Post by Head Mutant on Jun 8, 2004 9:57:20 GMT -5
What a stupid and weird way to start the day. I get to work (after locking myself out of my apartment and having to get the apartment office to let me back in) and start working down my checklist of "To Do's". The first thing was to order some new books and teaching materials from Youth Specialties, a youth ministry company that does some excellent work to helping us teen-ditch-diggers out.
So it came to be a bit of a shock to see the words "Mike Yaconelli Memorial" on the front page of their site. True enough, this guy you've probably never heard of, but I certainly had, died late last year in a car accident, and I never knew about it until just now.
I had the privilege of meeting Mike a few times in person at the Youth Specialties yearly conventions (where thousands of youth workers get together to worship, go to seminars, and generally pick up new ideas and get encouraged). He was this massive bear of a guy, a 60+ year-old grizzly bearded dude who had been working in youth ministry for over 30 years (with Youth Specialties and in various churches), and been the pastor of a very small church in California. He's also one of my personal heroes for a few reasons.
The first of which is that Mike is the anti-perfect Christian and not even remotely like any typical pastor or youth pastor I know. He got thrown out of two Bible colleges and went into youth ministry with a lot of people telling him that he wasn't suited for it. 30 years later, he still claimed he wasn't perfect, he had no idea what to do half the time, yet his mission was to really encourage and inspire youth workers that our efforts are meaningful and appreciated (a great quote from him, "I'm in awe of youth workers, and I think Jesus is, too. I just wish the Church felt the same."). In meeting him, I realized that if this big goober of a guy who wasn't ultra-athletic, or popular, or a perfect Christian could go on to help other people despite that... and be a success because of Christ's strength working in his weakness... then I could too.
My other reason Mike's so important to me is that he wrote a book I discovered last year that's one of the best, most important books in my life: Messy Spirituality. I've read a lot of books on Christianity, but this was the first, I think, that talked about "real" Christianity, not some lofty concepts that I could never attain. Messy Spirituality is about how we're incredibly messed up inside, and God knows, and God doesn't expect us to be perfect before we start our journey with him... or even during our journey. It's an inspirational book that cuts through the crap of what some Christians have made our faith to be, to get down to the core and say, "What's really important here?"
I've pimped out this book to friends, my teens, family, and my entire church as one of the most vital books on faith that they could read. The ones that have taken me up on it have come to love this book too. (Mike's written some other books I'll have to get to, including "Dangerous Wonder", about how to rediscover the joys of being child-like when it comes to living out our faith)
Anyway... it's a bit stupid that I'm sitting here crying for a guy who's been dead a while, but I can't say enough about how cool Mike was, or how much his writings meant to me.
"We have a room here full of rag-tag, foolish, unsophisticated, unfinished, work-in-progress, weak, disrespected, ragamuffins, who have been called to work with a group of rag-tag, foolish, unsophisticated, unfinished, work-in-progress, wondering young people. What an honor. What a calling."
- Mike Yaconelli
Some great quotes from Mike (funny, too):
www.youthspecialties.com/yaconelli/words/wordsfrommike.php
Messy Spirituality at Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0310235332/qid=1086705304/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-1004023-8942328?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
So it came to be a bit of a shock to see the words "Mike Yaconelli Memorial" on the front page of their site. True enough, this guy you've probably never heard of, but I certainly had, died late last year in a car accident, and I never knew about it until just now.
I had the privilege of meeting Mike a few times in person at the Youth Specialties yearly conventions (where thousands of youth workers get together to worship, go to seminars, and generally pick up new ideas and get encouraged). He was this massive bear of a guy, a 60+ year-old grizzly bearded dude who had been working in youth ministry for over 30 years (with Youth Specialties and in various churches), and been the pastor of a very small church in California. He's also one of my personal heroes for a few reasons.
The first of which is that Mike is the anti-perfect Christian and not even remotely like any typical pastor or youth pastor I know. He got thrown out of two Bible colleges and went into youth ministry with a lot of people telling him that he wasn't suited for it. 30 years later, he still claimed he wasn't perfect, he had no idea what to do half the time, yet his mission was to really encourage and inspire youth workers that our efforts are meaningful and appreciated (a great quote from him, "I'm in awe of youth workers, and I think Jesus is, too. I just wish the Church felt the same."). In meeting him, I realized that if this big goober of a guy who wasn't ultra-athletic, or popular, or a perfect Christian could go on to help other people despite that... and be a success because of Christ's strength working in his weakness... then I could too.
My other reason Mike's so important to me is that he wrote a book I discovered last year that's one of the best, most important books in my life: Messy Spirituality. I've read a lot of books on Christianity, but this was the first, I think, that talked about "real" Christianity, not some lofty concepts that I could never attain. Messy Spirituality is about how we're incredibly messed up inside, and God knows, and God doesn't expect us to be perfect before we start our journey with him... or even during our journey. It's an inspirational book that cuts through the crap of what some Christians have made our faith to be, to get down to the core and say, "What's really important here?"
I've pimped out this book to friends, my teens, family, and my entire church as one of the most vital books on faith that they could read. The ones that have taken me up on it have come to love this book too. (Mike's written some other books I'll have to get to, including "Dangerous Wonder", about how to rediscover the joys of being child-like when it comes to living out our faith)
Anyway... it's a bit stupid that I'm sitting here crying for a guy who's been dead a while, but I can't say enough about how cool Mike was, or how much his writings meant to me.
"We have a room here full of rag-tag, foolish, unsophisticated, unfinished, work-in-progress, weak, disrespected, ragamuffins, who have been called to work with a group of rag-tag, foolish, unsophisticated, unfinished, work-in-progress, wondering young people. What an honor. What a calling."
- Mike Yaconelli
Some great quotes from Mike (funny, too):
www.youthspecialties.com/yaconelli/words/wordsfrommike.php
Messy Spirituality at Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0310235332/qid=1086705304/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-1004023-8942328?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
