Hillsong Melbourne

I grew up in a staunch Catholic household. To paint the picture, before meeting my mum, my dad was in seminary, training to be a Catholic priest. This meant that I went to catholic schools my whole life. Growing up, we did church on Sundays, every Sunday, on top of chapel at school. I was in the choir, served as an alter boy and to date myself, I even did a brief stint on the overhead projector. My mum always tells stories about how they would joke that I was going to be a priest because I loved religious education.

Fast forward to highschool and I must have been about 16, my brother, sister and I all got ready for church one day as we waited for my parents to come down stairs. Five minutes before our regular leaving time, my mum came down and said we weren’t going to church that day. I was confused but also a tad relieved because to be honest, I had developed all of this head knowledge about Jesus, but I can’t say I had a personal relationship outside of praying when I was in trouble. I remember asking my dad later that day what happened and he said to me, “son, imagine if you woke up one day and realised it was all a lie”, referring to Christianity. We didn’t go back to church after this and wouldn’t step foot in a church as a family until my sister’s wedding about 10 years later.

Around this time, I also started to find myself in the hip hop music industry. It started off innocent and I remember initially vowing that I would only make positive music and that I would specifically not use any expletives in my music. That didn’t last long. High school saw me get lost in the world of underage binge drinking and underage clubbing among other things. By the time I left highschool and started university, I was primed to start taking drugs. Besides, if I was going to do this rap thing, I might as well be all in right? – It’s funny, around this time, i met a guy who became my best friend during this part of my life. He had this motto, he would always say “Webster, in life you have two options. zero percent or a hundred percent. You get what you put in and there is no inbetween”. So, him and I dove 100% into a life of drugs, alcohol and women. I reasoned with myself that as long as I stayed in law school I would be okay. But then the music started to take off. I went on tour in california nad when I got back to New Zealand it was TV shows and radio spots. I was truly lost in the sauce.

I remember getting high and drunk every night because I felt like I needed to fuel my creativity. In my mind, I couldn’t stop because I had finally caught a wave. The funny thing is I’m an introvert, so really it made no sense. I didn’t realise it at this point but I hadn’t thought about God in a very long time. Eventually, I moved to Australia. By this point I was in a dark place. I had seen some dark things and watched many of my close friends literally lose their minds to drugs. But I persisted. I was had signed my second record deal and this time I was signed to a subsidiary of Universal Music Group so in my mind things were about to change. I quickly dove right into the Melbourne music scene which was a sea compared to the pond I was used to. The drugs continued and I got even more and more lost. But this time it was different. I started to get lost in the new age. I believed I was manifesting things into existence and I became my own God. my ego was through the roof. But I met the woman I am now blessed to be married to. She was in her prodigal daughter era but when we eventually started dating, she told me that if I wanted to take our relationship to the next level, I needed to find Jesus. That’s when he met me for the first time. Not long after this conversation with her about finding Jesus, I was in a bad place mentally and I was listening to the new Stormzy album (Gang signs and Prayer). I Hadn’t looked at the track list and while drunk and high, I was frozen as a couple tracks in, I hear the words “I’m blinded by your grace, every night, every day, And I was lost yeah, but ever since you found me”. This song captivated me and I spent the entire night listening to part 1 and 2 as I text the most christian person I could think of and asked if he could take me to church. I didn’t give my life to Jesus that week and instead spent two years looking for Jesus not knowing he had already found me.

Two years later, I walked into Hillsong Melbourne city campus. I sat at the back so I had an escape plan in case things got weird but ended up staying for the message. I gave my life to Jesus that day and felt a shift instantly. As I walked out of service I met Pastor Jeremy who was handing out bibles for new Christians. I remember he told me about Alpha and while on a holy spirit high, I agreed to check it out. On my way out of church that day, I ran into Melinda Dwight. She could see I was holding a Bible and I clearly looked new to all of this because she kindly spoke with me as I walked to the train station. I remember asking her what she does and she told me all about this organisation she was a part of called Alpha. Now I had to go.

I joined the next round of alpha and the way that God began to change my life from that point on was nothing short of miraculous. For me Alpha started as a safe place where I could explore my new found faith and ask any question. It quickly became the only place I could have faith based conversations because I had since left the music industry and all of my friends were still very much in that lifestyle. After completing one round of alpha, I came back a second time for the discussion and the safe space. After that, Alpha became a community for me and I asked how I can serve. That was in 2019 and towards the end of the year I caught the vision. From that moment on Alpha became my favourite ministry to serve in. I see it as a way that I can fulfill the great commission but also build other believers to walk in all that God has for them. In the last seix years, I have had the privilege of seeing countless lives transformed through Alpha and I still tell people today, if you want to see God moving powerfully in peoples lives, come and serve a term in Alpha. To date, nobody has told me that I am wrong about that.

For me Alpha is more than just a course, its a gateway into a discipled life which is ultimately a life that God can speak into and speak through. I can’t wait to meet Nicky Gumbel one day and personally thank him and his team for faithfully walking out what God called them to build. I’m forever grateful for the Alpha Australia team and often tell people that I don’t know if I would be strong in my faith without it.