Episode 229 - Alpha Was Just the Beginning with Nicky Gumbel
Entrepreneurs are frontline ministers in the workplace.
As a pastor and the former Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, the largest Anglican church in Britain, Nicky Gumbel believes that it is his task to equip the saints for ministry in the places where they work and live. For the past 3 decades, Nicky Gumbel has pioneered the Alpha course, created as an introduction to the Christian faith primarily for non-churchgoers. The Alpha course has attracted hundreds of young people who otherwise had no interest in Christianity. It has been run in churches, prisons, government institutions, and workplaces around the world.
Nicky joins us at Faith Driven Entrepreneur to talk about uniting the church through the goal of activating believers and making the gospel accessible to all.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I am so excited about today's guest. Our guest is Nicky Gumbel. Nicky is Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, the largest Anglican church in Britain. And while his name may not be quickly recognizable, you more than likely have heard about some of his work. He is the pioneer of the alpha course. An introduction to the Christian faith now running all over the world. Since 1993, more than 15 million people have completed the Alpha course in 163 countries. There are over 7000 courses running in the UK and more than 44,000 worldwide across all denominations. Nicky has also written a number of bestselling books Questions of Life. The alpha course in book form has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. The booklet Why Jesus and its sister publication, Why Christmas, have sold more than 4 million copies. In 2007, Nicky received an honorary doctorate for his contribution to church life from the University of Gloucester. More recently, Nicky has written Bible in one year, a commentary that has been transformed into a smartphone app with over 3 million subscribers worldwide. We're excited to sit down with Nicky on today's episode to talk about how Alpha was just the beginning.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm here with William. We've got Nicky Gumbel in the house, which is a big deal for me.
Nicky Gumbel: It's so lovely to be with you all.
Henry Kaestner: So, Nicky, thank you. And one of the reasons there are lots of different reasons that this is a big deal for me as an entrepreneur, I love leveraging scale and what God has done through your ministry with Alpha is nothing short of awesome, but it's so funny. So we have one of the things that's always been important for us is family dinner. And I'd say half of our family dinners start off with Kimberley saying, well, you know, Nicky Gumbel said this today in the Bible one year, and my three teenage boys will roll their eyes. And then on occasion, she'll mentioned something about Pippa, too. Yeah, my boys think that is so funny because Pippa, of course, is a very British name. And so Nicky is a local celebrity in the house. And so it's a great honor for you to be here. And so, first off, thank you from my family, but then also on behalf of so many other people, because you've been able together with Pippin, I want to talk about that collaboration you have here in a second. But you have given us all an incredible service to make God's word. Well, on one level, God's word doesn't need help and coming alive. And yet you've done that. You've been able to provide context and a discipline around it that is super important. And so thank you. Anytime you can help somebody to get more in line with God's word and make it relevant. And as I was talking about this interview today, Kimberley said please ask him about how he's able to get these common themes every day. How do you do that? How are you able to put it together? Do you have some sort of like artificial intelligence, like computer program that allows it to kind of sort through? But every time you're able to find a common theme across wisdom, New Testament and Old Testament, how do you do that?
Nicky Gumbel: Well, I'm involved in one year. I started because someone in my alpha small group in 2006, so he did Alpha, his name is Ramez, he was a Goldman Sachs banker, and then he set up a private equity business and he came on Alpha and encountered Jesus. And he said to me, I'm trying to read the Bible, but I'm really struggling. Could you help me? So I said, Well, I do the Bible in one year and I will try and send you my comments every day. And then I thought, Well, why don't I send it to all our congregation every day? So we just started doing it in 2009. We started doing it every day and [Pip] did it as well, and they just called it paper ads. And so we sent it to the congregation. And the first year I just tried to find a common theme and I could only expense the Holy Spirit because each day I managed to find a common theme. And then one year I tried to find a story to start with that I wanted to find titles together. So I've done since 2009 and I'm still sort of developing it. So initially it was just for Ramez and then it was for our congregation, and then it became an app and then new version took it, and then people translate in different languages. And then to our amazement, it went all over the world. So and we're still developing. It changes every year. And I did it this morning. I've done it every day for since 2009. So, you know, now obviously now this week I'm thinking about Ukraine. So it's developed all the time.
