As I think about the men who have shaped my life over the last forty-six years, men who have walked with me through incredible highs and some incredibly low lows, I honestly cannot think of another man, outside of my own father, who had a deeper impact on my life than Michael Smith. He was more than a pastor or mentor to me. Over time, he became a spiritual father.
Since hearing that Michael passed away, I have not really had the space to process it. The news came in the middle of a full support-raising trip, with our family moving from place to place, reconnecting with churches and friends, meeting new churches and new friends, trying to be present with our kids, and trusting God to provide what we need for the next season in Prague. I cried when I read the news, then stepped back into the responsibilities in front of me.
As I begin writing this, I’m flying north to Oshkosh to celebrate his life. It’s finally beginning to catch up with me. I have spent part of the flight scrolling through old photos, smiling at some, laughing at others, and crying more than once. I have also been frustrated that several of the pictures I most want to see, especially from our wedding, are sitting on an external hard drive back in Prague. Looking through what I do have has brought back memory after memory, and each one has reminded me how deeply Michael’s life became woven into mine. Here’s my best attempt to paint a picture of Michael’s impact on my life in the midst of tears, grief, a few regrets (mostly that the ocean separated us more than it should have), and more stories, both big and small, than I have time to record. I hope this attempt honors him, blesses you, and challenges all of us to love Jesus more and, because of that, to love others more.
I first met Michael when he spoke at Real Life, the weekly CRU gathering at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. I do not remember the exact topic or theme of his message, but I remember the impression he made on me. There was a care in the way he spoke to us students, but there was also challenge. He did not speak down to us, and he did not soften what he believed we needed to hear. He seemed to understand that loving people well sometimes meant encouraging them and sometimes meant calling them to something deeper.
At that point in my life, I was looking for someone to come alongside me, to do just that — call me to something deeper. I would not have used the language of apprenticeship then, but that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted someone whose life with Jesus I could observe up close, someone who would let me ask questions, make mistakes, and learn what faithful ministry and faithful manhood looked like in real life.
I remember thinking almost immediately, I would really like that man to speak into my life.
Michael met me as a punk twenty-something college student. I had passion, ideas, and more confidence than wisdom. I wanted to serve Jesus, but I had plenty of rough edges and a great deal to learn. I was not worthy of the kind of investment he chose to make in me, yet he kept making it. He did not treat me as a project or merely as a volunteer who could help with youth ministry. He welcomed me into his life and gave me time, attention, correction, and trust.
That investment shaped far more than the work I would later do. Michael showed me that before someone becomes a good minister of the Gospel, he must learn to be a good husband, a good father, and a servant of Jesus. He showed me that theology mattered deeply, but that theology should never replace intimacy with Christ. He taught me to listen better, though I still need many of those lessons today. He taught me to consider others before myself and to see serving not as a role or assignment, but as the posture of someone who follows Jesus.
Looking back, I can see that God gave me what I was searching for. I wanted someone to apprentice under, and God brought Michael into my life.
Around 2002, Michael Smith and me preparing to baptize students from the youth ministry. Looking back, I see much more than a baptism. I see a spiritual father investing in a punk twenty-something who had no idea how much those years would shape his life.
The apprenticeship took shape most clearly on Monday mornings in Michael’s office. We met regularly for at least two years, and those mornings became one of the most formative rhythms of my college years.
His office was in an older church building. When I think back on it now, I remember the smell of that part of the building, something like an old library, which was fitting as he loved to read. His desk faced the window looking out toward the street, so when I sat across from him, my back was usually toward the window. We did not spend the whole meeting at the desk, though. Most mornings began with Michael saying good morning, the two of us hugging, then moving to another part of the office where there were two more comfortable chairs. We would pray together before moving into whatever that morning held.
