Why are some people full of hope, while many of us struggle to get past the snooze alarm?Hope often seems elusive-both to explain and to experience. So we find ourselves instead clinging to lesser substitutes. From self-medication to lazy clichés, we apply these balms to our pain and experience little to no comfort. But we know, in our guts, that these replacements aren?t the hope-filled lives we long for, the lives we were made for.Mark Oestreicher gets it. Through hard-wrought experience and robust-bordering-on-desperate theological reflection, he offers here a fresh perspective on Hope, that virtue that God carries to us even as God carries us. Read Hopecasting and discover a good God casting hope your way.

Mark Oestreicher is a partner in The Youth Cartel, challenging youth ministers through holistic professional coaching, strategic consulting, transformational events and inventive resource development for youth ministry. He has had a broad experience working in churches in roles ranging from junior high pastor to executive pastor. He has served as vice president of ministry resources and later as president of Youth Specialties in San Diego, an organization that trains and equips church youth workers. Oestreicher has authored or contributed to more than sixty books, including extensive youth ministry curricula and books like A Beautiful Mess: Whats Right About Youth Ministry, Understanding Your Young Teen: Practical Wisdom for Parents, Middle School Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide to Working with Early Adolescents and Youth Ministry 3.0: A Manifesto of Where Weve Been, Where We Are & Where We Need to Go. He actively continues in his calling to middle school ministry by volunteering with young teens at Journey Community Church in La Mesa, California, where he leads a small group of middle school students each week. He is married to Jeannie and has two children in high school and college.

Hopecasting