The motivation for this page is the vain hope that someone from my past will be searching for me and will enter enough keywords in some search engine to cause this page to appear.
So if you're an old friend, I'm glad you found me! Send me an email at my Gmail account. You'll have to type it in yourself, because I'm too paranoid to put a link here. (And yet I'm posting all this personal information below!) The email address is revjmyoung then that symbol that looks like an a with a circle around it (is that cryptic enough to fool a web crawler?) followed by gmail.com.
I was born in December 1969 in a state out west, but nobody from there would be looking for me because I moved away when I was less than a year old.
I grew up in Naperville, Illinois. I attended Maplebrook Elementary School where some of my teachers were Mrs. Brooks, Mrs. Nocco, Miss Howen, Mrs. Cullen, Mrs. Udell, and Mr. Dewing. Then I attended Lincoln Junior High School (LJHS) where I played Captain Von Trapp in our revue of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Finally, I graduated from Naperville Central High School (NCHS) as valedictorian in 1988. (As long as I'm bragging, I was also voted "most studious" and "most likely to succeed"!) I had roles in our productions of Grease, Dracula, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Neil Simon's Fools. I was also in German Club and Scholastic Bowl.
I spent two summers in Germany, 1987 and 1988. The first was a school exchange with a Gymnasium in Bad Säckingen in southern Germany on the Rhine River. In 1988 I won a study trip from the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) with 68 other students from across the U.S.; we spent time in Nuremberg with families as well as a week-long trip to Berlin, where I was detained by Communists at the border. (Fun story; ask me about it sometime!)
I attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where I was a member of Beta Sigma Psi. (I lived my freshman year at Shreve Hall.) I was active at University Lutheran Church (a.k.a. U-Lu). I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics (aerospace engineering) in December 1991.
I worked summers in college at Amoco Pipeline Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is also where I met my wife, Raquel.
In June 1992 I began my studies at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, with "Summer Greek." I spent my vicarage year in Fishkill, New York. I graduated from Concordia with my Master of Divinity degree in May 1996.
I was ordained as a pastor in The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod (LCMS) in June 1996 and took the position of assistant pastor at King of Kings Lutheran Church in San Antonio, Texas. I loved doing chapel services for the little ones in our Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC).
In January 2002 I was installed as the senior pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Fishkill, the same church where I had served my vicarage, and I have been there ever since. I have two adorable daughters.
I'm looking forward to the 20-year reunion of the NCHS class of 1988, especially since I missed the 10-year reunion.