Henry Kaestner: So it's incredible. And for those listeners who have yet to download the app and get involved with it, one of our favorite things is the way that you start off every day and you've got a story. And one of my favorites is you've got stories from Freddie Mercury and Madonna. So it's always culturally relevant. It comes in and really captures and sets up, sets the stage. My favorite one was one that you had recently talking about how you were brought in and commissioned to be a football referee and without structure. And I'm thinking as I'm reading this and want you to actually why don't you just tell just the brief lesson if you remember it. Now, I had known that you do a different one every year since the last 15 years. That's 15 times three. So that's a lot. So you may not remember this particular deal.
Nicky Gumbel: No no no It's not totally different. That story is a story about when my son was eight years old. So it's like that happened. He's now 42. So but the point of the story is it's in the one talking about boundaries that you will need boundaries in life and the boundaries that remove our freedom that actually set us free. So it's a story about a football match that I got press ganged into referee because my friend Andy Baskin was meant to be referee and didn't turn up and I didn't really know the rules of football. So there was absolute chaos and people start to get hurt. And then Andy turns up, blew the whistle, set where the boundaries were, and they had a great game. And the point is where they're more free. When I hadn't got a clue, there was no one in charge. There were no boundaries, actually, there was chaos and they didn't really enjoy it. But when there were boundaries and rules, actually they were more free. And the point is that because people think that, you know, God's rules, God's sort of guidelines for life removed, that freedom was actually they give us freedom because they're designed to make us have fun. And it's actually when people are committing adultery and killing each other, it's chaos. And that is not fun. But when people keep within the boundaries, then you can enjoy life to the full. It may sound boring, but actually it's far more exciting.
Henry Kaestner: So I could identify with that as so many of our audience can. And then I'm a father of boys, and I can imagine if I was pressed into being a referee and all of a sudden it just devolved into bedlam and kids getting hurt, the stress and the pressure. I would had and says, I'm reading the story. I'm thinking when Andy finally showed, he's late. I mean, did you feel like wringing his neck? I mean, do you have to repent of that way? How did that go?
Nicky Gumbel: No, I was so relieved. I was so relieved to see him. So that must have been nearly 25 years ago. But Andy is still a great friend, wonderful guy, and very good at refereeing football matches back in the day.
Henry Kaestner: Okay. Well, okay. Back to our regularly scheduled programing. One of the things we like to do with all the guests that we have on the program is to get an autobiographical flyover and tell us in the audience about who you are. Like myself and many folks listening to this, you're a bit of an adult convert. You came to faith at university, so just maybe touch on that, too. But who is Nicky Gumbel? And then later on, William and I are going to want to flesh out some of the things that I talked about at the beginning alpha scaling and then just lessons and encouragement that you might have for our audience of Faith driven entrepreneurs. But who is Nicky Gumbel?
Nicky Gumbel: Oky, so my father was Jewish and he was German, although I didn't discover that until I was 14. My mother took my sister and I for a walk and said, Your father is German and Jewish and you're never to speak about it and you'll never tell anyone. And so,
Henry Kaestner: Well here you are on a podcast. I mean, you want us to redact it?
