Pioneering Ministry - Christian Surfers Tassie
Brad Kermond moved to Tassie because of his Christian faith and love for the surfing community. Here, he tells his story...
Where did you grow up?
In Victoria, little town on west coast called Cape Bridgewater. When I was 18, I moved to Torquay, the surfing capital of Victoria and spent four years there. I became a Christian at a Christian Surfers camp, I guess I really felt like I belonged with that crew, I was a pretty keen partier as a teenager. It’s hard in a small town to have a faith. I got invited this camp, it felt like God was asking me to follow him and start that journey.
I got baptized on camp; it motivated me to move to Torquay, to have that circle of faith to grow in. I also picked up some study at uni doing BA majoring in Indonesian. But that first year I did a Christian Surfers internship, with the local church, Torquay Christian Fellowship. That involved helping out with Grommet surfers taking them out every Friday, we’d cook up a BBQ for them and do a bit of a devotional. It was a bit like a youth group but focused more towards kid surfers. We used the Christian Surfers headquarters, in the shaping bay we could teach them how to shape a surfboard. It had a big loungeroom, a big space to cook up and have a BBQ, that was part of the church.
In that first year I had the opportunity to go to Indonesia and connect with Christian Surfers in Indonesia as part of the internship. I went into Kerobokan where the Bali Nine were imprisoned, we got to spend 5 days with them and led a church service in the prison. That’s one of those moments you think, ‘how crazy was that opportunity!?’ We travelled to Lombok and surfed there and did a bit of evangelism. The leader of the group was Steve Brown our pastor at the church, a real solid dude.
What brought you to Tassie?
Three years later, still doing Christian Surfers (CS) and Grom Surfs, we had a ministry house in Torquay. It came to a point where I was spending time with the Lord and I heard him say I was called to be a pioneer. I wrote all this down and started seeing ‘pioneer’ everywhere I went, I went down the street ‘pioneer bacon on sale’. ‘Pioneer water tanks, Pioneer Road…’ I thought, this is crazy, I was studying a text book on sustainability and found the ‘Pioneer plant’ - while studying Uni God is still speaking to me.
It felt like the Spirit was going, ‘yeah that’s the definition of the pioneer you’re going to be’: ‘Pioneer plants colonise new habitats by modifying the environment to a more favourable state so that other species can follow on.’
I felt the Lord was calling me to a new habitat, a new place. Obviously, He was going to use me to modify the environment so that disciples can be made, so that others can follow on. Discipleship is a big thing we do with Christian Surfers.
I was praying, ‘where do you want me? Where are you calling me to?’ Around that time, I started seeing Tassie everywhere, it kept popping up. I really did love Tassie – my had brother moved here 4 years earlier and I visited and really loved it. I didn’t really think I’d move there…. my family are still in Portland, Victoria.
I remember pulling up to Uni one day, I couldn’t find a park, no parks anywhere. Only one care park was right up the front, I pulled up, turned the car off, looked at the car in front it was a Tassie number plate. I thought, ‘this is ridiculous’, I kept seeing it everywhere. I asked Lucas Bartlett, Regional Coordinator for Christian Surfers in Victoria and Tasmania, I gave him a call, ‘look bro, I think God is calling me to Tasmania.’
He says, ‘NO WAY!’ He’d been thinking the same thing, that it would be the perfect move for me, he’d been praying ‘what do we do with Tassie?’ Nothing was running, there was no CS mission in Tassie. He couldn’t believe I would say God was calling me to Tassie. God put it on his heart for what was coming up. He told me, ‘Brad, I’ll call you later this afternoon’ I’ve been talking to this camp site and they want to have you to work there.’
Straight away I had a job set up at Blue Lagoon Christian Camp at Dodges Ferry, which is where I am now - that is a bit of my ‘tent making’ and I do Christian Surfers in between. CS is a volunteer-based ministry. It’s been a wild ride.
What’s happened since you’ve moved here?
