Curate's course feeds a spiritual hunger

Alpha's Nicky Gumbel

By Victoria Combe,
Printed in The Daily Telegraph,
December 28, 2001

The Rev Nicky Gumbel, 46, has made a name for himself as architect of the Alpha course introduction to Christianity for agnostics, which began at the Church of England parish of Holy Trinity Brompton, Knightsbridge.

I say only three words, stand back and they have a life-changing experience.
Victoria Combe meets the evangelist who is drawing the young back to church.

He arrives for our interview on a well-worn apple green mountain bike. I love it. I absolutely love it when it's cold. He beams. He is a lean 6ft 3in with dense, wavy hair and deep-set eyes.

He cycles when he can, otherwise driving an ageing Nissan with coat- hanger aerial. Instead of clericals, he wears a button-down shirt over a T-shirt and faded navy trousers.

Thus attired, he may go unnoticed in the west London Christmas shopping crowd but Mr Gumbel's influence over the nation's spirituality is phenomenal. Since 1990 when he took over the course and revamped it, Alpha has grown at an astounding rate from five courses in 1992 to 7,287 in Britain and 12,600 abroad this year. In America, Alpha ran in 3,500 churches of all denominations this year.

Alpha is now in 130 countries and has been completed by one million in Britain and two million abroad. Somehow he has rebranded Christianity and made it a label people - and particularly young people - want to wear.

It has been acknowledged by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, the Bishop of London and the late Cardinal Hume as a powerful tool at work in the Christian Church.

Mr Gumbel now has more staff than Dr Carey, with 64 working solely on Alpha in offices built in the grounds of Holy Trinity, known as HTB. His books and videos have been translated into Japanese, Russian, Chinese and all European languages. He has helped Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced Tory minister, Samantha Fox, the former Page Three girl, and Geri Halliwell, the pop singer, to faith. Behind these achievements, is a rather shy and cheery priest who gives all the credit to the Holy Spirit.

It is not a personality thing. Alpha can run in Poland with a Polish speaker. The key is the Holy Spirit.

I say the prayer 'Come Holy Spirit' and stand back. Then people have a profound and life-changing experience. All I do is say three words. I can't take the credit and I can't take the blame.

Alpha has a simple format easily replicated in churches of all denominations. It starts with a pasta supper and a sing-song of modern hymns.

There are 15 talks - or videos of Gumbel - on subjects such as Who is Jesus?, How does God guide us?, How can I resist evil?. Then coffee and 40 minutes of discussion in small groups.

In the middle of the course is a Holy Spirit Weekend in the country where many students have an experience of God and are converted. This year Mr Gumbel offered transport back to HTB on Sunday for new converts wishing to be baptised. For him, 2001 has been extraordinary. For the first time in 11 years, HTB ran the course on two evenings to accommodate demand. It drew 1,500 applicants, most aged between 18 and 35.

...People like the fact that the same course runs in a Catholic, Baptist or Pentecostal church.

Mr Gumbel said: We have discovered there is a huge spiritual hunger among the very people who are not going to church. We need to find ways of answering this need. Alpha is popular because it is informal, there is no pressure, and it is not sectarian.

Young people like the fact that the same course runs in a Catholic, Baptist or Pentecostal church.

The appeal shows up strongly in the 130 prisons which run Alpha. Some have waiting lists of six months for inmates wanting to learn about Jesus.

After-care is offered by 1,000 churches which run a ministry for those who have done Alpha. Parishioners meet them at the prison gates on release, help find them a home, a job and a church.

Alpha has been attacked for being too simplistic and promising people undiluted happiness if they convert. It is also viewed as a match- making club for the smart set who fill HTB's car park with their Mercedes, TVRs and Ferraris.

HTB is rich and can afford to contribute £31 million a year to running Alpha. The other £32 million needed for the whole Alpha operation is donated by charities, trusts and businesses. A proportion are well-off professionals, admits Mr Gumbel, an Old Etonian and graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. This is partly due to HTB's location.

But the prison ministry is gradually changing the profile of Alpha graduates. We are endorsed and supported by the leaders of all the main Christian denominations. Anyone who has done the course would not make these charges. Unlike Billy Graham, Mr Gumbel does not relish the limelight. He seeks to be no more than a curate and lives on a curate's stipend, topped up by royalties from his books.

His three children have been educated on money inherited from his parents. His mother was mayor of Kensington and Chelsea and his father a barrister. Neither was a churchgoer.

Part of Mr Gumbel's success is his understanding of the unchurched. He was an atheist until he was 18 and his conversion sprang from a desire to rescue two friends from church.

As an undergraduate in law he set about reading the New Testament with a view to proving it wrong. A day or two of that changed him. After 10 years at the Bar, he was ordained in 1986.

He would find life intolerable without his wife, Pippa. I couldn't do it without her. She is my best critic and I go through every talk with her first. Most mornings they pray together. Mr Gumbel begins the day on his knees, Bible open in his hands. I ask the Lord to speak to me.

One of his strengths is that he accepts that much in life is unaccountable. The closest he came to a crisis of faith was when one of his friends died of a heart attack while they were playing squash, leaving six young children. I don't understand why this happened. It was hard. I had to say to the Lord, 'I'll continue to trust you'.

Victoria Combe writes for the Daily Telegraph in London