Hi,
Just over a year ago — in March of 2024 — I got an email from Jake. He had a story he wanted to tell, and he wanted to find a way to tell it that could help others. A warning, of sorts.
And so over the last year, as a court case played out — I’ve been working on this story. It takes place in and around CityLife church in Melbourne. And while this story is a warning, I also think it’s a story about the truth, justice, and pushing back against institutions that allow abuse to happen.
With that said, this piece discusses emotional and sexual abuse that may be distressing for some readers, so please take care when reading.
I have narrated this story also, if you want to listen instead.
David.
“You and me need to hang out. As in, just us 2!”
How a church youth group leader abused children in his care - and how years later, they sought justice.
It was 2019 when Jake’s brother casually said something that brought it all rushing back.
“I was driving with me and my partner, and my brother and his wife. And my brother was like, ‘Guys, I heard this rumor about Josh. Like, apparently, someone woke up in the night and he was touching them.’
And it was at that moment, for the first time in years, I remembered. And I’m like, ‘Wow. Yeah, this has happened to me.’ So then I told my brother that it happened to me one time.
Then later that night, I got a call from my brother and he said, ‘I had actually the same thing. It happened to me a few times as well.’”
Jake hadn’t thought about Josh in years. The endless advice, the weird questions, and all those sleepovers. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Jake Makes a Friend
Almost a decade earlier, Jake was a 12-year-old kid at CityLife church in Melbourne, Australia. The church would later make headlines when it was forced to apologise for telling teenagers not to hug each other for fear it would lead to sex.
Like other Pentecostal megachurches like Hillsong and Arise, there was a huge focus on purity culture, saving souls, and getting to Heaven — and Jake was onboard. Attending a school linked to the church, a great deal of his life was CityLife.
When he was 12 he joined a new LifeGroup, a break-off group for children and teens. For Jake, hanging out with his LifeGroup was much more appealing than church. “I didn’t really go to church on Sundays. I mainly went to the church on a youth night on a Friday night all throughout my high school experience,” Jake told Webworm.
“There was a cool Friday night where you played fun games. There’s all other kids there. They got pool tables set up, ping pong tables, music blasting. It’s a bit of a party. And then you go into praise and worship and then a speaker comes and preaches a message. And then you just hang out like an hour afterwards. And if you’re cool, a bunch of the youth leaders will take you to Maccas [McDonalds] afterwards.”
Among what could be seen as fairly normal teenage stuff, there was also church stuff.
“It was very much a Pentecostal church. And this youth group especially was very much focused on speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, all that kind of stuff. So the full Pentecostal experience.”
Leading the way was Jake’s youth group leader, Joshua Tyler — a “very enthusiastic” 19-year-old.
“He was the cool LifeGroup leader. He’d go above and beyond. You wanted him as your LifeGroup leader. It was like ‘Yes, we got Josh, that means we’re going to have a fun year. It’s going to be awesome!’”
Joshua seemed excited too, sending the 12-year-old an enthusiastic message on Facebook.
It was the first of many messages that would follow over the next eight years.
Good Advice
Throughout 2010, Jake would see Josh most Friday nights, either at CityLife or at Josh’s house, where he’d lead youth group meetings. He says Josh quickly turned into a mentor, offering advice and showing an active interest in his life.
When Jake showed an interest in a girl at school, it was Josh who’d be there with a word of wisdom — either in person, or in Facebook messages. A lot of this advice was in line with the church's teaching to avoid sex until marriage: “I just wanted to warn you. Be careful what goes down between you two,” he wrote to Jake on Facebook. “When I was your age, I made a lot of mistakes. And obviously I don’t want to see you getting hurt either. Girls at that age are pretty unstable, a bit all over the place, and it’s easy for hearts to be broken.”
For Jake, having an older, cooler kid take an interest in his life was appealing. Josh seemed to like the role too, referring to both Jake and Jake’s older brother Matt “as the brothers he’d never had.” Towards the end of the year he sent Jake another message: “I’ve loved getting to know you over the last year or so — you are practically my little brother. It’s so awesome seeing you wanting to learn about God. I love how you never say anything bad about anyone. Such a good quality to have.”
Josh ended with some advice. There was always advice.
“Keep opening up to your friends and leaders, allow them to have an influence on you, and give you good advice — even if it’s not what you want to hear!”
“Just us 2!”
The following year, more church, more McDonalds, more speaking in tongues. And more Josh.
Josh would drive Jake and his older sibling home a few days each week, and continued to be a source of encouragement and advice. The Facebook messages kept coming — the now 20-year-old messaging the 13-year-old all the time.
