Phil Williams
What happens when a lifelong passion for surfing becomes a story about faith, community, service and the people we meet along the way?
For Phil Williams, the answer is My Place in the Lineup, a new book reflecting more than 45 years of involvement in surfing and more than three decades serving the surfing community through Christian Surfers UK.
Featured on the Publish U podcast, Phil spoke about the experiences, people and faith that shaped his journey—and why he ultimately decided that these stories were worth putting into a book.
Phil Williams has been surfing since he was around 18 and has spent more than four decades involved in the UK and international surfing community. Over those years, surfing has taken him to 25 different countries, from the warm waters of Indonesia to the icy conditions of Iceland and Norway.
One of his favourite surfing destinations is Jeffreys Bay in South Africa, while Iceland and Norway hold a particular fascination because of their extreme conditions. Phil recalls surfing in water temperatures reaching as low as minus one degree.
But for Phil, surfing has never been simply about riding waves.
It has been about people.
The surfing community has provided friendships, experiences and opportunities to connect with people from very different backgrounds. That sense of community became particularly important through Phil's involvement with Christian Surfers.
For around 32 years, Phil served with Christian Surfers UK, a missions organisation that works alongside mainstream surfing and surfing communities.
His role allowed him to combine several of the things that matter most to him: surfing, faith, people and service.
When he transitioned from his leadership role in August 2025, people began telling him that he had accumulated too many stories to allow them to disappear.
Those conversations planted the seed for My Place in the Lineup.
Phil initially wondered where he would even begin. But after connecting with Publish U in late 2025, the writing process began on 4 January 2026.
What started as an idea quickly became a finished book.
One of the biggest challenges Phil faced was not learning how to write a book. It was overcoming the question of whether his story was worth telling in the first place.
Like many first-time authors, he experienced a form of imposter syndrome. These were his experiences, after all. Would other people actually find them interesting?
As the writing progressed, however, encouragement came from unexpected places. People involved in his life and in the publishing process repeatedly reminded him that the stories mattered.
That encouragement helped him keep going.
The result is not simply a book about Phil Williams. In his own words, it is also a "God story" because faith runs throughout the narrative.
Although surfing provides the backdrop for My Place in the Lineup, you don't need to be a surfer to enjoy the book.
Phil deliberately wanted the book to reach beyond the surfing community. His hope was to create something that could speak to people whether they surfed or not, and whether they shared his Christian faith or not.
Rather than writing a book that simply tells readers what they should believe, Phil wanted faith to emerge naturally from his experiences.
The result is a blend of personal stories, surfing adventures, community experiences and reflections on faith, hope and relationships.
The book begins chronologically, following Phil's life and surfing journey. Later, when his involvement with Christian Surfers became full-time volunteering, the structure moves towards themed chapters.
Together, those stories create a picture of a life shaped by people, places, faith and the surfing community.
The title of the book carries a deeper meaning.
In surfing, the "lineup" is the area beyond the breaking waves where surfers wait for their turn to catch a wave.
For Phil, however, the lineup represents much more than a physical place in the ocean.
It represents community.
It asks a simple but meaningful question: Where is my place among the people around me?
That question became increasingly significant as Phil worked on the book. It also influenced the cover, which features a photograph of him surfing in Bali.
Interestingly, Phil originally assumed that a photograph of himself would be perfect for the cover. Someone challenged him by pointing out that potential readers might not know who he was.
That moment helped him recognise something important: the book was no longer simply his personal collection of memories. It was going out into the world for people who had never met him.
At the heart of My Place in the Lineup are three themes Phil repeatedly returns to: faith, hope and community.
His faith is deeply personal, shaped in part by growing up as the child of missionary parents in Nigeria, but the book isn't intended to be exclusively for Christians.
Instead, Phil hopes readers will find something meaningful in the stories regardless of their own beliefs or background.
Ultimately, My Place in the Lineup is about far more than surfing. It is about discovering where we belong, the people who shape our lives, the communities we become part of, and the faith and hope that can carry us through changing seasons.
For Phil Williams, surfing has provided the setting for more than 45 years of stories. Now, through his book, those stories can be shared with a much wider audience.
And perhaps the question at the heart of the book isn't only "Where is my place in the lineup?"
Perhaps it is also: What will you do with the place you've been given?
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