Nicky Gumbel: So I waited until only in recent years I started to say, Wow, because in recent years. So both my parents are dead and I've discovered that my sister is happy for us to talk about it. And I started to discover about my family because I was contacted by a museum that was investigating some of my family and they sent me my family tree. And when I saw my family tree, I understood why my father was I think with him was suffering from post-traumatic trauma because I saw the concentration camps in which his family died. And it was horrific. They were murdered. They were tortured. They died in the most horrible way. And so he was traumatized. He was a lawyer in Germany, and he was stopped from practicing as a lawyer in 1933 because he was Jewish. He'd already seen what was coming and it qualifies it past. In England, he joined the Army in the war as a private in 1942. He was a lieutenant colonel by 1945 and now I have discovered interrogating senior Nazi officers who had the job of taking them out to dinner, apparently in London, to show them that actually London was not destroyed. And because he was German and German speaking. Anyway, I discovered all this about my father, but he was so he was an agnostic. My mother was not a church goers, she was also a barrister. They met on opposite sides of the case. And my mother didn't go to church. I wasn't brought up going to church.
Henry Kaestner: What was the case, there were in court?
Nicky Gumbel: I've no idea what the case was, but I know. It was in Chelmsford because they used to work Chelmsford Day, which is the day that they met. She was a pupil and he was on the other side. He was more senior to her and that's how they met. And my father was 49 when he got married. My mother was 36 and my sister's a QC. I mean, she's been a QC for 20 years, Queens Council, so she's a senior lawyer and I practice as a barrister for ten years. And then I encountered Jesus when I was at my first year at Cambridge University through reading the New Testament. It was like when I read the New Testament, it was as if the person I was reading about Jesus so emerged from the pages and I encountered him and it changed my life. And from that moment onwards, I wanted more than anything to pass that message on, because I knew the difference between living life without Jesus and living life with him . Jesus said, I came that you might have life and have it in all its fullness. And to me it's like the difference between, I don't know, black and white television color or a normal television HD or whatever analogy you like to use is the most loving thing I decided I could do with my life was to tell other people cause is loving to give them food and that's a really important thing and feed the hungry and to clothe those who need clothing and all that is part of what Jesus calls us to do. But the most loving thing that you could do, those permanent life changing, is to introduce them to Jesus. So that's what I wanted to do with my life. So I did ten years law, I left the bar in 1983. I visited Danger 1986 to 19 years as assistant pastor running Alpha around the world. And then the last 17 years I've been kind of like we call it the Vicar of Holy Trinity, Brompton, senior pastor there. And yeah, I love my life, but we've had a lot of fun. Married Pippa. We've got three children, three grandchildren, nine grandchildren. And I think I take my hat off to all the entrepreneurs because I think that is fun sort of starting things, seeing how they develop. That's an amazing, amazing, fun thing to do.
William Norvell: Well, speaking of that, I mean, Alpha has one of the greatest stories and how it's been circulating around the world. It keeps popping up all over the place. And I'll confess, I don't know the entrepreneurial story of where Alpha came from and how it came to be and how it found product market fit, for lack of a better way to put it. Could you tell us a little bit about the curriculum and where it came from and maybe what you've seen as it's continued to grow?
Nicky Gumbel: Well, I didn't start Alpha, it started in 1977 and it was a six week course for new believers. And then in 1982, when John Wilbur visited the UK, someone took it on and developed into a 15 session course with a weekend. And then Nikki Lee ran it for about five years and then I inherited it in October 1990. And what I found was this course, which was designed for people who were already Christians, was attracting a whole lot of people who were not Christians. So we changed the course and aimed it at people outside of the church. And at that moment it took off because in the UK there are so many more people outside the church than inside the church. So suddenly it started to grow. Other churches got interested, and by the time there was one within striking distance of everyone in the UK, we started to invite people. We put out an advert, an opportunity to explore the meaning of life starting soon at the church near you. And it was running in all the churches Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal. And the question was, what is it that everyone agrees about? Like the all the churches were running the same course that said you could go into a town or a city and you could see the Catholic Church offering it, the Salvation Army offer it, the Methodist Church, and they could put a joint advert in their local paper, Alpha an opportunity to explore the meaning of life starting soon in a church near you. And so it spread. And we did national initiatives every year, inviting the whole nation to come on the course and then it spread to other countries. And now I think it's in 169 countries, in 110 languages or something, and it's spread around the world.
