"We felt marginalised by the surfing community because we were Christians and marginalised from the church community because we were surfers."
What started with a handful of teenagers in Cronulla, Sydney, has now turned into a big, beautiful global family; with missions in over 30 nations & over 1,000 volunteer leaders spreading the love of God through all levels of surfing. We welcome Christian Surfers Founder Brett Davis to the chat room! Yewwww.
Summer 1999. Hawaii airport.
SAMMY. Have you got any crazy memorable moments in the surf? Hectic moments that you thought nup, this is it- I'm gone!?
BD. Yeah, I had lots of big days at Sandon Point, and on low tide when you're sitting on the ledge it's pretty shallow in there. I can remember sort of air dropping a take-off and not making it and hitting the bottom really hard, and then feeling myself being dragged and then eventually, coming to a sudden stop where I hit a ledge against the side of my body, breaking two ribs. So, coming to the surface with two broken ribs, you can't really take a breath because there's so much pain. So, I had another six waves in a row on the head.
MITCH. Oh, no.
BD. So, by the end of that only being able to just take short little gasps because of two broken ribs. I sort of got flushed into the shallows and dragged myself up in the rocks and drove myself to hospital.
MITCH. Drove yourself to hospital?
BD. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I begged them not to cut my wetsuit off because they got the scissors out and I was like no, no, just peel it off. My three-two.
SAMMY. Use the zipper, use the zipper.
BD. So yeah, I think I can remember after the sixth wave thinking I'm not getting any air because I can't take a deep breath as I've got two broken ribs aha. Just super exhausting.
SAMMY. Would you mind giving us an overview of how Christian Surfers came to be?
BD. I think it started with my own personal story of being a kid at Kirrawee high school and for me, deciding to become a surfer. Any religious background I had- which was very small- I thought well God's got to go for surfing to come because those two worlds don't mix. So, I made a deal with God that when I got old and about to die, like 63 or something ,I would sort of come back to God then. Then meeting my first Christian friend who was a surfer in year 11 at high school was absolutely life-changing. That person was Jeff Thompson, and realizing that those two worlds could mix, I made my decision that I wanted to be a Christian. Then the realization within that first year I was actually a Christian Surfer but a Christian with a ‘little c’ and a surfer with a ‘capital S’… that surfing was really my first identity, & not being a Christian or a Jesus follower as number one was something I had to change.
So, it was a big turn-around at age 18 to say actually, for Jesus to really come, surfing's got to go… and so I made a commitment to give up my surfing and never surf again if God didn't want me to- in that I knew I wanted to be a Christian first. And so, ironically this is the story that a few weeks later Jeff Thompson came and said we could start this Christian Surfer group you know. So, I had this great sense that God was giving my surfing back to me in the form of Christian Surfers. I didn't think those two worlds could have overlapped.
So, in year 12 at high school as an 18 year old with a handful of mates, we just started this group called Christian Surfers Fellowship. Of course, we were Christians who surfed who were looking for fellowship because we were now marginalized from the beach community because we'd become Christians. We sort of felt semi-marginalized from the church community because we were surfers aha… In 1977 surfing and church didn't really mix. So, that group kicked off in Cronulla in my mum's lounge room with a handful of kids, and it really was just us as raw teenagers ourselves. We dropped the word fellowship within a year because we realized that it wasn't a fellowship, it was actually a mission, and that fellowship of our community was really vital for our survival.
1979 Jervis Bay Camp.
Most of the kids who started coming along weren't Christians because they were typically other church kids who were surfing their way out of church. We were their last ditch attempt primarily by their parents to catch them on the way out, and then they became confident enough to bring friends.
We probably took a really big step forward when we published our first advertisement in Surfing World magazine announcing that Christian Surfers was here. That was followed up with a surfing comic series in Tracks Magazine that Jeff who was a commercial artist started writing, and that put us on the map. Suddenly we had an influx of communication from other groups who had already started and were glad to hear we were existing as well. But also, people asking us how to start.
So, out of Cronulla was the birth really of the Australian movement and in 1983, after five years now, a little group in Cronulla which was very small for the first three years and then exploded- when we started an open house drop-in center in Cronulla. We became the hub for developing Christian Surfers Australia. So, our first conference was up the road here at Stanwell Tops in 83. There were six groups represented and about 40 people just exploring the idea that maybe we could be a national thing together and there was a unanimous acceptance about that. I took a bold step at age 23 to resign from teaching to do that full-time, which seems crazy, I don't know if I'd let myself do that now. But yeah, just raw faith, raw passion & we've got to make this thing happen.
1984 Cronulla house.
1984 Cronulla leaders.
BD. I was a very reluctant leader. God was gracious. We had some pretty tough hiccups in the first couple of years trying to work out what would it mean to do this together because we're from all very different backgrounds. There was no adult supervision. Yeah, there was a lot of raw sort of rubbing together to work that out, but we had a major breakthrough saying we would focus on the cross of Christ for salvation, the needs of our unreached surfing friends, and anything else to get in the way of that just put it aside when you come to Christian Surfers. That grew to contacts with other people overseas and we helped kick-start New Zealand, had connections with the UK, and then South Africa, Brazil, and other countries expanded from there until we had our first International Conference in Hawaii in 93. By the time, we got to our third one it was out of hand and needed someone to step up and do it internationally. So, I was asked to transition from the Australia role to a global one. Took my wife and three kids and lived around the world for a year and pioneered the international movement in 1999. I did 16 years full-time at that, handed it over to Roy, being the role of the resident grandfather haha. So, there's a short, short story.
