The Founding Story of Christian Surfers
Brett Davis - founder of Christian Surfers shares how Christian Surfers came to be. And how ‘Living the Call’ all those years prior catalysed a global movement of surfers spreading the good news of Jesus in lineups around the world.
Brett Davis Cornulla. Circa 1978
The influence of one 16-year-old.
Geoff ‘Thommo’ Thompson was quite unique in my year at high school as he seemed to know what was true and right and had the ability to live it out, despite it being ‘unpopular’, even as unpopular as ‘Christian'.
I on the other hand, was completely absorbed with becoming a cool surfer and compromising whatever I was to fit this image. Thommo had one redeeming ‘cool’ attribute, and that was: he surfed!
A Christian surfer…..that was a species I had never encountered.
All the Christians I knew were decidedly ‘uncool’, boring and conservative, whilst all the surfers were cool, exciting and countercultural. The world of the church and the world of surf…..well, were worlds apart! Yet, here was a 16-year-old defying both cultures. He subsequentally became one of my best friends, and greatest influences.
The foundations of surfing for my life and identity were unravelling.
The swell would drop, the wind shifted, a manoeuvre not completed, a better surfer snubbed me and I was undone.
Brett Davis surf trip. Circa 1976
I was also observing that the great surfers I was aspiring to…..were not necessarily great people. Drugs and alcohol were rife, women not treated well, and surfing seemed selfish to the core.
Even as a 16-year-old, I was realising that just because you are great at something, does not make you great!
Then there was Thommo, pointing me to Jesus as a far superior foundation and source of life. It was his life, packaged in the surfing clothing, that was compelling me. The closer friends we became, the more confronting the contrast of the foundations of our lives.
It took just one person. One person to break the mould, bust the myth, help me see that maybe Jesus could be a surfer too and maybe this surfer could become a follower of Jesus, just like Thommo.
This one person changed the course of my life as he faithfully and honestly lived out his life as a Jesus-following surfer, and we are still friends today, some 50 years later.