Henry Kaestner: That must have been really attractive to folks that otherwise might see Christianity from the outside looking in, seen all this fragmentation, all this segmentation. But to see a newspaper advertisement that says you could go to a Catholic church. And so people that have a familiarity with the faith tradition, they can explore it. And boy, this is something that's inclusive. That must have been really, really attractive in part of your growth.
Nicky Gumbel: Yeah, I think Jesus prayed that we would be one in order that the world will believe. And if we're disunited, the church is not going to believe. I have a friend who's not a Christian, and he said to me, You know, you Catholics, you Protestants, you look the same to me. You will have churches. You say the Lord's Prayer. You do this thing with bread and wine, whatever it is you disagree about, and I've no idea what it is. It's got nothing to do with my life. But while you're arguing, I'm not interested. And I just thought that's it, there must be so many people out there who don't articulate that, but actually that's what they feel. And the reverse is true when everyone is united, that alpha opportunity to explore the meaning of life. Starting soon in the churches and all the churches are running in the town. People go, Wow, what is it everyone's agreed about? And that's what Jesus prayed that you may be one in order that the world will believe, the world won't believe unless we are united. So Alpha is in a way. I mean, C.S. Lewis called it mere Christianity, but it's like, what do we all agreed about? This is what we teach. But really, the course is an opportunity to explore. So it's not like presenting just the Christian faith. We do do that. But the second half is listening that we're listening. So people are in groups of ten or 12 people, and I'm a helper in a small group. So, you know, sometimes I'll of course, might have 50 small groups here, but most courses it might just be one small group, but a couple of hosts, a couple of helpers Pippa and I always help us. We're a 95th Alpha small group in a row, so we've been doing it for over 50 years and we just listen. And the principle is this there's a proverb which says, in the heart of every human being is a deep well. The wise person draws it out. So the task of a small group leader is to draw out from what is in every human heart as a well of wisdom and stories. And no one is boring. Everyone has. That's what it says. It's a deep well, and the skill is not to preach at them, but to draw out what they're thinking. And it's fascinating. Every time you're in this group that I'm in, the one person says, well, you know, I lost a child. That's why I don't believe, you know, I lost my child and I lost my mother in the same year. I just don't believe another person say well I do not believe because I was brought up in India. I saw all the different religions fighting each other. And you get this discussion. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating discussion. People talking and we never sort of say, wow, you know, the answer to that is three points. We just listen and they interact and we end up last night the same group. Everyone receive prayer, including the two people who said we're total atheists, but gradually they've got to know each other. Their stories have come out. They've grown to love one another. They become more open. And at the end of the course, they usually say, we might know what we do now as long as we stay together because they've made friends. Everyone is looking for three things. Everyone is looking for love. And you know, the good news is that the son of God loved me and gave himself to me that you are loved. And that's the message of the gospel from start to finish, you are loved. Second thing everyone is looking for is purpose. What's the purpose of my life? What's the point of my life? And the answer is we are created for a relationship with God through Jesus. And that's what they find. And then everyone's looking to belong. And that's what happens. By the end of the course, they formed a community and they say, Yeah, I've only been this group for ten weeks, but I feel closer to all of you than two friends I've had for 20 years. Because there's this community, this, this. Something about Jesus brings us closer together than in any other relationship.
Henry Kaestner: So we're going to do something on the podcast now that we've never done before, and it's very much off script, but I'm fascinated by what you're talking about and what we gonna do is this. So Faith Driven Entrepreneur is a ministry to serve Faith driven entrepreneurs, and every entrepreneur is about trying to solve a problem or lean into an opportunity. And ours is that we believe that Faith driven entrepreneurs are looking for a community, that it can be a very lonely journey to be a Faith Driven Entrepreneur, but it doesn't need to be. And there's an opportunity to come together in groups. Something we've only recently discovered. We're encouraged that we have something that William I think maybe 1600 people from 88 countries are going through these small groups like you have, and we're excited about it. And like you, we have these volunteer group leaders, but we are a distinct fraction and I hope that you're okay with me sharing this. But you guys, in 2000, I think we're well north of 500,000 people going through alpha courses like you. We want to distribute and are and have an intentionality about partnering with the local church as an entrepreneur, as you led this because you went ahead and you transformed it from something that's more of a discipleship to something that is an outreach. But as you've grown this and you scaled it, what is some of the entrepreneurial lessons that you've learned in partnering with the local church that might be an encouragement to us, or just some wisdom that you've learned? Because churches are a great distribution channel, it's a great institution, but it can be hard to partner with the church. And yet you've cracked the code.
