When you hear the word pandemic, it usually has a negative connotation. It’s the spread of a disease. But what if it meant you were infected by the Holy Spirit? That’s what Fairhaven Church hopes to do with its NextGen ministries —spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to one young person at a time.

NextGen’s first guest is Brian “Head” Welch, a founder of the once hugely popular nu-metal band Korn. Welch left Korn in 2005.

Next weekend Welch will perform songs such as “Save Me From Myself” from his solo CD “Paralyzed” and other contemporary Christian rock tunes.

Brian describes his transformation, via several online videos:

“There’s a high when you go on stage, and you see all these people loving your music, loving you,” Welch said. “These girls and all these people worshipping you. When you see all these people going nuts for you it puffs you up inside.”

He hit a personal high when his daughter, Jennea, was born. He hit rock bottom when he saw what drugs did to his wife, Rebecca. She left him and the baby. He said he was disgusted by what happened to her. And then everything he saw in Rebecca came true for him. He became addicted to methamphetamines.

“It seems like fun in the beginning. But it’s a lie. It turns around on you. It starts to wear on your personality; it starts to wear on your relationships,” said Welch. “Everything is affected by it negatively. Everything.”

His daughter had lost her mother to crystal meth. He knew she would lose him if he didn’t quit.

“I would get up in the morning, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then snort meth,” said Welch. “Then I would take her to school. I started losing my mind.”

Jennea had gone on tour with the band. Later, he saw her skipping around the house singing the lyrics to one of their songs, “Adidas.”

He remembers thinking, “What am I doing? My daughter’s singing, ‘All day I dream about sex.’ I’m a junkie, and I’m going to die.”

Then something strange happened. His real estate broker, Eric, came to see him. He told Brian that a scripture had jumped out at him. It was Matthew 11:28.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

They invited him to church a few weeks later.

“In my head, I was saying, ‘I am going to accept Christ in front of everybody now. Then I’m going home and snorting drugs until I don’t want to do them anymore.’ ”

He always used a $100 bill with his crystal meth when he was chopping it up into a fine powder to snort.

“I neglected my daughter, and put her in front of the TV. I snorted a big line and I held the bill up and said, ‘Jesus, if you’re real like that pastor said, then you’ve got to take these drugs from me ... come into my life, come into my heart, search me right now.’ ”

He read the Bible for a week, and then he heard God speaking to him one night. The next day, he threw all his drugs out. After he quit Korn, he was baptized in the Jordan River. He was going to pour that love he received from Christ into his daughter, and raise her right. He was excited when he told her.

“Jennea, daddy’s going to be home with you all the time now. And her face just lit up,” Welch said. “God used her to save me, and to save her later on.”

It was a huge wake-up call to change his entire life, and everything about it.

“Houses, cars, I tried drugs, I tried sex, I tried everything to get pleasure out of this life. I thought I could fulfill my life with all this stuff,” Welch said. “When Christ comes in, he gives you that gift of understanding life. Which is everything was created by him, and we were created to be with him. It’s the most incredible feeling because you’re where you belong.”

Welch is still singing and producing music. Only now the message is different. It’s all about his journey from hell into the light.

Contact contributing writer Pamela Dillon at pamdillon@woh.rr.com