Interview: CJ Mahaney and Discipleship

Josh: We met ten years ago. I was publishing a small magazine for homeschool teens at the time, traveling the country doing teen conferences, and writing my first book. Things were going very well. I joke now that I was 'living the Evangelical American dream.' All I needed was a TV show and I'd have had it all. Thank heaven that God intervened. I got a tape set from a friend called 'Passion for the Church' that featured CJ teaching on the importance of the local church. I tell this story in my book Stop Dating the Church. That teaching deeply influenced me and caused me to rethink the course I was on.

CJ was aware of what I was doing. His daughters subscribed to my magazine and one of the Sovereign Grace churches in Pennsylvania had hosted one of our conferences. CJ had the youth pastor invite me to speak at Covenant Life, and later I came to an event for men who felt called to ministry that the church hosted. That was the first time I spent time with CJ and got to know him.

One night I asked point blank: 'What do you think of what I'm doing with my life?' He told me that he felt what I was doing was important and needed. But he asked if I had an exit strategy. He told me he had seen too many guys on the conference circuit who never got off it. He asked how I was going to invest in and build my life into the local church. I remember him asking, 'What are you going to build with your life?' He was directing me to think long-term and consider the importance of the local church.

Adrian: How did you respond?

Josh: I basically said, 'What do you think I should do?' You see, I was beginning to understand the importance of the local church but I didn't see how that translated into specific decisions. I was going to church and I was faithfully involved, but I knew I needed training and oversight and it wasn't clear to me where I'd get that.

CJ answered by saying, 'You need a Paul in your life. You're a young man, you're like Timothy and you need a Paul.'

And I was thinking, 'Thanks a lot but that's not super helpful.' I mean where in the world would I find a Paul and how would I convince him that I'm a Timothy worth investing time in?

A year or so earlier, on my 21st birthday, my father, Gregg Harris, who is a very godly, wise man, had encouraged me to find men that I wanted to be like and then to sit at their feet and learn from them. My dad's a big believer in the apprenticeship model of learning. So I had been on the lookout for a role model.

And there I was sitting across from CJ Mahaney, a man who at the time had been a senior pastor for 20 years, had done the national conference circuit, who understood the issues I was facing, and he was saying, 'Go find a Paul.' I was sitting there thinking, 'You're looking pretty good to me!'

Adrian: So how did you ask him to mentor you?

Josh: I didn't ask him that night. CJ very wisely pointed me back to the local church I was involved in back in Oregon. He told me I needed to go back and look for that relationship in my church.

But this is where I need to emphasize God's providential leading in my life. I don't want anyone reading to think that if you just do the right things, say the right things you'll be able to find a mentor who can train you and disciple you. There are things people can do, but the main point of my whole story is that God sovereignly orchestrated and provided and it had nothing to do with my worthiness or planning.

So, the next day, two friends who are pastors approached me at the conference and basically shared that they felt I needed to be discipled. They did this totally unaware of my conversation with CJ or the questions swirling in my mind as a result. It was an unbelievable confirmation of what I'd been praying about. They said, 'We think your biggest priority should be to find a man who can train you in ministry. God is blessing your work and you're gaining a larger audience, but you're an idiot and know nothing!' No, they said it all much nicer than that, but the point was clear and I agreed with them. I told them about my growing conviction that CJ was the man who could help me.

That was a holy moment. Ray Randolph and Bill Houghery from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were the two men sharing with me. They told me I should talk to CJ about my desire and then we prayed. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so powerful in that room. We were all weeping as we prayed. Now, I look back and understand the significance of that moment. At the time I couldn't grasp the full significance of what God was doing.

So before I left the conference for home, I shared my desire with CJ. Unbeknownst to me, God had been laying on his heart a burden to train young men for the future. So again, you see the quiet providence of God. Me asking CJ was almost like a confirmation from God of what the next season of CJ's life was supposed to be devoted to. He and the leadership team of Sovereign Grace had just decided to launch the Pastors College. So God perfectly timed it. He showed me that I needed mentoring, and he showed CJ that he needed to give himself to mentoring. About seven months later I moved from Oregon to Maryland. Two months after I arrived, I Kissed Dating Goodbye was released. A year later I was engaged to my wife Shannon. Seven years later I became senior pastor. It's been an amazing adventure.

