Michael Woroniecki

In November 2010, Woroniecki and his family were seen ministering in Times Square in New York City, promoting their website 'www.ifanyoneisthirsty.com' . The author writes that the primary point of their message was "that Jesus is alive and that we need to actively seek him out", adding that despite any controversy, the family seemed to him to be genuine in their efforts to "go all over the world and celebrate life and the living Jesus."

Woroniecki and family members carried signs and preached outside both the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul in 2008.

According to his bio, from 2006 to 2009, Woroniecki has self-produced eight music CDs which he and his family have distributed in their travels.

In early 2002 Michael Woroniecki came to the attention of the national media when Yates' trial started. Yates' defense attorney George Parnham placed a copy of Woroniecki's newsletter The Perilous Times into evidence, suggesting that the material was dangerous for someone like Yates, and defense team psychiatrist Lucy Puryear said on Good Morning America that "Yates' fate may have been different if she never met Woroniecki". Certain media outlets alleged that Woroniecki bore some responsibility for influencing Andrea.

Woroniecki called the defense's claims "ridiculous". He stated that he had only met Andrea personally four or five times over 20 years and that his relationship with her was "one of nothing but love and compassion". Woroniecki said that he had warned Russell Yates that Andrea and their children needed his love. Peter Jennings of World News Tonight reported that Rachel Woroniecki wrote to Rusty and Andrea that they needed to reconcile their marriage. In an interview with Dateline NBC in March 2002, Mrs. Woroniecki said:

Andrea Yates had suffered mental health difficulties for several years leading up to 2001. In June 1999 Yates took an overdose of sedatives and was hospitalized several times over the next two years. She was prescribed a variety of antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. On June 20, 2001, a few weeks after being discharged from Devereaux Texas Treatment Center, Andrea killed all five of her children.

The Yates and Woroniecki stayed in touch by letter and telephone, and in 1998, the Yates travelled to Miami after hearing that the Woronieckis were selling their motor home. Rusty bought the bus, a 1978 GMC that Woroniecki had used for his family's travels. During the week that the Yates stayed, Woroniecki confronted Rusty, saying that he was "willing to sacrifice his wife and children for the sake of his job" After this confrontation, Rusty and Woroniecki "grew apart". In the months leading up to the drownings, Rusty described the relationship with the Woronieckis as not being very close.

During the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games, Woroniecki was reported to have performed with his family outside the various venues using the event to reach the international crowds with his message. Beginning in 1997, Woroniecki traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America, playing on the streets.

To deliver his message, Woroniecki chooses college campuses, large sporting and political events as well as city centers. His wife and six adult children are often seen ministering alongside him. In the early 1990s, Michael Woroniecki shipped a Ford van to England and then ferried it to France. The family traveled together across Europe and then to Tangier, Africa. In May 1995, they preached in Casablanca, Morocco, where Muslim law makes it a crime to declare Jesus as the Son of God. A riot resulted and the family was arrested. They were interrogated for eight hours by state officials, then ordered to leave the country.

Michael Woroniecki began creating music with an electronic keyboard in 1986. In the early 1990s he began using this music as another form of ministry on the streets of Europe. During the summers of 1992 to 1996 he performed in downtown city plazas and centers in places like London, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome, Berlin, Budapest, Athens, and Moscow. Woroniecki says he used the music along with dances and Biblical skits as a means of communicating the gospel in countries where they did not speak the language. Michael does not consider himself professional but believes "that music is a powerful tool to touch people of all walks of life" .

Woroniecki returned to Grand Rapids after graduating from Fuller Seminary in the summer of 1980 where he preached on the streets and at various events with a sign or cross, starting his own ministry called Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. As a result of, according to Woroniecki, "youthful zeal" and a city unsure of how to handle his unconventional evangelistic approach, Woroniecki was arrested numerous times over the next year and a half. In October 1981, Woroniecki phoned the City Attorney's office and offered to leave town if the pending charges against him would be dropped. The offer was accepted and Woroniecki began to travel the US, stopping first in Atlanta, Georgia where street preaching is permitted.

Woroniecki first met Rusty Yates in the mid-1980s while preaching on the campus of Auburn University. Rusty took some literature, and they corresponded by mail for the next several years. In 1989 Rusty introduced the Woronieckis to Andrea Kennedy, whom he had recently begun dating. Woroniecki said of this meeting that Andrea seemed slightly intimidated, and that he advised them not to marry quickly, the same advice he gave to other young couples.

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. This atmosphere, Woroniecki claims, ultimately compelled him to stand on the campus lawn and preach "the living Jesus" to fellow students and professors when they came out of the chapel. He confronted classmates over the attitudes of scholastic pride and hypocrisy that he thought to contradict the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Woroniecki obtained his Master of Divinity degree from Fuller in 1980.

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"). Woroniecki and Ochalek married in 1979.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.