No Monday was the same. Sometimes we talked through the service from the day before and processed what had happened. Sometimes we discussed something I was doing with the youth ministry. Other mornings we worked on Scripture memorization or talked through books we were reading. Some conversations were theological. Others were deeply practical. Sometimes the focus was ministry, and sometimes Michael turned the conversation toward my character, relationships, or the condition of my heart.
Those mornings were never dramatic, at least most of them weren’t. There were no grand speeches or perfectly crafted moments. They were simply consistent. Week after week, Michael made room for me. He listened, asked questions, challenged my assumptions, and helped me think about what it meant to follow Jesus faithfully.
He also taught me about punctuality, or at least he tried.
I would often arrive at 7:58 or 7:59 for an 8:00 meeting, feeling pleased that I had made it on time. Michael would give me the look that told me I had not. In his mind, if a meeting began at eight, arriving one or two minutes before meant I was late. More than twenty years later, I still have to apologize and admit that I have not completely fixed that weakness. I can still picture the stern look, followed by the grace that always came after it.
That combination marked so much of how Michael led me. He was willing to be firm. If I pushed the envelope with something we did in youth ministry, or if I said something in a Sunday message that wasn’t received well, he addressed it. He never avoided difficult conversations to protect my feelings, but he also never wanted me to start playing it safe. After we worked through whatever needed to be addressed, he’d remind me that God is sovereign, that God forgives, and that he’d much rather see me make mistakes while courageously trying to serve Jesus than become timid out of fear of getting something wrong.
I needed someone who would tell me the truth without crushing me. Michael did that again and again. He gave me correction without withdrawing relationship. He held a high standard while continuing to communicate that failure was not final and that growth was possible.
Those Monday mornings in an office that smelled like an old library did more to shape me than I understood at the time. I thought we were talking about sermons, youth ministry, books, and Bible verses. In reality, God was using Michael to form the man I would become.
Looking back, I realize there was a point when Michael stopped being simply a mentor and became something much deeper.
He became a spiritual father.
I don’t think I recognized it while I was still in Oshkosh. In many ways, I only understood it after graduating and moving overseas. Suddenly there was a void. Monday mornings disappeared. I couldn’t just stop by his office. I couldn’t ask him a question after church. I couldn’t process ministry over coffee. I missed him in a way that surprised me.
What I had taken for granted was actually one of God’s greatest gifts in my life.
The distance never really changed the relationship.
Whenever I came back to Oshkosh, we’d find time together. We’d sit around the dinner table with Michael and Cindy. We’d laugh. We’d catch up on life and ministry. We’d talk about what God was doing, and we’d pick up the conversation almost as though no time had passed.
One of the moments that stands out most happened before Míša and I were married. I brought her to Oshkosh so she could meet people who had shaped my life, and of course Michael was one of the first people I wanted her to know.
He welcomed her warmly, then did exactly what I expected him to do. He started asking questions. Not because he was suspicious, but because he cared.
He wanted to know who we were becoming. He wanted to know whether we were pursuing Jesus together. He loved us enough to ask the questions that mattered instead of settling for pleasant conversation.
That was one of Michael’s greatest gifts.
He had a way of making people feel deeply loved while never lowering the standard of what it meant to follow Christ.
Over the years, I watched him do that with countless people.
He certainly did it with me.
Around 2013, Míša met Michael and Cindy for the first time in their home. Before we were married, Michael did what he always did with people he loved. He asked thoughtful, challenging questions, not to interrogate us, but because he cared deeply about who we were becoming.
There is one picture that comes to mind almost immediately whenever I think about Michael.
It isn’t him preaching.
It isn’t him sitting behind his desk.
It isn’t even one particular conversation.
It’s a towel.
Whenever Michael talked about serving, he would often stretch out one arm as though he were a waiter with a towel draped over it. Sometimes there really was a towel. More often there wasn’t. Then, almost instinctively, he’d move his hands as though he were tying that towel around his waist before kneeling to wash someone’s feet.
