John Ortberg

John Ortberg, Jr. (born May 5, 1957) is an American evangelical Christian author, speaker, and the former senior pastor of Menlo Church in Menlo Park, California, an ECO Presbyterian church with more than 4,000 members. Ortberg has published many books including the 2008 ECPA Christian Book Award winner When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box, and the 2002 Christianity Today Book Award winner If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat. Another of his publications, The Life You've Always Wanted, has sold more than 500,000 copies as of 2008. On August 13, 2012, John Ortberg's book Who Is This Man? debuted at #3 on the New Release chart at Amazon.com.He resigned from his position as pastor of Menlo Church in July 2020 after it was revealed that he had allowed one of his sons, John Ortberg III, to continue volunteering in working with minors at the church after the son had disclosed having experienced unwanted thoughts of attraction to minors. The allegations had arisen in late 2019, initially without identifying his son as the volunteer in question. In October 2021, the third-party organization Zero Abuse Project completed an investigation into the matter after interviewing 104 witnesses and reviewing or analyzing more than 500,000 documents. Zero Abuse Project did not find any disclosure or other evidence that John Ortberg III committed any acts of wrongdoing against a minor.