i wouldn’t trade it for the world. it’s part of who i’ve become in a way that i cannot separate from the goodness of god. i’m almost there with this current reality. i’m grateful for where god has taken me, how god has protected my heart from bitterness, and all the other blessings in my day-to-day life. and, soon, i expect — very soon — i’ll even be grateful for being laid off. i’m already there cognitively, and expect i’ll be able to say it and mean it soon enough.

(photo ripped from adam walker cleaveland, who got it from april)

with the wide variety of stuff i’m doing these days (speaking, writing, consulting, coaching), i knew it would be helpful to have a website to point people to. there have just been too many times in the last few months where i didn’t have a communication tool other than my blog or email, in order to let people and organizations know what i can help them with. so, thanks to the patient wizardry of mclane creative, it’s time for the official unveiling of markoestreicher.com.

i thought long and hard about the url, knowing that so many people struggle with the spelling of my name. but the easy options (marko.whatever) were all taken. so, in addition to markoestreicher.com, i bought markoswebsite.com. if you struggle to remember the spelling of my name, i hope you can remember “marko’s website [dot] com”. there are pages for the various things i’m doing these days, as well as my current speaking schedule, and an easy-to-use contact page. there are also links to this blog and my facebook page and stuff.

let me know what you think!

here’s my updated speaking schedule for the rest of 2010 (this doesn’t include consulting travel, ymcp stuff, or personal travel, so there are many other dates i’m not available).

as you can see, i’m pretty full through may, but still have a shockingly empty summer, and plenty of space in the fall also.

if you would like to explore having me join you for a youth, youth ministry, or parent event, please contact tim grable, at tim@thegrablegroup.com

april
9 – 11 – youth ministry event for instituto especialidades juveniles, in guatemala city, guatemala
16 – 18 – reverb middle school conference in joppa, md

may
april 30 – may 1 – refuel youth ministry conference in ft myers, fl
3/4 – salvation army youth ministry event in orlando, fl
5/6 – lcms pastors and youth workers events, in midland, mi
7 – youth ministry gathering at calvin seminary in grand rapids, mi (i’m pretty sure this is an open event for students and local youth workers, but i don’t have many details on it)
8 – youth ministry network event in holland, mi

june
9/10 – mississippi youth annual conference (umc), in jackson, m

july
*nothin’. seriously. there are tumbleweeds blowing through my july calendar.

august
14 – 17 – youth camp for nc umc, oak island, nc
20 – 22 – youth camp for nc umc, oak island, nc

(btw, i have a couple days to kill between these two camps. anyone in nc or sc got something i can help you with?)

september
24 – 26 – jr pitch (junior high event for the evangelical missionary church of canada), in kitchener, ontario

october
1 – 4 – nywc in san diego, ca
15 – 17, jr high YAR (for the illinois great rivers conference of the umc), in carlinville, il

november
19 – 22 – nywc in nashville, tn

december
*nuttin’. once again: tumbleweeds.

i’m taking bookings for 2011 also, so feel free to contact tim about those.

i’ve just opened up the rest of this calendar year for speaking and consulting opportunities.

here’s my current schedule:

january
forest home junior high winter camp, forest falls, ca, 22nd – 24th
salvation army youth worker event, mt hermon, ca, 26th
forest home junior high winter camp, forest falls, ca, 29th – 31st

february
world vision u.s. (consulting), federal way, wa, 2nd & 3rd
forest home junior high winter camp, forest falls, ca, 5th – 7th
christ in youth (ciy) “mega-church” youth worker event, destin, fl, 9th & 10th
junior high “disciple now” event, first baptist harvester, st. charles, mo, 19th & 20th

march
youth worker gathering and youth night, oakwood baptist church, new braunfels, tx, 17th
“seismos” youth worker gathering, canton, oh, 21st – 23rd

april
especialidades juveniles instituto intensive course, guatemala city, guatemala, 8th & 9th
“reverb” middle school event, md, 16th – 18th

may
ft myers youth worker network event, ft myers, fl, 1st & 2nd
salvation army youth worker event, orlando, fl, 3rd & 4th
lcms youth workers and pastors events, ann arbor, mi, 5th & 6th
western michigan youth worker gathering, holland/grand rapids, mi, 7th & 8th

june
mississippi umc youth event, ms, 9th

i still have space to add something in february, a couple things in march and april, and one or two things in may. then, i’m mostly wide open starting in june.

if you’d like to consider having me join you for a speaking engagement, please email tim grable: tim@thegrablegroup.com
if you’d like to consider having my join you for a consulting engagement, please email me directly: mark.oestreicher@gmail.com

yup, time for some shameless self-promotion.

about two or three years ago, i started dramatically decreasing the amount of speaking engagements i was taking. then, earlier this year, i stopped taking them altogether, in an attempt to focus more of my time and focus on ys and my family. but now, things have all changed, of course!

so, i’m trying to book speaking engagements for youth events, youth ministry events, or even preaching in churches, between now and the end of may. i know that’s a short window, and the speakers for most winter camps and other events in that window have mostly been lined up months ago. but, since i don’t yet know what i’m going to be doing with the rest of my life, i’m not comfortable taking speaking engagements in the summer or beyond. of course, if i don’t have something lined up by then, i’ll be really wishing i’d booked a bunch of things for the summer!

i also enjoy short-term consulting — either for a church or publisher or ministry, or even for any organization that might want an outside leadership perspective, or, specifically, some help thinking through youth and young adult issues.

if you’d like to talk about having me come to your gathering, or creating something, feel free to contact me (mark.oestreicher[at]gmail[dot]com). or, you can contact tim grable at the grable group: tim@thegrablegroup.com, or (615) 283-0039.

it clearly didn’t make sense for me to re-fire up this blog under the name ysmarko. so, welcome to the “new” whyismarko.com! yeah, there’s a little play on words (or sounds) there; but the new name is also reflective of the stuff i’ve been wrestling with for the past year.

really, as i look back over the past year, i’m just stunned at how much god has been lovingly preparing me for this transition.