Nicky Gumbel: Yeah, I mean, were are not a para church organization. So we just do it. It's like the Bible.
Henry Kaestner: Great answer. Just do it
William Norvell: Amen.
Nicky Gumbel: We do it for one person. I did it for one person in the Bible in one year and Alpha is the same. I'm in a small group for 95 courses in a row, and I do it for the people who are in that small group. And then it's just I think so often people think I'm going to try and reach 10 million people and they reach no one. But if you aim to reach one person, if you can reach one person, you can probably reach 10 million. But if you aim to reach 10 million, you won't reach anyone. So we just aim to reach the people that were in front of us.
Henry Kaestner: That sounds like Matthew 6:33.
Nicky Gumbel: So we aim to create something that works for the people that we have and we find it what you know. Then it works for like 50 churches, and once it works for 50 churches, it will work for everyone. And now I have traveled to 70 countries around the world, and I haven't found a single country where the same thing because people's needs of the same all over the world. I think it helps that we are a very diverse congregation. Our morning service here is 33% Chinese, 25% African. So it's a very diverse group of people that we're meeting. And the growth of it is about I mean, that's the easy bit really is the building, the infrastructure is something works. And if you find something everyone needs, then building an infrastructure is relatively easy. I mean, that's about finding good people, isn't it? Because I can't build an infrastructure, I can't building organization, but all you can do is [....] and every organization is the same. It's all about people. You find good people. You can delegate, you can trust them and let them go. If you don't find good people, you'll end up micromanaging and out of them actually micromanage your work. So it's about, first of all, you know, product, of course, and the gospel is the greatest product in the world because it's one that every human being needs. And then it's about finding good people. And we've been blessed by an amazing team of wonderful people. And as a pipeline, you how do you get it out? How do you get those people produce the pipeline that get it out to those different countries around the world? And we find people who set up offices in different countries. We have I don't know how many offices in the US alone, but the offices across the world. And then those offices, you've got to find good people to run offices. They've got to find good people to work for them. And then, yeah, that's it.
William Norvell: That's fascinating. Fascinating. And such an amazing entrepreneur story embedded in there. Right. You know, you built the product for one person. You had a great product, you scaled to the UK, then you scaled outwardly the you honed it in. And I just love hearing that. The couple of questions that are coming to mind to me are one, and I think they work together. I'm really curious with all the churches. I mean, I feel like I've been part of a church that broke up because of, you know, disagreements over what type of coffee to serve in the morning. Yeah, right. Much less, you know, theological issues or I don't know if it's a Nicene Creed. I don't know what it is that bonds people together and says we are unified. I agree with you. Disunity is just a plague on the big C church around. I'm curious, a two part question. One, what are those unifying principles that have brought people together that said, yes, we can all stand under that banner together. And then two as you grow an organization, how do you find great people that agree with those unifying principles? Because I assume now I don't know. I don't know if everyone on your staff is a believer or not or if you have others. I'm just curious how the staff was built and also what the unifying principles are that so many people all around the world have said yes to that, because I want to see that grow.
Nicky Gumbel: So there's someone who's influenced me a lot is a man called Father Raniero Cantalamessa. He's a Franciscan, a Capuchin monk, and six months ago, the pope made him a cardinal. So he went from being I didn't never went through all the stages. He just went because he being the preacher to the pope for the last 40 years, he's been preacher to the pope. John Paul, the second Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Francis, he's been the preacher.
