Michael Woroniecki

Michael Peter Woroniecki (also Michael Warnecki, Warneki, Worneki, Mike War, and Mike Wazowski; born February 4, 1954) is an independent, non-denominational Christian missionary.

Woroniecki is well known for his ministry on college campuses and at various public events across the US over the span of the last 30 years.

Woroniecki was the youngest of a large Polish Catholic family who was raised in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

His mother became involved in the Catholic Charismatic Movement in the early 1970s and sought to introduce her children to the born again experience.

In 1972, seeking a way out of Grand Rapids, he "made a deal with God" that he would attend prayer meetings with his mother if he could make All-City tailback in football and thus receive a scholarship for college.

He got the title and the scholarship.

Woroniecki attended Central Michigan University (CMU) where he studied psychology and played varsity football from 1972 to 1976.

He boasted of being able to bench press 400 lbs and run a 4.5 second 40-yard dash.

Woroniecki explains in his Christian testimony that he forgot his deal with God and had a "wild streak", involving himself in alcohol and partying.

Woroniecki states that he was known to his teammates as the "Crazy War" and says he was arrested the summer of his freshman year for fighting in a bar, just to prove to his peers how tough he was.

During his senior year of high school in 1972, Woroniecki began attending Catholic Charismatic prayer meetings, part of his "deal with God."

During spring football practice in 1974, Woroniecki suffered a disabling football injury that threatened his athletic aspirations.

About the same time, Woroniecki's mother gave him a Bible, which he began to read.

Woroniecki says God used this time of suffering and depression to break him of his pride, preparing him to receive the Gospel.

Woroniecki attended the annual Catholic Charismatic Conference at University of Notre Dame the weekend of June 14, 1974 with his family.

He was in the stadium when he says he told God that he didn't know what the saying "born again" meant, but that he wanted everything that the Lord had for him.

While sitting alone in the stadium, Woroniecki says that he gave his life to Jesus.

At that moment, Woroniecki believes that he "met the living Jesus".

"The grass and goalposts were the same but I was changed" says Woroniecki, adding that he found significance in the recently painted Touchdown Jesus on the library mural right in front of him.

Woroniecki returned to college football practice in July that same summer.

One day after practice, while in a bar with his teammates, Woroniecki says he ordered water in the place of his usual beer.

His friends becoming curious, Woroniecki explained that he had met Jesus.

Used to his outrageous life-of-the-party humor, they all mistakenly thought he was joking, and Woroniecki became the focus of ridicule and rejection by his teammates.

He writes that he could not understand why people like Roger Staubach, a famous Christian athlete, were respected, yet he was rejected, until he read John 12:24 and 25.

He reasoned that if the world hated Jesus without cause, they would also hate and reject him if he followed Him.

The same year, Woroniecki and his teammates went on to win the NCAA Division II Football Championship for the only time in Central Michigan's history.

Woroniecki graduated from Central Michigan with a B.S. in Behavioral Sciences in 1976.

While at CMU, Woroniecki met a cheerleader from Detroit, Michigan, Leslie Jean Ochalek (later renamed "Rachel Rebekah").

After graduating from Central Michigan, Woroniecki attended Melodyland School of Theology at Anaheim, California starting in 1976.

A month after returning home from seminary that summer, his mother died from colon cancer.

Woroniecki applied to the Dominican and Franciscan Orders of the Catholic Church with the intention of helping to bring reform from within the Church.

In his final round of interviews with the Dominican seminary near Chicago, Illinois, Woroniecki was refused immediate admission and decided on a different course of action.

He then applied to the Franciscan seminary in his own hometown of Grand Rapids.

After a semester of study at Aquinas College, Woroniecki was again offered an extended preparatory period.

He chose to pursue other means of study.

In 1978, Woroniecki was accepted at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, a non-denominational institution.

Woroniecki says he was "deeply grieved" by the professionalism and business-like attitude towards the things of God at Fuller.

Woroniecki and Ochalek married in 1979.

Charles and Rose Woroniecki, Michael Woroniecki's parents, were members of the Basilica of Saint Adalbert, a Roman Catholic church in the Polish west side of Grand Rapids.

Michael Woroniecki attended a Catholic grade school adjoining his family's parish and then advanced to West Catholic High School, another parochial school in Grand Rapids.