Mike Yaconelli, the late oddball youth pastor and theological prankster, delights my soul. Read his Dangerous Wonder and Messy Spirituality. Appreciate the crazy idea that was the magazine The Door. Get ahold of his Door interview with Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon. Most of all, give thanks for all the ways the bumbling human Mike Yaconelli showed us that other human who just happened to be God, Jesus Christ.

Or, watch this compilation of a few of his good lines live.

Have you ever wished there was a feast day for Mike Yaconelli, or a collect mentioning him in the Book of Commmon Prayer? Well, until Rome or Canterbury or Nashville (Go Methodism!) canonize him:

Almighty God, whose glory refracts as oddness in our sin-jaded eyes, and whose wisdom in felicity confounds the despairing sophistry of every evil age as it is passing away, even as this one: thank you for the gospel oddness shown us by your servant Mike Yaconelli. By the breathing of your Holy Spirit, fill us with the life of Christ that radiates even from his memory and the words he left behind, that we might shine like stars in the heavens unexpectedly, and delight a dull age with the glory that is your love: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, very God forever and ever. Amen.

Clifton Stringer is the pastor of Lakehills United Methodist Church in Lakehills, TX.