Doug Fields

Doug Fields is a communicator, author, & consultant. He is the Executive Director of HomeWord’s Center for Youth/Family at Azusa Pacific University, the co-founder of Downloadyouthministry.com, and the author of more than 50 books.

Doug Fields has been a speaker, writer, thought-leader, and pastor to teenagers for over 30 years. After graduating Vanguard University, Doug received his MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary. He served at South Coast Community Church (now Mariners Church), in Newport Beach, CA for 11 years before he moved to be the youth and teaching pastor for 18 years at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. With a growing demand for his speaking, writing and consulting, Doug left Saddleback in 2010 to pursue his true dreams.

He is an Executive Director of HomeWord’s Center for Youth/Family at Azusa Pacific University where he conducts Marriage & Parenting Conferences and teaches in the Masters Program at APU. Doug is also a Co-founder and President of Downloadyouthministry.com. He works as a consultant and content creator for ThinkOrange.com and is a Director of Strengthening Relationships at Pacific Dental Services.Doug is a speaker at conferences, churches, and corporate events and an author with six new books published in 2014. Doug is the author of 50+ books covering the genres of Marriage, Family, Parenting, Spiritual Growth, and Youth Ministry. Some of his most recent titles include, Getting Ready For Marriage (book & workbook) (2014) The Essential Jesus (2014), 7 Ways To Be Her Hero (2014), Married People: helping churches help marriages (2014), and Should I Just SMASH My Kid’s Phone (2013). He is the content architect for GettingReadyForMarriage.com, YouthSphere.com, and IntentionalParenting.com (coming Summer 2015). Doug is also a teaching pastor at Mariners Church.

In the Youth Ministry space, Doug is most well known for the award-winning Purpose Driven Youth Ministry (PDYM) which is a youth ministry textbook used all over the world. PDYM has been translated in 20+ languages and Doug has personally taught PDYM in most states and in several countries; Australia, Germany, Philippines, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. Doug’s influence in youth ministry is known around the world (and, even in Wikipedia).

In the early 90’s Doug founded the resource company Simply Youth Ministry, which he ran for several years, before selling to Group Publishing in 2006 in order to free him up to achieve wider, global impact. In the years following, Doug has played various roles in the youth ministry world including Creating a Student Leadership Conference attracting teenage leaders from all around the world. At this event, promising young leaders learn how to be influential in their homes, churches, schools and communities.

Downloadyouthministry.com (DYM) is Doug’s most recent venture that he started with best friends in 2012. DYM is a membership-based resource provider that prides itself as “The Greatest Deal in the History of Youth Ministry.”

In addition to resources, DYM hosts a weekly podcast (260+ episodes) where Doug and friends answer youth ministry related questions from all over the world (along with a lot of laughing). The podcast audience is more of a youth ministry team/family and this medium is simply one of the ways that Doug continues to connect with youth workers. Of all these things, Doug would say his greatest accomplishment is marrying way out of his league to Cathy, his incredible wife of 30 years, and having amazing children; Torie (26 years old), Cody (23) and Cassie (20).

Since Doug greatest joy of watching his children play sports is over, he’s making very average attempts toward becoming an athlete. These attempts include occasional participation in mountain biking, CrossFit, and tripping.