He didn’t have to explain what he was referring to. We all knew the story. Jesus, knowing exactly who He was and where He had come from, got up from the table, laid aside His outer garment, wrapped a towel around His waist, and washed the feet of the very men who would soon abandon Him.
Michael loved that picture because he believed it revealed the posture of a disciple.
He would ask questions that have stayed with me for more than twenty years. “How can we be more like Jesus today?” “Who can we serve?” Those questions weren’t rhetorical. They were invitations to stop thinking about ourselves and start noticing the people God had placed in front of us.
At the time, I don’t think I appreciated how much that simple illustration was shaping me. It was just one of those things Michael did. Looking back now, I realize he wasn’t simply giving us an illustration to remember. He was giving us a way of seeing the Christian life.
Years later, after Míša and I had been living in Prague for quite some time, God slowly began reshaping our understanding of mission and discipleship. We found ourselves opening our home more often, lingering around meals, inviting neighbors to our table, and discovering that some of the most meaningful conversations about Jesus happened over soup, coffee, or dessert rather than in a church building. Over time, those experiences became part of the vision we now call Kolem Stolu.
Only recently did I stop to ask where some of that instinct had come from.
As I reflected on it, my mind kept returning to Michael.
Every time I set a table, welcome someone into our home, or remind myself that the table belongs to Jesus before it belongs to us, I still see Michael with a towel over his arm.
A few months ago I finally told him that.
I wrote to thank him for planting seeds in my life that I don’t think either of us fully recognized at the time. I told him that every table we set in Prague still carries something of what he first taught me all those years ago.
His reply was exactly what I should have expected.
One of the last messages Michael sent me. After I thanked him for the impact his “towel-over-the-arm” illustration had on my life and ministry, he did exactly what he had always done: he pointed me back to Jesus and to Philippians 2.
He thanked me for the encouragement, but he didn’t leave the attention on himself. Instead, he pointed me back to Philippians 2 and reminded me that our model has always been Jesus, the One who humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, and gave His life for others.
That exchange didn’t surprise me.
After all, that was Michael’s life.
Whenever someone looked too long at him, he had a way of gently turning their attention back to Christ.
James Tissot’s depiction of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet (John 13). This image reminds me of Michael’s favorite picture of discipleship: taking the posture of a servant, picking up the towel, and following the example of Jesus.
It would be easy to write about everything Michael taught me while we sat in his office on Monday mornings. Scripture. Ministry. Leadership. Marriage. Serving. Those lessons mattered, and they continue to shape me today.
But some of the deepest lessons didn’t happen in his office. They happened while I watched him suffer, in particular watching him lose his second son, Adam.
When I first met Adam, he was still a kid. I remember picking him up one day, only to have him quickly tell me he had a feeding tube. I had no idea. We both laughed, but I also realized there was a story there that I didn’t yet understand.
As Michael was investing in me, I had the privilege of leading the youth ministry at River Valley, where I was also discipling Adam. Over time, he became much more than one of the students in the youth group. He became like a little brother to me. Whenever I was back in Oshkosh, we’d often grab coffee together. Later, when cystic fibrosis took him to the University of Chicago Hospital, I visited him there. One of the clearest pictures I still have is sitting in that hospital room with Adam and Michael while the Bears game played quietly on the television, they made fun of me and how bad the Bears were. We laughed. We talked. We prayed. It felt strangely ordinary in the middle of something that was anything but ordinary.
Watching someone suffer is one thing.
Watching someone suffer while continuing to trust Jesus is another.
Michael never pretended those years weren’t painful. Neither did Cindy. They grieved honestly. They prayed honestly. They hoped honestly. They never wrapped their pain in Christian clichés or tried to explain it away. At the same time, they never let suffering become the defining story. Jesus remained the defining story.
Long before I walked through my own disappointments, ministry losses, anxiety, seasons of uncertainty, and moments where I wondered what God was doing, I had already watched someone I respected walk through the valley without letting go of Christ.
