Zondervan, Marko & Me

By Len on Oct 23, 2009 in Youth Ministry

markoI heard the news about Zondervan releasing Marko from Youth Specialities  Wednesday along with most everyone else in Youth Ministry Land. By the way, here’s a some great insight from Dan Miller on why Nobody Gets “Fired” Anymore.

Unlike most, I heard the news when Adam eventualy won our game of phone tag. I had been out all day and had not seen a computer or read any texts mentioning Marko no longer being at YS. Adam and I talked about a variety of things besides the big news but rest assured, I have no insider information or “scoop” of any details beyond what anyone else knows. Even if there was any scoop, and there’s not, Adam keeps confidences, secrets and confessions better than a trustworthy Catholic priest, so he wouldn’t have told me anything anyway.

I’ve talked with a few friends and here are the responses I heard: shock, hurt, anger, feeling betrayed and a fear of YS officially losing it’s soul with Marko’s departure.

I”m sure there are more blog posts about this out there but here are the ones I found:

Grant wrote The McDonaldization of YS?

Dan wrote The Firing of YSMarko

Tony wrote On the Firing of a Friend

It’s pretty wierd reading Marko’s post about Zondervan buying Youth Specialties  in light of his being fired, I said it, it’s okay. I hope that vision of what the partnership could be will eventually happen. I’m glad he’ll be sharing his thoughts again, I propose YSMarko now stands for You’re Special Marko. ;-)

I want to take this opportunity to thank Marko:

Thank you for caring for youth workers so deeply.

Thank you for honoring Mike’s memory & passion in your own way. I have no doubt ,he’d be proud of how you’ve grown and led YS.

Thank you for putting to words what many of us felt and could only partially describe in Youth Ministry 3.0.

Thanks for having presenters at NYWC that stretched people and forced them to consider another perspective.

Thank you for believing in the manuscript proposal you read to tell me, “I like it, here’s the next step if it’s going to be published.”

Thank you for being the occasional idiot.

Thank you for knowing you’re a dufus and letting me hang out with the other idiots who are your friends and who became my friends.

Thank you for providing some of my greatest moments of fellowship and community with kindred spirits by letting us hang out in your suite and didn’t mind when we’d stay till 2am or later when you had responsibilities early the next morning.

I  know Marko will be okay, survive and probably one day look back at this as a blessing (that could take a while).

I hope that Zondervan realizes it didn’t just fire a position in a company, it gutted a big part of the reason many youth workers connect with and love Youth Specialties.   Healing can occur but I know it will take time to rebuild the trust that I’m sensing has been lost in a good number of their “customers”.

YS won’t lose it’s soul.  I have great confidence in the staff that is to carry the mantle and passion of YS that has made it more than a company that pushes products to youth worker resource junkies.

I’m trusting in God’s soveriegnty during this time when I don’t understand why things happened and I hurt for a friend.

I am committed to praying for Marko and my friends at YS everyday until the National Youth Worker Convention in Atlanta.  You’re welcome to join me in that commitment.

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1 Comment(s)

  1. Len
    thanks for this. I felt low all day yesterday and I have not met Marko just had an email exchange when I won one of his blog competitions. Think the reason it has impacted me and others are for what you have described above – I wish the guy well and will join in with the prayer commitment. He cared for folk in a wonderful way – this is the least we can do for him.

    Thanks for sharing

    roy | Oct 23, 2009 | Reply

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