For Many Surfers, Fellowship Is Pipeline to Deeper Spirituality

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For Many Surfers, Fellowship Is Pipeline to Deeper Spirituality

By Matt Sedensky
Associated Press
Saturday, August 2, 2003

For Many Surfers, Fellowship Is Pipeline to Deeper Spirituality

HONOLULU -- As the white-tipped wave melts into the ocean, the surfer's rush of adrenaline gives way to other feelings. Some who ride the walls of water are making an unexpected discovery at that moment: They are finding God.

Around the world, a growing number of surfers are taking those feelings and using the ocean as a pulpit from which to preach their faith.

"Surfing is the most spiritual thing that you can do," said Rabbi Nachum Shifren, who lectures on the surf-soul connection. "You're out in the water, you're by yourself, you're out there in God's creation. It's like being in the womb."

Such messages of spirituality in the surf give deeper meaning to the search for the perfect wave.

Each week across the country, surfers assemble in dozens of Bible study groups. They are organizing mission trips in the Caribbean and Kosher surf camps in Costa Rica. They've even seen the introduction of their own Bible, including a full-color cover with shots of big waves and profiles of surfers inside, a surf gear line called Faith Riding Co., and the Surfer's Chapel in Huntington Beach, Calif.

"Surfing has always been kind of a more spiritual" activity, said Army Chief Warrant Officer Glen Spence, a surfer in Hawaii. "It's only natural for the two to meet up."

Christian Surfers, an international organization that started in Australia more than 20 years ago, has flourished recently in the United States. Two years ago, nine chapters served about 450 members. Today, 28 groups from Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to Pensacola, Fla., to Hawaii, have a total of about 1,400 members. The organization tallies thousands of surfers elsewhere, too, in such surfing hot spots as Japan, South Africa and Venezuela.

In all the groups, the mission is to minister to other surfers and get them to join a local church.

"For a lot of surfers, the whole concept of church is off-putting," said the Rev. Bill White of the Surfer's Chapel, where services are held Saturday nights so they don't interfere with morning waves.

Surfers are sometimes skeptical of organized religion, he said, but they can be swayed by a community of faith made up of fellow wave riders. "Nobody thinks anything of an Armenian church or a Hispanic church or a Samoan church," White said. "I feel that surfers identify with surfing as much as any ethnic group identifies with their ethnicity."

Last year, Christian Surfers chapters in the United States recorded 1,071 conversions -- surfers who accepted Christ for the first time as a result of the group's efforts. In addition, nearly 400 fallen-away Christians across the country returned to their faith last year because of Christian Surfers, the organization said.

Among the converted is Jake Gomez. A year ago, Gomez used drugs and considered himself an atheist and a surfing bad boy. He got involved in a surf club, and when he was invited by other members to join their Bible study, he decided to try it.

"I wouldn't have met the people who helped me change my life without this," said Gomez, 18, before competing in a Christian Surfers amateur surf contest. "We're out here to bring the word of God to the people without preaching."

"Surfing has grown up a lot over the years," said Wayne Ryan, who runs a Christian surfing group in Sydney. "The beautiful thing is that over the years, we've seen thousands of kids' lives change."

Formal ministries to surfers began in the 1970s in Australia, where such efforts are still strongest. By 1987, Christian Surfers arrived stateside, slowly generating a following in beach communities.

The idea is for surfers to hear about faith from someone they can believe and trust -- another surfer.

"We see surfing as a subculture," said Chandler Brownlee, a Baptist minister who heads Christian Surfers from his home in St. Augustine Beach, Fla. "We want to be a bridge from the beach to the church."

Others are less emphatic about using surfing as a means for evangelization, instead emphasizing the sport's natural spirituality.

"It's kind of a yin-yang kind of thing," said Shifren, who wrote "Surfing Rabbi" and is host of what's billed as the world's only kosher surf camp next month in Costa Rica.

"In order to find true happiness and true contentment, you have to work," he said, referring to the exhausting paddling that surfing requires as a metaphor for one's spiritual journey.

"You connect to purity when you surf," added Alon Maor, a Jewish surfer who prays before surfing each morning in Hawaii. "You feel God's energy."