I don’t think I realized it then, but those years were preparing me for my own.
One of my visits to see Adam during his long battle with cystic fibrosis. This was one of the better days. We watched the Bears, laughed about how bad they were, and simply enjoyed being together. Looking back, I learned as much by watching how Michael and his family walked through suffering as I did from anything he ever taught me in his office.
One of the sweetest gifts God gave Míša and me was that Michael and Cindy were able to come to Prague for our wedding.
The older I get, the more I realize what a gift that trip really was.
There is also a bittersweet reality that I can’t ignore. Had Adam still been alive, Michael and Cindy almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to make the journey. They would have been exactly where they wanted to be, where they should have been, caring for their son. Instead, they came to celebrate with us while carrying a grief that most of us can hardly imagine.
I’ve thought about that many times over the years.
I would trade those memories in a heartbeat if it meant Adam were still here.
But God’s providence is often mysterious. Even in the middle of devastating loss, He has a way of giving unexpected gifts. Michael and Cindy’s presence at our wedding was one of those gifts, and Míša and I have never stopped being thankful for it.
One of the things I’ll always remember about our wedding was watching Michael do what he had done his entire life.
Before the ceremony, before the celebration, before all the laughter, he stood before our family and friends, many of whom didn’t yet know Jesus, welcomed them warmly, and pointed them to Christ. He wasn’t interested in drawing attention to himself. He wanted people to understand why we were there and why this marriage mattered. Even on one of the happiest days of our lives, Michael faithfully did what he had always done. He made much of Jesus.
Looking back now, I realize that his presence at our wedding became a picture of the gospel for me in ways I couldn’t have understood then. Here was a man and woman who had walked through unimaginable sorrow, who knew grief more deeply than I ever have, and yet they came to Prague full of joy, celebrating with us and blessing the beginning of our marriage. Their presence reminded me that sorrow and hope can exist together because of Christ.
Our wedding was built around the theme of Czechoslovakia’s First Republic. I wore period clothing, and somewhere during the celebration Michael put on a fedora, picked up an inflatable Tommy gun, and happily posed for a picture with me. Every time I see that photo I smile. For all of his wisdom, depth, and seriousness about following Jesus, he never took himself too seriously. He loved to laugh. He loved to joke. He knew how to enter fully into other people’s joy, and he did that for us throughout that week.
Michael spent the afternoon welcoming our guests, sharing the hope of Jesus, and helping officiate one of the most important days of my life. A little later, he put on a fedora, grabbed an inflatable Tommy gun, and reminded me that deep joy and deep faith have always belonged together. He’s wearing the bow tie I gave him, and the bow tie I wore during our wedding was one he patiently tied for me because I’d never learned how.
As I’ve been writing this while flying north for his celebration of life, I’ve been scrolling through years of photos on my phone, wishing I could find more from our wedding. I know they’re somewhere, probably sitting safely on an external hard drive back in Prague, and I’ll add them to this post when I get home.
Thankfully, I did find another picture that means just as much to me.
A few days after our wedding, while Michael and Cindy were still in Prague, we celebrated Michael’s birthday together at local place. As I look at that picture today, I’m reminded how unbelievably kind God was to us during that season. Our wedding was already one of the greatest days of our lives because our immediate families were there. But God gave us something even more. He surrounded us with our spiritual family as well.
Michael and Cindy came.
Adam and Cori Patrick came.
They represented a season of life in Oshkosh that shaped me in ways I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand this side of heaven.
Looking back now, I realize just how extraordinary that week really was. God gathered the people who had formed us, loved us, challenged us, and prayed for us, and He allowed them to celebrate with us as Míša and I began our marriage.
That is a gift I will never stop thanking Him for.
One of my favorite memories from our wedding week. We celebrated Michael’s birthday with Cindy, Míša, and me at one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants in Prague, a place that’s sadly no longer there. Looking back, I didn’t realize how precious an ordinary evening around the table would become. It’s still one of my favorite pictures with three of my favorite people.
