What Happens When Your Spiritual Heroes Fall

Faith After Disillusionment

Dan Foster
Backyard Church
Published in
7 min readOct 9, 2024

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Image source: Canva Pro

No one could be as cool as Mike Guglielmucci.

That’s what I felt when I was a teenager. He made Christianity seem cool: ripped jeans, distorted rock music, and a way of talking that made it feel like all the kids outside the church were the ones who were missing out.

Mike Guglielmucci was my hero.

Then, one day, we found out about his cancer.

Mike Gugliemucci had been struck with an aggressive and advanced form of cancer — terminal cancer. A young, up-and-coming preacher had been struck down in his prime.

I was devastated.

Our church prayed for him.

From that moment on, there was a noticeable shift in Gugliemucci’s ministry. He began to preach like a dying man, inspiring an entire generation of young and old Christians not to give up in the face of adversity but to trust God.

He would boldly declare that he believed that God would heal him, and if not, he was ready to meet Him face to face. His bold and faith-filled preaching caused his star to rise even higher. He became one of the most in-demand speakers on the Christian preaching circuit, going from church to church to share his message of hope.

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Dan Foster
Backyard Church

Writer, Poet, Blogger: Tackling life, faith, culture, religion, politics, and spirituality. Connect with me: https://linktr.ee/DanFosterWriter