Yaconelli,
the Early Years
by C. McNair Wilson
Details are fuzzy for Mike Yaconelli's early years. The official records are
incomplete, many documents blacked out. We contacted one of his colleges, Bob
Jones University (you can't make this stuff up), requesting Mike's transcript.
We heard a long silence, followed by crackling hissing static, then an air raid
siren and the voice of someone screaming over a loud speaker, "Heretic Alert!"
Next, the line went dead. We chose not to call back.
We're left with deciphering papers found in a bottom dusty drawer in the basement
of the Youth Specialties warehouse in El Cadaver, California. Not intended as
accurate history, rather this drawer is an anecdotal buffet of human highlights
gleaned from an old file—just past "X" you discover the "Y Files."
In the coming months, those who were there back then will tell their versions
of these events at late-night dinners, campfires, and banjo festivals. We shan't
go back to the very beginning. Even if we did, we wouldn't find a child prodigy
leading Bible studies in the garage at age three.
But in spite of being kicked out of Bob Jones and another lesser institution
Mike wound up in San Diego, and in ministry.
Camp "Rancho"
In the summer of my thirteenth year, I was sent off to camp. Camp "Rancho"
was led by two characters who would change my life—not counting Jesus whom
I'd met three years earlier. Putting Mike Yaconelli and Wayne Rice in charge
of a junior high camp is like giving a pharmacy to drug addicts. Whoever it
was at Forest Home Christian Conference Center that thought Mike and Wayne should
oversee junior highers was as big a nut as they were [see "Managing
Yac" by Jim Slevcove, head nut).
Among the epic wackiness was a daily lunchtime ritual during which we voted
on the camper who'd done the stupidest thing the day before. Candidates were
paraded up front and publicly ridiculed by all. We voted using the screaming
and table-pounding methods. The winner- by-accolade was presented the coveted
"Boo-Boo Ribbon." (The large, round, rusty toilet float from inside the tank.
This hung from the winner's neck on a red string.) The ceremony concluded with
singing the "Boo-Boo Anthem" (to the tune of the "Yellow Ribbon"). Join me if
you know it:
Around his (or her) neck she wore the Boo-Boo Ribbon,
He wore it for the Boo-Boo that he pulled in camp today.
(Repeat)
(Chorus)
Camp todaaaaaaaay, camp todaaaaaaaay,
He wore it for the Boo-Boo that he pulled in camp today.
(Repeat entire song)
Hmmm…with all those repeats, this may have been the world's first praise song.
There was a lot of singing at nightly campfire, lead by Wayne and followed
by another certifiably cuckoo Christian camp speaker, Bob Kraning (also a recovering
Bob Jones escapee). Thursday evening we gathered in the ranch pasture (play
field) for a side-splitting hour with "Dr. Yac's Miracle Volcanic Oil Medicine
Show." This was camp skit as vaudeville meets Grand Old Opry. Mike was bumbling,
flimflammer, Dr. Yac, assisted by an old scrub woman with a bucket full of wet
trouble—the hilarious and talented camp registrar, Wes Harty. Lively music
was provided by a bluegrass band in the persons of Joe, Jim and Wayne, the Rice
brothers, aka the "Rice Krispies"— featuring Wayne's wife, Marci, on stand-up
bass. I still have a bottle of Dr. Yac's oil, somewhere.
The Birth of "Ideas"
Back down in San Diego, Mike and Wayne worked with Youth for Christ, but the
very time-consuming ministry wasn't paying the bills, or making much of a dent
in college tuition. Eventually Mike became second-in-command. Wayne was in the
trenches as a Campus Life club director. They didn't have much regular contact
and so when they each decided—unbeknown to the other—to leave YFC
it was a big surprise. When the home office of YFC/USA in Wheaton, Illinois,
caught wind that two of the brightest lights in the YFC firmament were "unplugged,"
they invited Mike and Wayne to Wheaton for a special project. They were given
stacks of ill-assorted ideas, submitted by Campus Life staffers from all over,
and saddled with crafting them into some cohesive form. Sectioning them off
into ice breakers, big group events, discussion starter, skits, and talks, Mike
and Wayne created the first Campus Life manual. They were paid for their work
and sent back to San Diego where each took "part-time" jobs as youth pastors.
What they'd fashioned was nothing short of the first organized collection of
resources for ministering to teenagers that the world had ever seen. Months
later, the big new Campus Life Manual was sent out. Mike and Wayne inquired
about getting a couple of copies to use in their ministries. They were informed
by Youth for Christ brass that, as they were no longer YFC employees and not
certified Campus Life Club directors, they couldn't have the manual they'd created.
Mike and Wayne had become friends through that process, so a call was dialed:
"Hey."
"Yeah, what's up?"
"So we can't get the manual."
"Yeah, bummer."
"Well, I was...thinking..."
"Don't hurt yourself."
"No. Listen. How much of that stuff we put together do you remember?"
"Most, probably, but not word-for-word."
"Right. Me too. But between us we could probably remember all of it."
"Yeah and lots of the stuff we didn't use."
"Plus our own stuff we didn't put in."
"Right, right. So?"
"Soooooooooo?"
So the boys got together in Wayne Rice's now-famous garage and printed page
after page on an old church Mimeograph. The title page said simply "IDEAS."
After assembling the pages into cheap three-hole paper notebook folders, they
put their "ideas" into the back seat and drove up to their old Summer stomping
grounds for the Forest Home Youth Ministers Retreat. Charging just five bucks
a copy, the very first "IDEAS" sold out on the first day. With a light bulb
over each of their then very hairy heads, they flew down the mountain to Wayne's
garage and made more. The second printing also sold out.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (Hold that image.)