One of the last lessons Michael taught me wasn’t during a meeting. It came through a conversation about receiving encouragement.
He told me that when he was younger, if someone complimented a sermon, he’d often respond with something like, “Oh, it really wasn’t that good.” He eventually realized that wasn’t humility at all. It was false humility. Instead of receiving someone’s encouragement, he was dismissing it.
So he changed.
When someone thanked him after preaching, he’d simply smile and say, “Thank you. I’m glad Jesus used it.”
That sentence has stayed with me for years.
It wasn’t self-promotion. It wasn’t false humility. It acknowledged that God had genuinely worked while making sure the glory stayed where it belonged.
I still think about that whenever someone thanks me after I’ve preached or taught. More often than not, Michael’s words come back to me before I answer.
Looking back now, that’s probably the best way to describe his entire life.
God used it.
God used a faithful husband.
God used a loving father.
God used a patient mentor who invested in a punk twenty-something college student who almost never managed to arrive quite early enough.
God used a man who carried an imaginary towel over his arm because he believed Jesus’ posture was the posture every disciple should imitate.
And because God used him, He continues to shape people like me decades later.
One breakfast. One ordinary photo. One extraordinary lesson. During one of the harder seasons of Adam’s battle with cystic fibrosis, I met Michael and Cindy before another day at the hospital. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t just spending time with friends. I was watching a faithful husband love his wife and a devoted father carry a burden with quiet strength while continuing to trust Jesus.
One of the strange things about having a spiritual father is that you don’t fully realize how much of him has become part of you until years later.
I never wondered whether Michael’s influence would continue after I moved to Prague. It did. We stayed in touch. Every time I came back to Oshkosh, we’d find time to be together. He and Cindy came to our wedding. They continued praying for us, encouraging us, and speaking into our lives. His role in my life never really ended.
What I didn’t realize was just how deeply he had shaped me.
Now, more than twenty years after I first walked into his office, I catch myself thinking his thoughts. I hear his voice when I’m preparing a sermon. I remember his counsel when ministry gets difficult. When Míša and I talk about setting tables and serving others, I still picture that imaginary towel draped over his arm. When someone thanks me after I’ve preached, I still hear him say, “I’m glad Jesus used it.”
That’s the strange gift of faithful discipleship. Over time, the lessons become instincts. You begin saying things you didn’t invent. You make decisions shaped by someone else’s example. Their fingerprints become part of your own life.
A few weeks before Michael went to be with Jesus, I was in Washington, D.C., for a Converge gathering. One of the first people I saw was Alan Cleveland. We immediately started talking about Michael, and I found myself saying something I’d never really put into words before.
I told Alan that I don’t think any of us who lived in Oshkosh at the time fully understood how blessed we were to have him and Michael faithfully serving in the same city. Two different churches. One Kingdom. Looking back now, I think so much of the gospel work we’re seeing in Oshkosh today rests, in part, on foundations those two men quietly laid over decades.
That conversation stayed with me long after it ended. Later that evening, after Míša and our kids had fallen asleep, I sat in our Airbnb and wrote Cindy a message. I asked if she would read it to Michael for me.
At the time, I truly believed I’d be sitting with him in person just a few weeks later. I had no idea these would become the last words I would share with him.
Looking back now, I’m deeply grateful that I took the time to say them.
This is the message I sent:
For Cindy to read to Michael—
Hi Michael and Cindy from D.C.
Yesterday, as we arrived at the Converge gathering, one of the very first people I saw was Alan. We immediately started talking about you. Please know we’re praying for you, we love you, and we’re so thankful for you both.
