I don't know what happens in 'normal' church over Easter. Since 1983 we have held our national leadership conference and it is a tradition that has continued. This year's 'National Gathering' as it is now known was so encouraging. India went up early with friends and Taylor flew up alone on the day before. This is probably the 'spiritual highlight' of the year for them. Gill and I attended just a couple of days as we are heading out to South Africa ten days later. How encouraging to see CS Australia going strong with over 200 people attending. The highlights for us included a great guest speaker, the Sunday morning paddle out forming a giant cross shape of surfers, so many new faces I had never seen before, passion for Jesus and a great National Team. Who would have thought this could have ever come to this when you considered our first National Conference in 1983. I have been writing up a history book of Christian Surfers and here is an extract from that first national gathering...
"How about we do a National Conference?"
I don't even remember who first said these words, but I do remember laughing out loud. Somehow combining something as organised as a 'national conference' with our raw 'Christian Surfers' mission seemed worlds apart. However, the appeal of having us all gathered together in the one place appealed and it was for me to follow up on this crazy idea with the other groups we were connecting with. "At least we can whip those Maroubra guys," said Hank still smarting after being beaten last expression session in a heat with them.
You have to remember that at this stage of things we were all aged between 19-25 and the national network was very sparse. We had not even personally met many of our contacts who had corresponded with via letter. However, it did seem futile to me to have us all independently developing the same needed resources and strategies. We became gripped with the idea that perhaps God was moving us to meet and maybe help us form some sort of national identity. The more this idea was floated past others the more it was affirmed.
Easter 1983 at Stanwell Tops Christian Conference Centre was set. We figured we needed more than a weekend for interstate surfers to drive and Easter always got good waves! I figured that unless we could prove we were serious about our mission, no one would treat us seriously enough to come along. Thommo drafted up the first ever conference brochure "Come and hear about what God is doing around Australia, meet some great people and surf some hot waves!" To try and get everyone there, I gave everyone a job and planned out every detail! If we were going do this, it was going to be done right! We agreed on excellence for this conference to show that Christians, even Christian surfers, could organise things as well as, if not better than any secular event.
As Easter grew near I grew more anxious. Was this really God's idea? Would they come? Who would really take this Christian Surfers seriously enough to invest the time and money? The conference centre called again to make it clear they were taking a risk with a group of surfers and I would be held responsible to pay for the whole centre at a peak booking time! I made phone calls all over the country. We sent reminder letters. We all prayed. It was like herding cats. Port Macquarie had a couple involved so we got the Hadfield's application first thanks to an organised wife. Then the Gold Coast crew sent theirs with some stickers about the Jesus Surf Classic. The Vic boys wrote, "The Mexicans are coming, Cronulla beware!" The Newcastle mob announced they would be there...and show the 'nulla boys how to surf! Coffs Harbour had no real idea who we were but sent one. One-by-one application forms came in. The week before Easter I opened a letter containing the application from Mick at Bondi - I couldn't believe it, one week out and that was EVERYONE! We had 40 surfers confirmed from every surfing ministry we were aware of. Not one was missing!
Good Friday came and one-by-one, ragged surfers and their equally ragged cars made the track to Stanwell Tops. They would be greeted by the Cronulla girls dressed as grandmothers of all things, it seemed like fun at the time?
"Mate, my kombie nearly karked it at Batemen's Bay and I'm using a heap of oil" said Grant Moresi joined by Peter Leonard, the Dell boys, Mal and the team from Melbourne.
"Greetings brothers, anyone got a spare finbox screw, my thread is stripped on this?" said Steve Bligh joined by Koala, Rob Lamont and team from Maroubra.
"Can anyone fix this rail ding, our occy strap broke and we lost a board at Taree?" said Geoff VanderVliet who had limped in from the Sunshine Coast.
"Hallelujah, praise God, lets pray and cast out any evil spirits from this anointed place!" says Kerry Ridley along with Brenton Osborne, Lestor Meadows and Pete Reidyke of Christian City Surfers.
"We got a bit lost through the city, I've never seen so many cars!" drawled Port Mac’s Luke Hadfield.
"Praise the Lord, did you see the lefthander down the end of the beach?" says Coffs Harbour's Ken Semmens.
"Hey Graveldick, what room you in?" teases Beek to Newcastle's Ian Sandecock
Finally we were able to draw all the loose threads together. We get to hear the journey of each. Some raised in conservative churches wanting to bust out. Some radically saved from drugs and alcohol. Some feeling misunderstood by their surfing community, some misunderstood by their beach community...some misunderstood by both! But all of us were feeling excited. This was a place we really did 'belong'. These were a people we felt connected with. The atmosphere was one of raw excitement. Most of us were under 25-years-old and full of energy. It was half high school camp, half mission conference, with surfing thrown in. Practical jokes ran wild as guys sought to out do one another. Andrew Dell's entire suitcase of clothing ended up hung out in a tree as I recall. There was busy competitiveness in the surf, with kneeboarders being the butt of our jokes, after all it was the 'pre-bodyboard era'. But be assured there was a very serious side to it all. Guest speaker was Richard Thackray, a former professional footballer from my church at Gymea Baptist and on staff with Student Life. Richard contrasted the world's view of the 'Messiah' vs God's view of 'Messiah' and how this should be reflected in our character and leadership particularly. I still recall this to this day. A full program was printed with talk outlines and graphic art resources included. Seminars were planned and prepared for all aspects of surf ministry.
Passionate worship, practical workshops, exciting reports. Here we were. Christians, surfers, with a common mission to the surfing community what could possibly go wrong, right?
.........wrong!
I was quickly alerted to the fact that whilst we did look like we had a lot in common, we were, in fact, very different. The first cracks showed when the organised morning prayer meeting attended by most was disrupted when it was discover that some Pentecostals had begun another prayer meeting at another time. I remembered seeing our Brethren brothers from Victoria with hands firmly in their pockets as Christian City’s Kerry Ridley danced up a storm in worship exhorting us to raise our hands. When we decided to go out beach witnessing in pairs to approach strangers, the Anglicans and other conservatives seriously doubted the validity of this and grumbled. Some of the Baptists enjoyed the odd hymn thrown in and challenged our worship leader to divert from the more charismatic choruses. His response was to bait them with, "Sure we can accommodate you Baptists, how about 'O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing'?"
Now the conference really began to fragment into various factions. We were all relatively young Christians who had been saved and raised in the one church tradition and knew nothing of others, except the typical caricature we had been fed by our culture. Some 'knew' that all Anglicans were dead in their liturgy and apostate in their infant baptism. Others 'knew' all Pentecostals were rabid, emotionally charged heretics. Still others 'knew' that anyone from the Uniting Church was liberal and misdirected with their social concern. I was in turmoil as the organiser. Some wanted more of this, others more of that. More Bible, less worship. Less program, more surfing. More structure, less structure. Some wanted me to stop the worship leader (actually some wanted to punch him), others wanted me to free him up more. Was there too much 'Holy Spirit' or not enough...surely that is obvious looking back now! But at the time - not."
"Groundswell - the Christian Surfers Story" will be released in October 2012. Stay tuned.