Birth of YS
Meanwhile Mike had caught the attention of a wealthy San Diego businessman
who heard him give the winning speech at Toastmasters. He offered Mike a small
role and big office in his organization. In short he became Mike's patron.
In an older building in downtown San Diego, a small suite of offices on the
fourth floor became home to "Youth Specialties, Inc." Wayne and Mike took on
a secretary and help from friends, wives, and area youth pastors to collate
and ship books to resource-starved youth pastors from San Diego to the Yukon's
icy tundra.
Soon an all-day seminar on youth work was hatched and offered in San Diego,
San Marino, and the uttermost parts (now in 4,689 cities).
National Conventions
In San Diego, they met a gifted young youth worker, Denny Ryderg, at the downtown
Presbyterian outpost. His organizational skills soon became a full-time facet
of YS. Denny helped organize another Mike and Wayne brainchild—a national
convention for youth workers. In the fall of 1971, the first National Youth
Workers Convention was held at the El Cortez Hotel in downtown San Diego.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Francis Schaeffer, whom Mike had met on a spiritual
retreat to L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. Barry McGuire and Randy Norman
provided music that first year, and the late Joe Bayly provided sage wisdom
and his constant wit. Less than three hundred attended that inaugural confab
that has now grown to three cities annually with more than 12,000 attending
in the autumn of 2003.
Back-Story
My friend (from Forest Home) Ben Patterson gave me a copy of a new magazine
for which he was the editor. Just sixteen, thin, typewritten pages of cheap
newsprint all bereft of art; I was unengaged. It didn't help that the cover
story was an interview with Hal "The sky is falling" Lindsey. I looked at it
days later and was startled by what I saw on pages two and three: an ad for
a toy squirt ring and the names of the staff: Ben Patterson, Wayne Rice, Mike
Yaconelli, and Denny Rydberg. Those middle two names got me dancing and reading
the entire rag. If these guys were doing a magazine of satire and critical thought
for folks in ministry, I wanted to play!
(Side note: Two youth workers sitting around one night swapping stories about
dumb stuff in the ministry. They rushed down to the church office in the middle
of the night, and Paul Sailhammer and Gary Wilburn published the first issue
of The Wittenburg Door. When Youth Specialties thought about creating
a magazine to regularly take on issues and foibles of professional ministry—the
stuff the other, stodgier Christian mags wouldn't touch—they asked to buy
The Wittenburg Door. Paul and Gary weren't selling. Eventually YS bought
the rights to the name The Wittenburg Door for sixty dollars—their
postage debt. So, the Hal Lindsay issue (June '71) was the first YS issue, not
the first Door.)
I dashed off a cartoon of the "Perfect Youth Pastor Paper Doll" and later a
story filed from downtown Wittenberg, East Germany, that became a cover story.
I was hired by Mike and Wayne to be art director of The Door and resident
YS young un'.
"You are the first," Yac told me, "of what we hope is an unending stream of
creative young Christians who might not fit in more traditional ministry." Our
monthly Door breakfasts (Hob Knob Café) were a round table of hilarity
that included the small YS staff, plus now- pastor Patterson, and a revolving
door of ministry and literary luminaries who all went on to grander callings.
Even with all the criticism we took for what was in The Door, it was
what we didn't publish (in-house memos and rumors from big name ministries)
that would've curled your hymnals.
Noticing we never said grace at these breakfasts I chatted with editor Rydberg.
At the next breakfast he invited me to say a prayer over our food and Door
deliberations. As I prayed, a hand from the person on my left began stroking
my leg. Almost immediately, another hand appeared from the right. I closed the
prayer asking God to "be with Mike and Wayne at this time of sexual frustration."
The hands retreated quickly. As we looked up in laughter, Wayne and Mike were
red-faced with guilt. The spontaneous hi-jinx at YS were a part of our everyday
discourse. An improvised (unplanned) conversation in a packed elevator on our
way to lunch:
Mike: What were you thinking grabbing that woman in the elevator?
Me: I don't know.
Mike: And kissing her!
Me: She was so pretty I…
Mike: Your parole officer is gonna be ticked!
Never a Dull Moment
Whether it was Wayne practicing his banjo, Mike screaming out of the window
of our fourth floor offices at passing San Diegans, dressing down the UPS man
for his sub-standard uniform, or Denny's futile attempts at keeping staff meetings
on track, those early years at YS were always lively. In 1977, Denny spoke at
Seattle Pacific College and met a bright and energetic residence director whom
he invited to apply for a position at YS.
Soon Tic Long was a regular feature and another of so many "creative young
Christians" for whom Mike had foreseen providing an alternative ministry opportunity.
Cartoonist Dan Pagoda, Craig Yoe (later at Muppets, Inc.), and Mark Rayburn
(photo to the stars) are just a few who passed through the YS portal that includes
current YS President Mark Oestreicher, Youthworker Editor Will Penner,
and the entire current staff of zanies.
Through it all, the constant theme echoing in the halls of the Pierce Street
YS offices and in the hearts of every one of us who's ever worked with, e-mailed,
or been taught by Mike Yaconelli is: be yourself—warts, worries, doubts,
and all. That's how God made you. "Just stop grabbing girls in the elevator!"
C. McNair Wilson, former Disney Imagineer (theme park designer), speaks
on creativity and brainstorming to corporate and ministry groups from IBM to
the Salvation Army through his company IMAGINU!TY Unlimited. His three one-man
plays, The Fifth Gospel From Up Here, and Raised in Captivity-Live!
have been performed more than 1500 times. McNair is author/illustrator of the
books, Everyone
Wants to Go to Heaven, But... and Raised
in Captivity, A Memoir of a Life Long Churchaholic. His free monthly
e-newsletter is available at www.McNairWilson.com.
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