Mark Tossell grew up as an atheist in Sydney, Australia. He was miraculously saved at the age of seventeen and became a member of a fundamental Baptist church. Pastor Mark graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor of engineering degree in 1989 and then worked for Procter and Gamble as a project engineer for two years.

In 1992 God led him to Hyles-Anderson College in Crown Point, Indiana, where he met his wife Christina. They married in July 1995, and Pastor Mark graduated with a degree in pastoral theology in 1996. They moved to Sydney in August of 1999 and started Lighthouse Baptist Church in November of 1999, where they remain today. The Tossells have one son Adam, born in 2006 after eleven years of praying for a child.