Henry Kaestner: That's fascinating. There's a guy that preaches to the pope and has been doing it for 40 years.
Nicky Gumbel: Since 1980. Now 42 years, he's called. Now, in the last six months, Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa And he's absolutely brilliant guy and he's a great friend of ours. One of the things he says is what unites us as Christians is infinitely greater than what divides us. And so the things that unite us. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means to be a follower of Jesus. We all love Jesus. What does it mean? It means to be a child of God. We're brothers and sisters because we're all children of the Father. We all have the Holy Spirit living in us. So the Trinity unites us that is a right at the heart of. And those things are far more important than some sort of minor doctrinal differences. So we focus on what unites us. So what keeps people together? Purpose. So Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations. So evangelization. Is primary. That's what the Catholic Pope Paul the second have said evangelization is primary is preeminent. It's the most important thing. If you make evangelization primary, then you will be united. If you make anything else primary. You'll end up disagreeing. If you make unity primary, you'll end up fighting each other. But if you make evangelization primary, you have to be united because no one is going to believe if you're fighting each other. If you make renewal primary, you'll go on being renewed and renewed and you become likee the Dead Sea. You just get more and more filled and more more salty until you die. But if you make evangelization primary, then you have to be filled with the Spirit because Jesus said You will receive power and you will be my witnesses. If you make discipleship primary, you just fill your head with knowledge and you get faster and faster. But as John [...] said, the meters on the street, if you make evangelism primary, you have to grow in discipleship because no one is going to be interested unless you are full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, all the fruit of the spirit in your life. No one's going to be interested unless you're becoming more like Jesus. That's what attracts people. So if you make evangelism primary, you will have to grow. And if you are helping in an Alpha group or hosting an Alpha group, you'll be asked questions all the time and you'll then have to go and investigate. What is the answer to those questions? Not that you're going to give them in the small group, but at least you know what you're talking about. So if you make evangelization primary, you will grow in discipleship and you'll be united and you'll be filled with the spirit. But it's a common unity of purpose. 80% of our congregation spend 80% of their time in the workplace. So if all we're focusing on is the 20%, the time they spend on Sundays, we're missing most of their lives. And it's not relevant to where they are and what they're doing. So the workplace and I was a barrister for ten years, I understand what it means to be a Christian in the workplace. You know, it's tough. It's not easy and it's not easy in business. It's not easy in law. It's not easy in any profession to be a Christian. But you're on the front line and we who are like now. My job is I'm a pastor, so I'm on the back line. I'm supporting people on the front line. The task of us, the apostles, teachers, prophets, evangelists, is to equip the saints, the saints are all Christians for the work of ministry. The ministry happens in the workplace. You are the ministers, entrepreneurs are ministers, the ministers of the Gospel in the workplace. And it's not just that you do a job in order that you can give to the church and come to church on Sunday. But your work is your primary ministry. So yes, we want to equip people. So the Bible in one year is designed to feed people at the start of a day. So to help people to connect with God at the start of their day, it's more important to listen to God than to speak to him. So that's why I want to start the day reading the Bible. And then I pray because first of all, I want to hear what God has to say to me. So we want to equip people like that. We want to equip people to reach their friends with the good news. So Alpha runs in the workplace, Alpha runs in prisons and in the houses of Parliament and in the White House. It's run. It's run in every different context. It runs in number ten Downing Street. It's been run in the Cabinet Office. It's like this is this is a way that you can