I told Alan and the friend he was with something I’ve never really put into words before. At one point, people were trying to set me up with both of your daughters, which still makes me laugh. God clearly had other plans! But what I also realized is that the Christians in Oshkosh had no idea what an incredible gift they had in having you and Alan serving together at the same time in town. Looking back now, I don’t think any of us fully appreciated it. I know I didn’t. Hindsight has shown me what a beautiful picture of the Kingdom it was, watching two men faithfully serve Jesus side by side while at different churches but with so much of how Jesus would have served a city like Oshkosh.
As I sit here tonight while Míša and our three kids are asleep in the Airbnb, I just keep thinking about you.
Thank you for investing in a punk twenty-something kid who almost always showed up late, even when he was trying to be on time. Even on the days when you had to be firm with me, you always did it with gentleness and generosity. You never stopped believing God was at work in me.
Michael, so much of what I’m proud of today as a husband, a dad, and a servant of Jesus traces back to you, and others, who invested in me long before I knew what God was doing.
Míša and I love you both. We’re praying for you often. In just a few weeks we’ll be up there, and I’d really love to spend some time with you, pray for you, and simply be with you. Whatever God’s plan is, we trust Him completely because He is sovereign and good. We just want you both to know how deeply loved you are and how profoundly thankful we are for you.
Love you guys,
Zach
As I finish writing this, I’m sitting in Oshkosh after flying here for Michael’s celebration of life. I’ve laughed. I’ve cried. I’ve scrolled through old photos. I’ve wished I had my external hard drive from Prague with all of our wedding pictures. Mostly, I’ve found myself thanking God.
Not because losing Michael doesn’t hurt.
It does.
But because, for twenty-five years, God allowed our paths to cross.
When I was a punk twenty-something college student looking for someone to follow, He gave me Michael.
When I needed someone to tell me the truth, He gave me Michael.
When I needed someone to show me what a husband looks like, what a father looks like, and what a servant of Jesus looks like, He gave me Michael.
I think back to that towel one more time.
An imaginary towel draped over an arm.
Sometimes tied around his waist.
Always reminding us of the posture of Jesus in John 13. The Son of God taking the place of a servant. Washing feet. Emptying Himself. Choosing humility over recognition.
Michael never wanted the towel to point to him.
He wanted it to point to Jesus.
And somehow, that’s exactly why I can’t think about Jesus washing His disciples’ feet without also thinking about Michael.
Thank you, Michael.
Thank you for believing in me when there wasn’t much to believe in.
Thank you for asking the hard questions.
Thank you for loving me enough to correct me.
Thank you for serving with joy.
Thank you for pointing me to Jesus again and again.
By God’s grace, I hope my children, the people I disciple, and the city I serve are different because your life was poured into mine.
I love you.
I’ll miss you.
And I have no doubt what you heard when you stepped into the presence of the Savior you loved so deeply.
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
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Brother, thank you for sharing this. It was great seeing you today at the funeral. I just ran across this at midnight and have been reading it while I should have been sleeping because I have to preach tomorrow!
I didn’t realize the deep connection you had with Michael and Cindy, but knowing what I know about him, I’m not surprised! I was blessed to get to know him pretty well over the last 10 years. And yes, he was selfless and always wanting to know how I was doing. Even in the midst of his cancer when I tried to ask about him he didn’t want to talk about him. It wasn’t false humility, like you said, but truly and others-centeredness which is a true gift from the Lord.
Again, thanks for writing, and looking forward to seeing you and your crew soon!
Thank you brother. Sorry to impede the last minute sermon prep/polishing. That was Michael for sure and as I sat there yesterday I was challenged by Michael and his life once again. Look forward to being with you all soon.
What a beautiful tribute! You are truly blessed to have had Michael in your life. I pray your children will also find other spiritual mothers and fathers to walk with them and reinforce what you and Misa are teaching and modeling for them. May God comfort you in your loss and give you great joy that Michael lives on in you and the legacy you are creating!
Thank you Jan. Thank you for prayers for kids to have people like I had Michael. They might be people who are being risen up from the harvest today or in the near future! Thank you.