What I Learned When I Traveled with Josh McDowell

Six months before I went off to college as an 18-year old, I found myself embracing Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and Leader and Forgiver. My life was transformed because of it.  I was a new man.  College was a blast as I developed new friendships, got involved in a dynamic church and college group and led out on my college campus.  Shortly after trusting in Jesus and starting to follow Him, I bought a Bible and the book “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” by a guy named Josh McDowell.  I gobbled up both.  Those two books gave me a love for God’s word and a love for apologetics (the ability to defend your position against rivals).  

When I was in my senior year of college, I ran across a guy about three years older than me who had just spent about a year traveling around the country with Josh McDowell.  Josh offered young Christian leaders the chance to watch his ministry up close in exchange for setting up venues, selling resources and answering people’s questions.  I mentioned to him in passing that I would love that opportunity.  This guy then said, “Well, why don’t you call him and ask him?”  Really?   It should be noted here too that some of my mentors had encouraged me to take some time off of studying between college and graduate school (I had been accepted to Talbot Seminary, a graduate school of Biola University in La Mirada, California, not far from where I was studying at Whittier College (also in So Cal).  So, the next day with some trepidation I phoned THE Josh McDowell (I had never met the man or actually heard him speak in person though I had listened to him by way of cassette tapes (that dates me doesn’t it?).  He asked about me, we found out that we had a lot in common (he had attended my church during seminary, had spoken at my college and we had some common friends!)   Then he said, “Can you meet me in San Diego tomorrow?”  Shock.  Surprise on my part.  So I did and he asked when I could start.  I told him I could start the day after college graduation.  And he told me I would need to raise some financial support to cover my costs as that is how they do ministry.  This was not new to me as I had already been helped when I spent a summer in Ireland and a summer with native American kids in New Mexico.  

So, here is what I learned traveling with Josh McDowell for nearly a year:

Josh is the hardest working guy I had ever met.  A typical day for him when I was with him would be to speak at a morning gathering of leaders (either business or church), have meetings with staff (usually we were on the road) or editors (he has written more than 40 books) and then get ready for some kind of huge evening speaking engagement (usually on a college campus).  His strategy was to arrive early, mingle among the crowd, shake hands and develop rapport with his audience before speaking.  He would often leave immediately after speaking, leaving the follow up to the hosts.  But then I would find him back at the hotel working on something, writing, with a fold up table just loaded with paperwork.  He would often work past midnight.  

Josh is not a naturally gifted speaker.  Growing up on a farm in the midwest, public speaking was not a cherished skill among people.  Josh also had a stuttering problem. Josh learned to become good at public speaking by working at and memorizing his messages.  He told me he would spend 20-30 hours in preparation for every minute of his final and polished message.  Much of that time was learning how best to say it by standing in front of a mirror and thinking through every nuance of every line of the talk.  I saw Josh speak in some settings where he was not as well prepared or was involved in a “question and answer” setting and he was just kind of a regular guy.  But get him on a stage with 5,000 college students and a message he had worked 100’s of hours on and he was one of the best communicators I had ever heard.  He was powerful and persuasive in his presentation.

Josh LOVED his wife, Dotty and his kids.  Even though Josh was very busy, when he was home from traveling (and he did that a LOT), he was completely available to his family.  They chose in those days to live in the mountain community of Julian, California (above San Diego).  This was inconvenient in terms of travel but gave them a chance to be “away from it all” to a certain degree and have a place where the kids could enjoy the outdoors and a small town experience in otherwise busy Southern California.

I learned to Expect the Unexpected.  Every day with Josh seemed to present something crazy.  One day in the fall, Josh was to speak at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee that evening.  It rained ALL day and it rained hard.  Having been from southern California, I can tell you that if it rained like that where I came from, no one would have gone anywhere that day.  But there these midwestern students were that night-- all 5,000 of them or so-- packed into an arena.  I was blown away that this many people would come out on such a terrible weather day.  Josh got up to speak and he was not himself.  He was timid, distracted, and his humor was not working.  I could sense the audience getting restless.  “What was going on?” I thought to myself.  This had never happened before.  But right in the middle of the message, everything changed.  Josh got his umph back.  His humor returned and people were bending over laughing.  When he presented evidence for the Christian faith, people were listening intently.  There was a great response that night.  What happened?  I had been sitting in the middle of the auditorium and made my way quickly up front to ask our other team members what was going on.  As I approached the front I saw a group of people yelling at Josh and flipping him off and telling him to get out of their city.  What was this??!  I was dying to know more so as I went back to the hotel that night, our team was gathered, and Josh told us the back story:  When he went up on stage a group of people on the front row starting yelling at him and flipping him off and using some really ripe words.  Josh was so puzzled by this he let it distract him.  Then he realized he needed to use what he calls “the authority of the believer.”  He stopped in the middle of the message, turned around for a moment (I didn’t recall him doing this but he said it was a rather quick pause) and prayed “Lord Jesus, this is your meeting, and you have protect it, so I claim the power of your blood on the cross over all your enemies and the power of your great Name...shut these people up.”   Josh turned around and for the next half of the message, those same people sitting on the front row just sat there frozen in their seats.  It was a great story to hear but I actually was a part of it! I wasn’t sitting in the front row but I could see from my vantage point that was exactly what happened.  

My experience in traveling with Josh before I went to seminary provided an incredible opportunity to see a huge and dynamic ministry up close and learn from one of the best Christian leaders of our day. I’ll never forget it.