Reverend John McMahon turned his life around at 19 after a failed suicide attempt.
Mentoring, motorcycles and the ministry are a long way from Reverend John McMahon’s teenage years of alcohol, graffiti and gangs.
At just 19, his life was spiralling out of control when a failed suicide attempt and the perseverance of a youth pastor helped steer his life onto a new road.
The Gembrook resident, 39, now uses his own experiences, and love of motorcycles, to help other teenage boys avoid going down a similar path.
“There are two reasons I went off track – one is because I was brought up in a very religious home and the other is because I was quite an overweight boy and got picked on all the time in school,” John said.
“I felt the only way I could be accepted was to go to the next level and bully the kids I could bully.”
He spent about five years rebelling in every way he knew how, including stealing, graffiti, picking fights and general mayhem.
“I got a sense of belonging from doing risky things because kids would look up to me and kids would hang out with me.
“As an adult looking back, I just think ‘Oh, s**t! I can’t believe I did that’.”
After years of being forced to talk to counsellors and youth workers with no success, it was a long-resisted youth minister from a youth group in North Dandenong who physically picked him up and helped turn his life around.
“When I was 19, I was at the end of the line – I was suicidal,” John said. “That night, it was all just too much; it was too hard. I was sitting on a bridge in North Dandenong and I was that inebriated that I didn’t even fall the right way.”
“I resisted him for so long but in my darkest hour when it was almost over, he physically picked me up and he never let me go.”
In the following months, the youth minister took John under his wing and forced him to take responsibility for his actions – he apologised to shop owners, teachers he had stolen from or tormented and girls he had hurt.
“He would rip through me but he never gave up on me. He was unconditionally caring towards me,” John said.
“It was because of that, because of him not judging me, coming alongside me and getting to know me as a person, that I allowed him room in my life. I will never forget that and that was the inspiration for turning it all around.”
Only 10 years ago, he ran into his former maths teacher, who he tortured during his school years.
“He told me I would never amount to anything,” John said.
“It was like a movie moment; I had the opportunity to tell him what I was doing. I wish I could go back and tell them all it was worth it.”
This year marks the 20th year John became a minister and he has obviously come a long way.
“I failed every year of high school but ended up going to seminary and blitzing that – and here we are 20 years later,” the father-of-three said.
“I remember the minister on my day of ordination standing up and saying ‘If you had have told me that this person was standing here now, I would have laughed at you,’ – such was the transformation.”
These days John doesn’t dwell on his rebellious years but instead uses them to motivate and mentor other young men, through his business MotoV8.
“This is a gift – to be able to connect with people, particularly young males, and to walk a mile in their shoes because as soon as they hear my story they realise ‘This guy knows what he’s talking about’.”
John speaks to boys aged 11 to 17 in schools and sporting clubs, using a combination of stories, analogies and a $20,000 racing bike to get the message through.
“Story is such a powerful medium,” he said.
“You have about 10 seconds to connect with young people when you get up in front of them. I use the bike as a tool because I take (motorbike riding) principles and from there we turn them into analogies and then I add in personal stories.”
“I believe in earning the right to speak in young people’s lives – you don’t get that by wearing a badge; you don’t get that by having a title; you get that through spending time with them and being able to connect with them.”
John is constantly meeting young men who remember a seminar from years ago or fathers who say their son was touched by his words.
He recently left his other role as the school chaplain for Kambrya Secondary College in Berwick and one young man left his mark at a final counselling session.
“The boy I was talking to, a big fella, he wouldn’t look at me but as he got up, he said ‘I’ve never met a fella like you, sir,’ and he walked out.”
“I was a mess. I don’t care about public accolades; I don’t do it for the money but things like that just make me think it was worth it.”
John is now pouring all his energy into MotoV8 and taking his seminars to young people all over Australia.
But he insists it is important people help him with the cause by not giving up on young people.
“I implore people to really start value our young people.
“ They become the result of what the generation before have been,” he said.
“If you can change a younger generation, it will stand the ones coming up under them in good stead.”
