You grew up in a bit of a New Age family but met a friends dad at youth camp who's basically discipled you over the years...
Mum grew up in a Catholic school and family and Dad had been to Sunday school a few times growing up, I think they thought that qualified them as Christians. They dabbled in some new age practices I think just out of a longing and search for truth, meaning, and an awareness that there is a higher being above it all. They have since turned away from their new age practices and have a beautiful relationship with Jesus and invested in a church community. It's been a radical journey! Yea so when I was 13 years old I got invited to a youth group and I met one of the other kids dads, a fella named Emmo who was a bit of a legend in the surf community, really good surfer but a Christian as well. Any way he invited me to go surfing with him and his son and I loved it because he would take me to all the good surf spots that I couldn’t get to on my own. I was pretty regular at youth group for a couple of years and learnt about Jesus, so had a pretty good understanding of the Gospel. Sadly my friends were all getting into partying and drinking really heavily and I stopped going to youth and started going to these wild parties instead. But Emmo was super consistent throughout my teen years and I reckon every week I would surf with him at least once. Without me knowing it, I was being discipled by him through our conversations, our road trips, and even the music he introduced me to. Anyway he was the fella that eventually invited me and took me on the Christian surfers camp that would lead me to the decision to follow Jesus.
A near death experience when surfing made you question who you were, & what legacy you would have left behind... what was going through your head? Can you tell us what happened in detail?
Yes, so I was 18, very much a grommet, my mate and I saw on the surf forecasts that a big swell was going to hit Portland, so being the grommets that we were packed our cans of baked beans and box of Nutri-grain with no milk and camped at this beach called Crumpets. We got up for a dawny, and the swell was just hammering this coast and some giants sets of waves were rolling through. Where Portland is located this type of swell is similar to when Lauderdale point, seven mile and Mays point all get waves, that’s when this spot gets its best swell. Anyway we were frothin, which is another term for very excited, kind of like a dog before it’s about to get fed.
We were about to get some of the best waves of our lives! From the beach we used a rip to get out the back and it wasn’t long before a set came through and I called shotgun on taking the first wave. So I rode this 6 foot bomb for about 15 seconds and the wave kind of ended on this section that landed on rocks, so you had to kick off the wave so you’d didn’t slam into the rocks. So I jumped off my board where the wave ended and pin dropped into the water, however, over night and without realising the huge swell had brought with it these mass piles of bull kelp, which is that really thick wide and heavy seaweed, and it had all piled up in this spot where the wave finishes. So I pinned dropped into this pile of bull kelp and I got wrapped up in it like being in a sleeping bag with your arms pinned and the hood pulled over. And I panicked! It was black under there, I didn’t which way was up because a wave would roll over the top of me and I was rag dolled under the water whilst being wrapped up in seaweed. I tried to climb up my legrope because my board would have been floating, but the kelp was wrapped around my legs pretty good. I lost a lot of breathe trying to kick off the seaweed, and I was trying swim through this seaweed but again didn’t know what direction I was paddling. I was doing this for about a minute and I lost so much breathe.
All of a sudden I had a wave of thoughts and anxiety hit me as I was struggling to get out. I remembered thinking I’m gunna die here, and I’ve done nothing with my life besides surfing & partying. I was a terrible son to my parents, and I’m not going to get to do the things that I really wanted to do such as have a family of my own. That theme of what legacy was I going to leave behind was playing over in my head.
My body was doing that weird shake when it doesn’t have any air in it and these thoughts were just so loud in my head. I then prayed God help me! Then it went really still and really quiet and I stopped trying to reach the surface. I remember then having this overwhelming peace kind of resting on me and again it was super still. I then heard a voice say “take off your legrope Brad” . I knew what the voice in my head sounded like, and I knew the voice in my head doesn’t address me as a second person. So it could not have been an idea. This voice said take off your legrope Brad. The voice sounded so trustworthy, it was weird and hard to describe. My board would have been floating on top and kind of bobbing up and down letting people know the whereabouts of where I was. To take off the leggie was kind of a big no no when surfing. But I just trusted this voice that I heard, took off my legrope and then it was like the seaweed just fell off me and I could see light again and finally reached the surface.