- last december, when i was told i had to re-organize youth specialties, there was a week or so when i thought i was supposed to leave also. it created a massive panic within me, that, in hindsight, i wouldn’t trade for anything. even when i settled back into my role, i was left with a new awareness that my identity and my work were completely enmeshed, in a very unhealthy way. i was struck with the question: if i were to lose my job for any reason, who would i be? and, the really disequilibrating bit of that was that i did not have an answer to the question. sure, i had the cognitive answers. but they weren’t “soul answers.” i started down a path of unraveling marko from ysmarko (the persona, not the blog). this resulted in lots of prayer and thinking, lots of conversations with my wife and a few trusted friends.

- in march, i began a one year leadership coaching program with john townsend. it’s a 360 style thing, where a team of 8 of us meet with john for a whole day, once a month, and have regular interaction on a closed networking site in-between. i was asked to share, at our opening meeting, what i hoped to get out of this program; and, among other things, i talked about this un-entwining i needed to delve into. in the months since then, this team has walked with me as i’ve wrestled and prodded and queried and cried. really, i can hardly imagine what this current transition would be like for me had i not been processing all of this with that group all year.

- in may, on a ys leadership team retreat, i was deeply struggling with these issues. and, in an exercise our consultant led us through, i had an imaginary conversation with a 60 year-old version of myself, who was worn out and tired, and spoke to me (it was kinda freaky!), saying, “you have to stop!” for about an hour or two, i was interpreting that as meaning that i needed to quit ys! but in a side conversation with our consultant, i realized that i needed to take a significant step away from my “ysmarko” persona, at least for a season. i knew in that moment that i had to shut down my blog, cancel my twitter and facebook accounts, significantly reduce my travel, and pursue presence (both with my family, and with the staff of ys during that difficult season).

- in june, i was still regularly struggling with anxiety over the thought of “well, what else could i even DO with my life?” i brought this up in with my coaching team, and townsend wisely counseled me that my constant stiff-arming of the question (which i saw as a distraction) was actually keeping me from presence. he encouraged me (it was actually my “homework” for that month) to do what felt counter-intuitive: to focus on coming up with some answers to that question, so i could then set it aside for now. i went on a silent retreat, and i met with our consultant (who is also one of my closest friends), and came up with a handful of buckets of things i could imagine being life-giving for me, if a “post-ys” time ever become a reality.

- then, the last few months have been a roller-coaster ride. and i was very emotionally prepared (as much as one can be, i suppose) for the news that i was being let go. even three days before it actually occurred, i connected the dots and walked into the meeting completely knowing what was about to go down.

all of this was god’s grace. all of this was god lovingly preparing me (and, i think, in a sense, preparing ys) for this current season.

oh — one more: a week before i was let go, i got an email from a youth worker i’d never met. she’d been at the ys convention in los angeles, and wrote about a vision she’d had. she expressed that she was uncomfortable emailing me about this, and that she’d never done this before – especially with someone she’d never met. but she’d been standing in the back of a big room (general session), and suddenly had this vision of a man standing at the foot of a mountain, with hiking boots in his hands. he was looking at the mountain, trying to figure out how to best start his climb. then, he noticed that there was a picnic laid out on a blanket next to him. it looked so inviting, and he was conflicted about whether to attack the climb, or sit and enjoy the picnic. she knew the invitation to the picnic was the real deal – the loving invitation of god to sit and rest in god’s love. then, she wrote that she felt god telling her, “this is for marko — i want you to share this with marko.” she wrestled with this, and tried to dismiss it, as she didn’t know me, and thought the whole thing was just too weird. but, weeks after the convention (and one week before i was laid off), she took the courageous step of emailing me, telling me this story, and writing, in the most understated way, “i don’t know if this means anything to you right now or not.”

i was blown away. and that image of the picnic blanket laid out on a grassy hill, with cool fall breezes blowing, and yummy picnic food, has stuck with me in a profound way over this last month.

so, other than the cutesy play on words/sounds, that’s why this blog is now called whyismarko. i’m not done figuring all this out — that’s for sure! but, even when i do land in some other role, i want to be a new man and a new leader. i want to be confident in who i am as a child of god, a husband and father, and as a leader; and i want to lead from those places.

—–

and now, the technical stuff: i’ve reset feedburner, and the 500 or so of you who were subscribed to the old blog shouldn’t experience any problems. but if you do, just drop that feed, and subscribe to this one. with the help of a friend, all the old ysmarko stuff should be here, but it might take a week or so for all the images to work. and i’m sure there will be technical glitches we haven’t foreseen. if you still have a link on your blog to ysmarko, i’d greatly appreciate it if you would update that to this URL. i’m still not going to re-start my twitter account; but please do feel free to tweet this new URL.

i’m very stoked about reconnecting with the conversation, thinking, and fun we’ve had on this blog in the past. i’ll not be posting with the frequency i once did, because i refuse to become obsessed with this thing. but i expect i’ll show up here a few times a week for now, and see where it goes.

clinton faupel of web-based radio, remedy.fm, did an interview with me a couple weeks ago about youth ministry 3.0. it’s available as a podcast on itunes, here.

remedy.fm, btw, looks like a pretty cool resource for youth workers to know about. they stream music, and have a bunch of other shows, both live and in podcast form, for teenagers, and for youth workers (on that podcast page, “the er show” is a youth worker show). some of the shows are music-based, and others are youth issue call-in type shows. check ‘em out, and it might be something you want to point out to teenagers.