“My mission is a person. Jesus is my mission, my purpose. He’s the reason I teach, and I want to see Jesus impact kids’ lives.” - John David (JD) Webster. JD has served as the Worship Arts (aka Chapel Band) Teacher at VCHS over the last five years. Perhaps modeling himself a little after his high school Choir Director Mr. Fronczek who demanded excellence, JD’s “secret sauce” with students boils down to two words – heart and excellence. He says, “You can be excellent but have no heart or you can have heart but not be excellent.” He works with his students to produce both, and he also wants them to leave his program as professional musicians and music producers, a world in which he’s very familiar.
JD was adopted at birth (something he’s very open about) and raised in a Christian family in Indianapolis. At Pike High School, a large public school, music and tennis were his lanes. His sophomore year, he signed up for Jazz Band. But the first day of class, the teacher said to young JD, “You shouldn’t be here. You haven’t auditioned.” JD said, “You haven’t heard me even play yet.” “Bring it on,” said the teacher. Right then and there he played the piano and stunned the teacher and class and took his seat in Pike’s Jazz Band. JD also was and is an accomplished tennis player with a very mean serve (I know firsthand). Though one of his most embarrassing moments in high school happened when he was trying to be cool and jump over the tennis net. He tripped and fell clumsily to the ground – not a bad dose of humility, especially for a guy voted Most Popular his Senior year.
Also around that time, JD began to pour himself into a music career. Only in his late teens, he cut his first album – I Will Not Be Shaken. In his early 20s he became the Worship Leader at Horizon Christian Fellowship in Indianapolis where he met and married the pastor’s daughter – Kirsten. Shortly after that, JD joined and toured with The Kry, a Christian band. He later cut his second album –
Toward the Western Sky
– producing it with musicians who worked with the likes of Sting, James Taylor and Elton John. From that album, he had two Top 10 singles –
Miracle
and
Now
. After straddling Indianapolis and Nashville with his music career, JD landed in the Vail Valley seven years ago and became Calvary Chapel Vail Valley’s Worship Pastor. Just a few years ago, he cut his third and most recent album –
This Fire
– an album dedicated to his mother whose legacy of faith and music inspires him to this day.
Too humble to offer it up, JD has performed with the likes of Point of Grace, Rich Mullins and Steven Curtis Chapman. But on the professional front, he’s actually more proud of “off the cuff” opportunities he’s had making music and performing in prison yards or with aspiring musicians from other parts of the world. Although he would say “it’s God’s event,” JD and Kirsten helped found Vail Valley’s
Uplift
, a one-of-a-kind Christian concert birthed five years ago.
More than his music, JD is most proud of his family – his wife Kirsten and kids Zion (’19), Jaden (’21) and Aria (’23).
John David Webster, lives of purpose…
