Connect with Mark McKnelly
Mark is available to teach in person either a 2 or 4-hour Change for the Poor workshop to your organization for information and inspiration beyond the book’s content. This training allows time for Q&A. Email Mark for pricing and scheduling details.
Mark McKnelly is an author, speaker, coach and wholistic life restoration minister. Mark develops and helps organizations develop programs for men and women reentering society from incarceration or recovering from addiction. He shares his practical process in his book Change for the Poor to teach others how to help individuals in extreme material and relational poverty restore their own spiritual, relational, personal, vocational and financial lives. His personal journey through addiction and recovery led him to his ministry.
Connect with Mark through email or through his social media channels if you are ready to learn more about developing a successful restoration ministry.
From Mark
First and foremost, I am a child of God, husband, father of four, and now almost fourteen years in recovery from the addiction that nearly destroyed my life, but that also brought me to faith in Christ.
On January 24, 2008, I became a Christ-follower. Before then I was a successful entrepreneur. In the final year that I spent with the company I started and co-owned it generated 5 million in annual revenue and employed over 50 people.
In 2009, I entered a full-time vocational ministry at Schweitzer Church in Springfield, MO. While on staff there I planted an outreach service called Church @ the Center and developed a one-year in-depth discipleship program called the Life Change Plan for men and women in recovery housing. Both of these ministries were successful and instrumental in an important season of learning how to serve the poor.
In 2017, I transitioned to the nonprofit world and became a Chaplain at Victory Mission + Ministry in Springfield, MO. Since joining Victory Mission I have developed a program for men and women reentering from incarceration or recovering from addiction called the Restoration Program. As Director of Restoration, I now oversee a team of chaplains and chaplain apprentices that serve over three dozen participants while planning and preparing for the future expansion of the ministry.
I have over ten years of combined experience working in the trenches with those in extreme poverty. Having served seven years in benevolence ministry on staff at a church, and now four years as a chaplain at a Christian nonprofit. My passion for the subject of long-term life change for those in material and relational poverty has only increased over my time in this ministry, even with a success rate that most would struggle to see as successful.
