I wanted to acknowledge the impact that Mike Yacconelli had on the youth ministry world. He died in a car accident a couple of weeks ago and it was strange how much it affected me. I never met Mike and only started visiting his "Youth Specialties" site about a year ago. I guess that I felt I had lost a comrade. Youth pastors are in dire need of someone to understand them as they are. We are people who (contrary to some people's opinion) have real jobs and real struggles like the rest of the world. We aren't waiting for our ship to come in so that we can enter the real world... we are in the real world. I felt that Mike understood that. He was an advocate and someone who loved all youth workers whether he knew them or not.

I thought that it would be nice to acknowledge him and ask you to pray for his family. There is a really great Memorial up for him at the YS site. Click here to visit it.