Adrian: There has been a lot of interest recently in your relationship with CJ in the blogosphere following Tim Challies admission that he is jealous of you for having such a mentor - or indeed having any kind of mentor. (Update: Challies has posted again about this today independently of this interview!) Can you tell us a bit about how it worked out in practice?

Josh: First, CJ brought me into his life. So many things can't be passed on through a book or a sermon. They have to be seen. They have to be modeled. Living with CJ's family for over a year gave me an up-close look at his faithfulness as a husband and father.

I witnessed his purposefulness in every situation. I learned from him the importance of taking initiative. How leading was serving and it required a willingness to expend energy and set direction for others to follow.
CJ spent time with me. He brought me into this thinking. He trained me about the importance of sound doctrine centered in the gospel. He talked with me about issues and concerns he had. He directed me in books and tapes to study.

He also took risks and gave me opportunities to lead. The New Attitude conference (an annual conference for singles that I ran for six years and which is now being restarted under new leadership), was a way for me to learn how to lead, with CJ by my side. I remember so many sessions at the conference where he'd be whispering in my ear about how to transition between worship and preaching, how to lead in times of ministry, how to close the meetings.

Again, there was no text book, no class. It was on-the-job training. And after every meeting every session, every Sunday he always first took time to give me purposeful encouragement. Sometimes I would do the right things but not completely understand why they were right. CJ would say, 'Great job when you said, such and such. You were pastoring people through that statement. That was a leadership moment. Well done! Keep it up.' CJ always started with evidence of grace in what I was doing before he moved to critique. He taught me to evaluate everything at all times and look for ways to make things better.

And, of course, he always managed to make this fun and memorable. I think of the many Sunday mornings when in the midst of the meeting he would lean over and whisper 'A good leader would notice what just happened that was wrong.' I have to admit I hate it when he does that. But it has helped me to keep my eyes always open.

But again, it was his friendship and care that means the most to me. We spent hours together. We confessed sin to each other. We experienced fellowship. That's was a big investment of CJ's time. He could have been doing something else. But he invested in me. And he continues to do so.

Adrian: What advice would you give to people who are not currently being discipled? I urged people to do anything they could to get themselves into the right place to have such an experience Would you agree? Do you have any other advice?

Josh: I do agree. I think that the starting point is an attitude of humility (and I don't pretend to be model for this by any means) that acknowledges that you need help. I think my relationship with CJ can sound very glamorous from a distance. The reality is that being mentored requires you believe and embrace the reality that you do not know everything, that you need to learn. Let's be honest, our pride, our sin opposes this.

So my question for a person who desires to be mentored would be, 'How are you learning from those God has already placed in your life?' Are you humbly asking them questions? Are you studying people you respect?

And then, are you gleaning what you can from them even if you don't have an 'official' mentoring relationship with them. I wish I could clone CJ so that 5,000 young guys like me could have their own private Mahaney Mentor. But it's not possible. What is possible is to read his books. Start with Humility: True Greatness. And in our day and age with the web, you can listen to dozens of his sermons. And, hopefully, if I can convince him, CJ will have his own blog so his influence can be more frequent. There are many godly older men like CJ that we can learn from and benefit from. In some cases, that will be in a close relationship, other times from a distance.

Next, it's vital that you be in a strong local church headed by men that you want to be like. Whether or not you feel called to ministry, you should be in place where there are men whose character and teachingÔøΩwhose life and doctrineÔøΩprovides you with a compelling example. A church led by such men should be well-stocked with godly men, many of whom are not pastors, who can mentor and disciple.

Finally, I'd encourage men to cry out to God for this good gift. And even if that prayer isn't answered in the fashion or time that you'd like, don't forget how important this is. Because one day you're going to be the older generation that can invest in others. I think a big part of the reason CJ has been so faithful in training younger men like me is because he never had that benefit in his own life. So much of what he learned he had to learn through books and through trial and error. He wanted a mentor, but though he learned from different older men, he never truly had that. I think it spurred him to be that mentor so that men like me could have what he missed.

Adrian: I am afraid thats all we have time for. Many, many thanks for joining us today and sharing so personally about your relationship with CJ. I pray that this conversation will have a massive impact on young guys who are desperately seeking discipleship. I am sure that for some of them the new year may be a time of difficult decisions, even leading to church moves. I for one am delighted to be a part of a church which is headed by a godly man who I want to spend the rest of my life following as he follows Christ. Thanks again!