SAMMY. I feel like there’s so many times there’s been like a jump in faith, or a jumping situation. How did you kind of step through those big leaps? There's so much responsibility and weight. What's the process?
BD. Yeah, yeah, well, the process is a long process and it's being faithful in small things. So, the jump to the Nationals after you know five years. In the first three years I couldn't grow our group bigger than 12. So, you're just faithful with small things for years and then there's a breakthrough and you feel encouraged to grow with that breakthrough. You're very mindful of your own limitations and like I said, I was a pretty reluctant leader. In my leaving school certificate report basically had nothing other than attending haha. I wasn't exactly a high achiever, and then you know you look at that big jump to International- well, that was punctuated with years of just being faithful in whatever came along. So yeah, there are big steps, it's like the famous artists that go oh, you know, that person that’s a sudden success story after 15 years. You know they've just done all this hard work and then they're a sudden success, well, it's all based on years of just working it through. But each time for sure there was a sense of God's prompting. There was always a sense of inadequacy, and then there's a sense of well, am I gonna look at myself and my own inadequacies, or maybe look at God that He can make up the difference… and I've chosen to look at God.
SAMMY. You said back when you were 23 you gave up your teaching pursuit, do you reckon that was sort of a turning point? Where you were like I want to make this more about God's plan & not my own will or desire?
BD. Yeah, yeah, well, all those things have been shaped earlier. I guess surrendering my surfing was the biggest surrender because that was around my identity. I had competed when I left school in the job market and had a scholarship as an electrical engineer which I started, and I was going to be paid to go to university and had a secure future as an engineer all set up. And then I just had this prompting that I never actually asked God what he wanted me to do for a career. I just accepted the best, highest achieving offer I could get. And so, I was an underachiever by turning down that and then going into teaching, because I felt that's what God was prompted me. So, there was the seeds of that when I was at university studying as a teacher. I was part of a great on campus Christian student group, and I'd already resolved back then that I wanted to aim for full-time ministry as my vocation. But to honor my parents, they said get your teaching certificate first which was a two-year commitment and I think they were hoping that I would grow out of the idea of this Christian stuff haha.
But yeah, so, I taught for a couple years. But again, the seeds of that were already laid before. When I did Christian Surfers the first time at 23, I just saw it as a kid thing but then I went to Bible college to get a real job, to get a real ministry, because Christian Surfers couldn't possibly be that. The real ministry was to go to Bible College and then go overseas, that's when you're a real missionary. So, I pursued that and never got a sense of calling overseas and was quite surprised when God called myself and my new wife back into Christian Surfers. So, there's been lots of things where the background has been laid, and I think any of these great steps of faith come from ultimately being prepared to surrender your own plans ,and then will you trust God to make up the difference.
2002 BD surfing Aussie Pipe.
2002 Surfers Bible promo.
MITCH. So, good. Wisdom with a capital W.
SAMMY. That's crazy. It intrigues me when you said I wanted to ask God for what He had for me planned like you said yeah, I'm gonna give up my plans but I never actually asked God what He had for me… What did that look like practically for you?
BD. I am prone to just jump in and do. So, it was challenging to just stop and ask, but it was a fairly honest practical assessment of what could make my life count. And being an engineer is a great career and I believe that there's no separation of the sacred and the secular that you can be God's person whatever you do, but it just seemed to make sense that being involved in teaching, because everything I was finding myself drawn to was around teenagers with this Christian Surfer thing. Engineering was not going to have me primarily engaged with people at all. So, it just seemed to make sense that teaching would be a better option. I'd always wanted to be a carpenter. I was told at school I was too smart for that so I wasn't allowed to do wood work. I ended up doing the physics and chemistry and maths and all these high-end stuff going, all right, so, this is a way of going to university- but still doing wood work, that was appealing and the idea that it was a career more invested in people just made sense.
So, I'm just sort of weighing it all up going well this seems to make sense what do you think God and just being open-handed. At least I was willing to give up the thing that I had secured and then trust that God could just put me here and there and leave me along the way. I had some other friends who were also DNT teachers and they talked about the awesome holidays and the great times they’ve had which was really good as well. So, it was just like it’s a good lifestyle, but equally, yeah, it's just something that was going to give me more opportunity to invest in people, and I could see there was lots of skills around teaching that would be applicable to my longer term goal- which was if I get a shot at being able to invest my life in full-time Ministry directly why not? And teaching just seemed to make sense as a better career for that compared to engineering. For those engineers out there, no offense.
SAMMY. Shots fired. All these Christian surfing engineers out there going man, maybe I should re-evaluate haha.
BD. That's my story. There's plenty of teachers out there going maybe I should do that. But the bigger thing guys is just investing your life in the things that God could most use, and just being open for that to steer the direction of your life for the opportunities that God could must use. Trying to work out how God's wired you and shape you. Some people are not cut out to be teachers, and some people are really cut out to be engineers, or in the service industry, the people industry, some people are more in the technical industry. If God's wired you a certain way, I think God's will for you is how God shaped you, and some of that's just a good practical assessment internally as well as asking people externally, and then doing the spiritual stuff of asking God as well, but he tends to answer through your own self and your own spirit, and the input of others…
Part II TBC next week…