Pastor Mark Arnold Opgrand  grew up in the Pacific Northwest. After graduating from high school in Beaverton, Oregon, he attended Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, graduating in 1970. Prior to seminary, he worked six summers and a winter at Holden Village. He graduated from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1979.

Mark served as a parish pastor in Caldwell, Texas, and worked as United Campus Minister in Odessa, Texas, before moving to Indiana, where he served as Lutheran Campus Pastor at Purdue University. In 1997 he joined St. Paul’s Lutheran in Wilmington, North Carolina as Associate Pastor.