It was around this time that Josh began making a more conscious effort to spend one-on-one time with Jake, as part of his job as LifeGroup leader. Ideas for “hangs” were pitched over Messenger:
“Hey dude, before I leave, you and me need to hang out. As in, just us 2!”
“We could go to the cinemas or maybe go out for a meal or hang out at your house, or I could stay over or you could stay at my house or we could go bowling or maybe something else”.
Josh left to study overseas for the rest of the year, and the requests for one-on-one time stopped. When he returned in 2012, Jake says the focus of his LifeGroup turned to sexual purity even more.
“We started to talk about porn, masturbation and ‘purity’. Josh was always preaching about how it’s important to be vulnerable to those you trust and that you shouldn’t struggle with sexual impurity alone.”
By this point Josh was frequently driving Jake home from Lifegroup, where most of their one-on-one, in-person conversations would take place. Josh began asking him questions about his life and what he was struggling with. And he’d urge Jake to get specific.
“He’d ask me if I’m struggling with porn and masturbation and if I needed support. He’d then go on to ask more specific questions like, ‘When is the last time you masturbated? What websites do you use when you want to watch porn? How often do you masturbate?’
He would keep asking questions until I gave an answer and talked to him about it.It also wasn’t uncommon for him to say he was ‘too tired to drive home’ after dropping me off at home, and staying the night at my house.”
From this point on, Josh would frequently spend nights at Jake’s parents house, watching movies or playing Xbox.
Jake’s parents knew Josh well by now, so this all seemed perfectly normal. They trusted him.
Sleepovers
It started like any sleepover. One night in 2013, the pair spent the night playing video games and watching movies, before falling asleep in the lounge.
“I decided to sleep on the couch and Josh was sleeping on the ground on a mattress directly next to the couch. Josh would have been approximately a foot or so away from me. My parents were asleep in their bedroom, while my brother and my grandparents were asleep upstairs.
At some point in the night, I woke up and noticed that Josh’s hand was underneath my blanket and was lightly cupping my genitals over top of the shorts and underwear. I looked down at him and he still seemed to be sleeping.
At the time, Josh would constantly sleep talk and was a restless sleeper, so I assumed it was an accident. I moved his hand off of me, and back onto his mattress, and went back to sleep.
In the morning, I was still confused but did not want to bring it up and Josh was acting like nothing had happened, so I brushed it off and didn’t really think about it.”
Jake was 16 at the time of this first incident, while Josh was 23.
Life went on, and Jake put it out of his mind. He noted Josh was big on physical touch in general. If the LifeGroup were watching a movie together, Josh would often sit between youth group members, wrapping his arms around them. If someone asked him to move, he’d make a joke about how they felt uncomfortable.
Sometimes he’d tell them to laugh it off, and sometimes he’d slide into Jake’s DMs with an apology.
All this public physical touch somehow made what had happened to him in private seem less weird. Less alarming.
A year later, there was another sleepover at Jake’s house. More movies, more XBox.
“We set up a double mattress on the floor next to the couch. When it was time to go to sleep, the two of us slept on the mattress together.
Again, my parents were asleep in their bedroom whilst my brother and my grandparents were asleep upstairs. It was just Josh and I in the living room together.
I awoke in the middle of the night and Josh’s hand had reached over and was underneath my shorts – resting on my genitals over my underwear. I looked over and he seemed to still be asleep.
I remember moving his hand off me very slowly so he would not wake up, and turning over so my back was towards him and moving as close to the edge of the mattress, as I could before falling back asleep.”
The incident was nearly identical to the last time this had happened, including Josh’s behaviour the next day. Josh didn’t acknowledge what had happened, or act any differently. Again, Jake told himself it must have been an accident.
Throughout all of this, the church continued to preach purity culture. Jake recalls one LifeGroup event in 2014 that involved about 10 members playing something called “Chair of Truth” in his living room.
“Josh had managed for this event to be held at my house when every other LifeGroup was happening at the church.”
Whoever’s turn it was to sit in the chair had to tell the truth. Most LifeGroup members offered up questions about crushes and the hottest teacher. But when it came to Josh’s questions, they were more specific.
“How often do you masturbate?”
“What is the last thing you searched on a private browser?”
“What’s the weirdest porn you’ve watched?”
Josh framed these kinds of questions as encouraging vulnerability and honesty around impure sexual thoughts and behaviour.