pass on the good news to your friends. But yeah, businesses have such power to make change. So one of my sons worked for IJAM International Justice Mission, which does a fantastic job around the world. But getting people out of slavery in the workplace or often actually business can do as much, if not more, by going in if you can create jobs. So much of the problems of the economic slavery of workplace, these brick kilns or whatever, comes from the fact that people can't get jobs that provide a decent wage. If you can create businesses where people can get good jobs and be able to feed their family, actually you can do as much just as any NGO does in I mean, what they're doing is basically coping with the casualties. But if you can avoid the casualties by creating business. So it's a bit like, you know, you can either have a program that helps people recover from divorce or you can invest in marriage. I mean, we need to do both, actually. Or you can have you know, if you're investing in your children, making sure that children have good education, they're much less likely to commit crime. But you can also have, you know, how do you help people who've leaving prison and so on. But what you really want to do is stop them going to prison in the first place. And so, you know, you take that same analogy. If you can create good jobs, healthy work conditions where there's justice and equality and, you know, there's the principles of the kingdom so that people are able to earn a living in a healthy way that is part of the kingdom of God. And it's prevention rather than cure. So there's so much that can be done through entrepreneurs in the business world that is part of the kingdom. It's doing the work of the kingdom. You know, it's dealing with issues of poverty, dealing with issues of justice, because where are the principles of justice worked out? How do we deal with racial injustice? Well, it's in the workplace through equality of opportunity, through intentional action. It's interesting. We do it. So I'm passionate about racial justice because, as I say, my father's family was a victim of racism. Anti-Semitism is a form of racism. And so I'm really passionate about racial justice. So what we saw, our congregation is very diverse, but the leadership was not. And we could get the lay leadership to be representative of the congregation relatively easy. But the clergy, we couldn't because in the Church of England, there's been so much injustice, has been the church was involved in the slave trade. Church of England was involved in the Windrush generation, turning people away because of the color of their skin. So people didn't want to get ordained in the church because they can't see anyone like them. So what we started doing was intentional action, recruiting so much talent trapped underground by racism, intellectuals, men, elitist. So we started recruiting people who were trapped, brilliant people who left school at 13, trapped by intellectualism. Some brilliant people brought up on what I think you call in the states projects, people who brought up in poor inner cities, brilliant, high IQ, not necessarily high educational standards, and then people trapped by race, people who, because of the color of their skin, didn't think they could go into church leadership in the Church of England. And we started deliberately recruiting them, and we found four absolutely brilliant ones. Next year we had 19. Now we have 70. And if it wasn't for the pandemic, we'd probably have about 250.
Henry Kaestner: That's very, very good. And as you're talking about that, it makes me think that there's one thing, another thing that uniquely equipped to talk about your unique spot where hundreds of thousands of people are coming through alpha courses every year. Well, more than half a million and a good number of them are business owners and entrepreneurs that don't yet have an act of faith. What is it about faith that gives us a new world and life view that shapes the character of our work, that is applicable to these men and women that come to Alpha who are already business owners but now have this new vision. You've talked about this a bit more on justice, but how is it that they might come to know God more fully? And how do they bring their faith in working? My hope, of course, is that this answer is going to be an encouragement to our audience that already know Christ. But how do you see that happening? People from Alpha don't yet have a faith. They do have a business. How are their lives changed as they have this new perspective of God and work?