I arrived 1st July 2017 and within 6 months we had a mission set up with leaders and support from churches and financial backers. People and places just came together, such as Josh and Lucy Phillips who are Mission Coordinators for Christian Surfers Tassie and have really shown a passion to get things going down here.
I also met my now-wife, within the first month I met this girl at Abundant Life Church. Within the first month I fell head over heels for Alex. We got married 2 months ago… there is a whole other God story there too.
Alex had met a Christian Surfer friend Lucas and remembers having a conversation with him 2 years ago, saying ‘I would love to be involved.’ She always had a heart for surfing and the community, she didn’t really have the means or the friendship groups to be a part of it all. Now she’s in a support role for me, coming to our National Gatherings and the Annual leadership camp called ‘New Swell’ which is coming up in December.
We got married at Marion Bay overlooking a popular Tassie surf break. We didn’t go to Indonesia for our honeymoon would you believe… we went to Ireland and Scotland. We had a camper van and did the miles, dropped in a few coastal towns.
Where have you travelled around Tassie?
Roaring Beach, Nubeena – is one of the regular surf spots, South Arm, Dodges Ferry, East Coast – Bicheno. The furthest away would have been Marawa on NW Coast
I’m not the most competitive, not a pro surfer, but I definitely go along and support the crew.
Christian Surfers in Tassie have done some road trips, we did two camps this year – they were basically our first couple of events since being restarted. We went to Bicheno and Little Beach, we surfed and we had some devotions and a camp fire on the beach, worship time and games. That was pretty funny actually, we played a game called ‘the Truest Tasmanian’ - whichever team was the most Truest Tasmanian won.
The truest Tasmanian knows a lot about apples, so we got all these soft apples and had to do apple bobbing in two teams we had to spit them out into another bucket, then stomp on them really good, then pour the squished apples into a glass to see how much ‘apple cider’ - whoever had the fullest glass won. The losers had a chance to redeem themselves by drinking the opponent’s glass, you can imagine all the foot fungus among that apple cider!
We like to keep people on their toes… it was a really good weekend.
It was also cool thing to do for the leadership group, a bit of a tester, just seeing where people are at and who’s on board. CS Tassie is a bit of a baby still, it really solidified what we’re doing and we’re wanting to head.
What is your mission?
For me, personally, my vision was to set up a mission down South and then to head North and see if we can get something going up there – that’s my own personal mission in my Field Worker role.
In terms of the mission down south, where are we heading? I guess we’ve got three different groups – focusing on an event for girls and a bit of a regular event for Groms, young adult surfers, then also seeing where we go with the advanced surfing crew – your big wave surfers and pros and all the rest.
Our mission is to reach every surfer in every surfing community and give them the opportunity to know and follow Christ.
If I was in the 1970’s that would be easier, it used to be a male surfer on a three-fin thruster – that was basically one type of surfer back then. Now there are heaps of different types of surfers, it’s a bit more complicated – we’ve got girls in the water, different types of surf craft, knee boarders, stand up paddlers, long boards, toe in surfing, big wave surfing; and so surfing and the surfing community have changed, therefore how we reach every surfer has to change as well.
For the first time (this is pretty unreal) we have the first generation of grandparents who are surfing with their grandchildren. The grandparents were the pioneers of surfing in Australia.
Surfing Glossary:
Grommet/ Grom – a surfer who is a young bloke… tomorrow’s pro-surfers.
‘stoked'- pretty happy, pretty satisfied with what’s happening
‘frothing’ - really excited, kinda like a dog frothing at the mouth, when surfers they see a really good wave
‘Yew!’ – yes it’s a bit like ‘hooray.’ When I got married, when we did the ‘I Do’s’ I said ‘Yew’ instead – the Pastor said, ‘technically correct.’
Blessings, His peace and waves,
Brad Kermond
Christian Surfers Tassie
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If you're interested in Christian Surfers opportunities:
C Salt is a one-year internship program, they do road trips, an intensive week of study and surfing. It's held all over the country, they went to Phillip Island, Crescent Head, WA, and Indonesia.
Article by Lisa Haynes, CO2 Tasmania