Webworm has seen chat logs between Josh and Jake, and as time goes on the now 23-year-old’s messages get more leading. By this point, Josh was seen as a “family friend” as well as church leader. Josh started giving “Funky Trunks” (speedo style swimwear) to friends as presents — and of course, Jake was counted amongst friends.
Jake didn’t know what to think.
Perfect, Godly Advice
Jake was 17 and Josh was 24 when the third incident took place. It played out almost exactly as it had the previous two times, Jake waking up in the middle of the night to Josh’s hands grabbing his penis through his shorts.
Once again Josh’s hand had reached up from the mattress he was lying on and found its way underneath Jake’s blanket.
Jake knew the drill. He gently moved the man’s hand off his crotch, and turned away towards the back of the couch, trying to sleep. Trying to make sense of it. One question kept repeating in his head: “How could this have been an accident again?”
Over the next few years, Jake says study commitments meant the two spent less one on one time together — but they remained close.
By this point, Josh did feel like a part of the family. “He kind of wiggled his way into my family and became a really, really close family friend. Like on my 18th birthday, he was there for all the birthdays. He came on a few family holidays. He really wedged himself into our family dynamic.”
And his original role as LifeGroup leader still held. He was there to offer Godly advice — and he had an uncanny ability to know exactly what to say.
“There were occasions where Josh would seem to ‘feel something in his gut’ and ask me about something specific. He would tell me a random story about something he has or is struggling with, which coincidentally I was also struggling with.”
In 2015, Jake developed a crush on two different girls in his class. One day, out of the blue, Josh told him a story about how he’d once liked two girls at once, and how much it messed with his head. He said Jake needed to stop thinking about the girls, and focus instead on his relationship with Jesus.
And to keep him updated about everything.
“I Heard This Rumour”
By 2017, Jake started to feel that something was really “off”, noticing the negative effect that Josh was having on his life.
“I realised I would feel stressed when I would have to hang out with him one-on-one or when he would call me. I remembered back to when he would drive me home and how uncomfortable I would feel, but felt as though I needed to answer his questions for my own benefit and personal growth.”
The two drifted. In 2018, Josh moved to Switzerland for a year. That geographical distance was just what Jake needed.
And then in 2019, Jake found himself in the car with his partner (one of the girls he’d had a crush years ago). Also in the car was his older brother and his wife. And that casual comment: “Guys, I heard this rumor about Josh.”
Slowly, Jake started sharing elements of his stories with other former members of his youth group. The task was slow — the Covid pandemic hit, making meeting up with others hard.
Josh came back to Melbourne, attending Jake’s engagement party. He was marrying the girl he’d had a crush on in class. The one Josh had warned him to be careful around.
The more Jake shared, the more murmurings he heard. He started to trust his intuition.
“So I sat down my parents with no intention to tell them anything. I’m just like, ‘I’m not inviting him to my wedding. I don’t want him there. I feel like he’s been manipulative. I don’t want him there.’”
His parents asked what he meant by calling Josh manipulative.
“And then I'm just like, “Fuck this. This is what he did.” And then told him everything.”
He says his parents were shocked. His father was angry — angry that he’d let Josh into their lives. He felt responsible. “They felt like, ‘We brought this person into our lives, brought this person into our homes, and now look what he’s done to our kids.’”
By now, Josh had started working as a teacher at Waverley Christian College — and Jake felt a growing anxiety about what else Josh could do. It was time to tell the church what had happened.
And it was time to tell the police.
Guilty
Webworm has been talking to Jake over the last year — mainly over email and Zoom, and meeting in person in Melbourne late last year.
Jake is now 27 years old. For the past three years, he’s been on the journey of charging his old church’s Youth Leader, how aged 35, with sexual assault against him, his brother, and one other victim.
The incidents all took place between 2013 and 2014.
In August last year, Josh pleaded guilty to three charges of ‘Indecent Act against a Child aged 16-17 under care supervision or authority’.
“We’ve gone to every court session — me and my family. Josh didn’t come in till the seventh session. He’d appeared on Zoom, but never come to court. We wanted him to have to face us. He looked miserable.”
On October 1, Joshua William Tyler was sentenced with a four year community corrections order, along with 300 hours of community service.
He was also placed on the sex offenders registry for life.
I asked Jake to jot down his thoughts on sentencing day. “For most of my life this has been bubbling away somewhere in the back of my mind, and for the last five years has been something that I’ve been thinking about consistently,” he wrote. He continued:
“For the past two years, every three to six months, we would have a court session — so we really haven’t had a break from the legal process for quite a while. I don’t really know what life is going to be like on the other side of this.