Nicky Gumbel: I think as you start to have a relationship with God. Relationship with God is like any other relationship is built on communication. And as you start to pray, it affects your decision. David Suchet, who does the readings for the Bible in one year? You know, the readings by a very famous British actor, a Shakespearean actor, David Suchet, who reads those passages. He also is Jewish, and he encountered Jesus through a Gideon Bible in a hotel when he was traveling. And he was asked, what difference does it make for you as an actor? And he said, You know, when I'm invited to do a role, I pray about whether to accept it. Whereas before, the only question was how much? And, you know, there's a difference in perspective and there's certain roles he won't play now. So it affects the way you make decisions. And I think it affects the way that you run your business as well, because the principles you're going to run essentially love is the key. Now love doesn't mean you don't take tough decisions, but it means it's a different principle. It means that every human being is to be respected. And of course, if you follow the model of Jesus, it's the most effective leadership that you can have, because it's servant leadership. And increasingly, the world is recognizing that that is the most effective form of leadership, because people don't want to be in a sort of hierarchy like that. They want to be in something like that where the leader is empowering people who are empowering others, who are empowering others. And the people out on the island in, say, a retail situation, the people on the shop floor are supported by people. Ultimately, the leader of the organization. Is that the bottom? Not at the top. And that's the model of Jesus is servant leadership. You're there not for what you can get out of it, but how you can help other people. So Jesus is the greatest leader in any organization. So, I mean, actually, I actually think that being an alpha small group leader is the best leadership training you can get for anything in the world. So I interviewed Tony Blair, who was our prime minister one time. You may remember Tony Blair. I've interviewed him twice, once in our church, once at the Royal Albert Hall. And he said to me, Every small group is the same. Whether it's the Workingmen's Club or the G12, the G8, the G20 or whatever it is in every small group, there are people who are quiet and you have to draw them out. And the people who talk too much and you have to. So the skill of an alpha small group host is to draw out the guests, not to talk too much, but to draw out all the guests, the quiet ones, as well as the ones who talk too much. And to really draw out from that deep well that I was talking about earlier. Now, if you can do that, well, you will be able to run a board meeting. You'll be able to be chair of the board because you will draw out all the skills that are on your board. You will be able to be prime minister or president because you will be able to draw out from the Cabinet all the skill and wisdom that is in that room. You will be a listener. You'll be someone who listens and draws out skills of other people. The best leadership training you can do is to run a small group an alpha. And people have said so many people who've come on and alpha have ended up see as organizations because they've learned how to listen and how to draw out people's skills. And it's like it's Jesus. Jesus asked questions. He asked more questions than he said things, and he drew out what was in people. So there's so many overlaps between the Ministry of Jesus, encountering Jesus and running a business.
William Norvell: Hmm. That's a good pitch right there. So I think you're going to you might or might be flooded with a lot of FDE alpha small group leader. So just get prepared for that. Just hold tight. Prepare for that onslaught. Nicky, it's been so much fun to have you on here and talk through so many things. We always close our episodes with trying to bridge our guests and our listeners through the Word of God. And we can't think of someone more equipped to do that than someone who's in at least Henry and Kimberly's home every morning. But I'm pretty sure it's a lot more homes. That is the first Kimberly Kaestner request we've had on the podcast. I'm pretty excited about that. We love to see that. And so we would love to just invite you to tell us, you know, where does God have you today?
Nicky Gumbel: Okay. So I do the Bible in one year like this and I have to be about 17 days ahead. So I read a bit of a psalm, a bit of the New Testament and a bit of the Old Testament. So from the Psalm today, what I was really struck by is blessed are those who have regard for the week. The Lord delivers them in times of trouble. And I was really struck by that. The Catholic Church emphasized this a lot, but our calling is to the poor and to the weak and has to be a primary. And it goes on verse four all it's Lord have mercy on me, Lord heal me, for I have sinned against you. So I was thinking that's what I should be doing. But Lord, our goodness, I have sinned. I have failed in all those areas. So please forgive me. The New Testament. What I was strucked by is that there's this verse where Jesus says to them, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. And we've been talking about some very bad things that were being said about one of our wonderful, wonderful people here. And I just texted him with this verse for him and his wife by something horrible have been said about them. And this is the promise. Nothing will harm you. The bad things that are being said about you are not going to harm you. And then in the Old Testament, it's about the appointment of leaders, very relevant to everyone listening to this. And it's where Moses is told The Lord will increase you a thousand times and bless you. But how can I bear the problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself? Choose some wise understanding and respected men from each of the tribe. So in other words, he's told, You can't do this on your own, you've got to delegate. And in order to delegate, you've got to find the right people. And here are the tests. Choose people who are wise, understanding and respected. So when you guys who are listening, if you're looking to employ people in your companies, this is the test. Find people who are wise, understanding and respected. Those are the marks of a leader wisdom, understanding and respect. And then you've got a delegate. You've got to delegate to those people. But if you find the right people, you can trust them. And if you trust them, then you can release them and they can flourish. But it's all about choosing the right people.