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What kind of responses have you received in the last 24 hours?

One guy said, "I told Mike recently how he has been one of the few and one of the most important mentors in my life, even though much of it was from a distance. When I told him that, he cried, and so did I. That's one of the reasons I loved him—his passion. I had about ten defining moments with Mike that where transformational. Mike Yaconelli made me more than a better youthworker. He made me a better man and a follower of Jesus."

Another guy said, "I've been doing youth ministry for 33 years. Part of the reason I'm still doing this after 33 years was and is Mike Yaconelli. What a huge loss to you, to YS, to youth ministry, and to the kingdom of God everywhere."

He related to youth, but he was 61 years old.

He really had an uncommon ability to relate to lots of ages, youth included. In recent years, he had started to doubt his ability to communicate with youth, but every time he got in front of a group of teenagers and spoke, they loved him. He would always come back from those opportunities saying, "I was just surprised that it seemed like it still worked. I don't know why they still accept me, but they still do." And really what it boiled down to was that teenagers are just not used to people speaking so honestly to them. They just loved Mike's honesty, but also his passion for life.

So much of what I've said so far would make him sound like a soft, gentle grandpa with a prophetic heart, but that would be to really miss a part of him. He was an extremely playful guy, very funny, loved to enjoy life in every way, loved a good laugh, good times with friends. That's an important part of him, too.

He does still communicate with teens well, but he also found that he had this great voice to pastors and adult Christians. He was moving into a stage of life where his voice was going to be less to youth ministry and more to the broader church. It could be witnessed by his last two books.

What was he working on?

In a broader sense, he was working at retooling his life. He wanted to move into a partial retirement, where he was able to pull himself out of the day-to-day operations of Youth Specialties. He appointed me president two years ago, and we've been on this gradual road of him handing off more and more responsibilities. He would say over and over again that he really wanted to spend more time with Jesus.

He's a water lover; he has a boat here in San Diego that he lives on when he's in town. He loves being on the water and writing, spending time with his wife, spending time with Jesus. That was his life.

Specifically, he was under contract with Zondervan for his next book, which was tentatively called Impersonating Ourselves. He had just recently resigned from his role as teaching pastor at Grace Church in Yreka, after being in that role for many, many years. He felt that that church needed to spread its wings a little without relying on him, and he also felt like he needed a little bit more freedom to not always to fly up to Yreka on weekends.

What did he think the church needed? What was his role in that capacity?

He thought that the church needed to get over itself, stop taking itself so seriously, and focus more on being in love with Jesus. He had very low tolerance for bureaucracy and red tape and process and committees. Institutionalism was very frustrating to him. He would regularly talk about his desire that a church staff meeting would be about talking about Jesus rather than about programs and calendars and carpeting.

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October (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47