As my head came up out of the water I heard the most horrible noise, my mate Dylan who I was surfing with was just screaming my name thinking that I had drowned, another fella was on the rocks in front of me had stripped down to his undies and was about to jump into make a rescue attempt. The waves then took me into the shore, Dylan had paddled in to meet me, he was so upset and he was saying don’t you ever do that to me again! I sat on the beach for about 10 minutes after that just thinking, the adrenaline slowly wearing off. Just thinking, wow was that voice God, or an angel? Thinking wow, I should have died right then but I’m still alive. Did I just get spared from death, does my life have more purpose than what I was currently living for?
Just a few weeks later you were invited to a CS camp in Torquay...
A couple of weeks later I was invited to a Christian Surfers camp down in Torquay and at first, I thought Christian surfers, that sounds like the dorkiest bunch of surfers out there! I thought of Ned Flanders from the Simpsons but with a surfboard under his arm haha. I was very wrong!
You kind of hit rock bottom just after...
Yea later that year, my partner and I split up, I'd busted my ankle that kept me out of the surf for 6 months, and I was at the pointy end of Year 12 with exams. I remember just feeling so overwhelmed and probably the worst depression I've experienced.
When Lucas Bartlett gave you a buzz to come along to New Swell you knew God was tapping you on the shoulder.
Yea kind of. I think I was desperate for some change and when he called to invite me to New Swell, I said yes straight away not really knowing what I was saying yes to, except that it involved surfing and some good blokes. I was greeted in the car park by grommets doing burnouts in a van on the gravel church carpark, and other grommets wrestling each other through plaster walls, and only minutes later were in a worship session singing out their hearts to their Creator. And I felt I had arrived home. This is when I felt a tap on the shoulder by the Boss upstairs and felt a prompting that I had to give my life to Jesus and get baptised. I went up to Lucas after on our way to the Torquay skate bowl and asked if he would baptise me. He looked at me in a funny way because he thought I was already a Christian, which was why he invited me because New Swell was actually a leadership camp for Christian Surfers haha!! Later that week I got dunked at Bells beach in my boardies, Lucas and Steve Bailey were in their steamers!!
You felt a strong prompting to be baptised? Why do you think it's important?
I think I just knew that was was how Christians made a commitment. Someone explained to me that week as well that it was symbolic and spiritual moment to declare a fresh start in Jesus, the old way of living was being put to death, and the new creation was here. I couldn't wait to put my old life to bed!
You've just jumped into teaching hey?
Yea I finished my teaching degree six months ago and teach four days a week, and one day with CS.
Since moving to Tassie 6 years ago, & now Tas Regional Coordinator, what shift have you seen happening?
I felt Gods hand over the move, I knew only a handful of people in Tassie but where I landed we had folks ready to join and lead the CS Hobart mission. It was incredible! Since then our crew has grown exponentially and 3 different outreaches exist from the one mission. The north of the state has been a different story though, we have a lot of contacts but less of a stoke to do ministry through CS. I'm believing that someone will take the reigns and start something.
Are you getting pumped for National Gathering in Taz?
So pumped! I love hosting people so pretty excited to host all the national froth-bags in our backyard!
Relevant verse of scripture at the moment...
Ezekiel 37. The whole thing. My family and I have been through a pretty hectic season and suffering a bit of PTSD from it. God gave me this verse at the start of the year and just love the promise that God alone is going to breathe life into these dry bones again!
Favourite worship album? "Live at the Banks House" by United Pursuit and Will Reagan. It's 13 years old now but one I keep coming back to because of how raw and honest the worship is. I always joke that Will Reagan kind of sounds like a Christian version of Ben Howard.
Brad with his wife Alex & daughter Maggie.