When I was 15, I created a mindset to rationalise what had happened to me. I rationalised that I had not been assaulted, and that it was just an accident that happened every now and then. I lived in this mindset for eight years, unable to grasp what had happened to me. I was always able to convince myself that it was all just an accident because I couldn’t handle the alternative.
The past two years during this legal process, I feel as though I have been stuck in a place of limbo, unable to fully heal and move on. I feel like the impact that these incidents have had on me is still revealing itself, and will be a process that I will continue to go through for quite some time.
As for the result – we accomplished what we set out to achieve, and the sentence is above and beyond what we expected after the first couple of court sessions.
When we set out on this process our main priority was to make sure that Josh was never in a position where this behaviour could happen again. I wasn’t so much focused on ‘justice’ or ‘punishment’ — the court has its own process for justice, deterrence, punishment — so I didn’t try to think about it.
But I still don’t really know how I feel.
It’s hard to unpack. It kind of feels like nothing even happened. That nothing has changed. I don’t know what I was expecting to feel – maybe a sense of justification or relief or finality.
I’m not sure.”
CityLife church emailed its congregation after Josh had pleaded guilty, saying:
“Our primary concern has been for the victims and their families. We have ensured that pastoral support and professional care has been available for them and for their families, and for those affected by this case.”
Jake disputes this, saying no support was provided. He also says the church attempted to downplay the incident by changing the wording of the charge from ‘sexual assault against a child” to “sexual assault against young people”.
He asked CityLife to “re-issue the statement with a few corrections”, writing:
“CityLife has not once reached out and ensured that these services have been available to me and my brother as victims and also to my family.”
Instead of apologising for not providing care, CityLife responded in a fashion straight out of the megachurch playbook — apologising for how Jake felt.
“I am sorry you feel CityLife Church has not ensured pastoral care was provided to you.”
The church went on to offer to find ways to provide care, and said it would share his email with the “Board of Elders”. By now, Jake had zero faith in the church. He just saw them trying to downplay what had taken place.
In September of 2024, Jake received a response from the Board of Elders which stated:
“We want to express our sincere regret for any distress and dissatisfaction our statement concerning these matters has caused. It was certainly not our intention to mislead or cause additional pain.”
Finally, on November 21, 2024, Citylife released a new statement correcting the charges to “Indecent Act with a Child”, noting that three different victims were involved. They offered to meet with Jake — but Jake refused.
The End of a Long Journey
The night after sentencing had taken place, Jake, his brother, and the third victim all went out for drinks to celebrate.
They sat around and talked about the result. They talked about the journey they’d all been on, and rehashed some of the old stories about their former youth group leader. They didn’t talk about any of the “incidents” — they didn’t need to.
But they did talk about how he manipulated them and “the bullshit he attempted”. They now knew how their abuser always managed to “feel something in his gut” and come up with perfectly timed advice for what they were going through. As it turns out, in the latter years of their friendship, he’d been going through their computers and iPads, emails and Facebook messages. It wasn’t God, it was him being sinister and manipulative.
“It sounds like a serious conversation, but it was more light-hearted than anything else — we were laughing, telling jokes and talking about the ridiculousness of some of the stories.
After talking, we realised that if you compare my brother’s stories and messages to mine – it seems as though he got ‘better’ in his manipulation attempts and they were more effective. We realised once he was ‘done’ with my brother, he moved on to me and then on to the younger victim.
It just cemented that there was a clear pattern of behaviour that had to be stopped.
It was a long journey. It was hard. It was confronting. It was embarrassing. There are dozens of more words I could list but all the hardship was worth it because we made sure it could never happen again.
We ended the night playing some pool and appreciating that even though the reason for us hanging out was shit — we had a really good night.”
Jake wanted to share this 15-year period of his life with Webworm as a warning to others that find themselves in similar positions.
The structure of church youth groups is a welcoming hunting ground for someone like Josh, who used his position of power as a youth leader to give him the opportunity to get close to victims.
The intense purity culture taught in certain churches can make perfect cover for abuse. It makes people less willing to speak out about “impure” things that may have happened. But it’s also more than a cover: In this case, it was the perfect excuse to get children talking about personal sexual behaviours, from watching porn to how they masturbated.
There is also a tendency within certain Christian communities to trust those in leadership — nearly always men — with blind faith, overlooking red flags on Earth as they march toward Heaven.
It’s worth remembering that though they market themselves as God’s representatives, they’re no angels. In fact they’re often more flawed than most, and the culture of impunity around them can bring out the worst of humanity.
-David Farrier.
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