Who are the people in the 'Alpha 60 second Ad'?
 The new Alpha USA homepage features the people in the popular "60 Second Ad" being shown in churches and theaters to promote the Alpha course. Here is a little bit more about who they are and what they say about the course.
Click here to download the ad
Linvoy Primus - soccer player
Kim Johnson - model
Bear Grylls - adventurer and TV celebrity
Nicky Gumbel - pastor at the church where Alpha started
 Linvoy Primus
Born in London, Linvoy joined Charlton Athletic from school as a trainee footballer in 1990 and transferred to Barnet in 1994. Three years later he moved to Reading before joining his present club, Portsmouth, in July 2000.
Portsmouth won promotion to the Premier League in 2003, and Linvoy has been one of the club’s most consistent and dependable performers gaining rave reviews for his performances at the highest level against such eminent strikers as Michael Owen, Ryan Giggs and Thierry Henry.
Linvoy won a national award as the Professional Footballers Association Fans’ Player of the Year in 2003 as well as countless Player of the Year awards from the several Portsmouth supporters groups.
31-year old Linvoy is a devout Christian and went on an Alpha course in the spring of 2002. He co-founded the charitable movement ‘Faith & Football’ which has set up community football leagues in both Portsmouth and Birmingham for underprivileged children.
Linvoy said:
‘The Alpha course was great. There were about 15 of us and we met in a home. It covered a lot of things – the whole range. We were all at different stages but we all grew. We have continued as a house group ever since.
‘Since then, I have spoken at a couple of Alpha dinners, including one at the football club at Portsmouth. The churches invited groups who were thinking of doing Alpha courses to the ground and we had a big dinner. ‘I just let them know that I had done Alpha and what I got from it. God is everything. He’s the pinnacle. Obviously you do worry because things pop up every single day but I hand it over to God.
On the cinema advert he said ‘I was more than happy to help. This is outreach and God wants outreach’. I just hope that it catches people’s attention and even if they don’t come along [to Alpha], they know that there is an opportunity to know God – not in a church building but in another environment. As long as it makes an impact in some way, that’s the main thing. We can’t do anything. It is God that does it all. We can only do the pointers and pray that God does the rest.’
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Kim Johnson
Kim, 19, has been modeling for three years having been first spotted on Model Behavior for Channel 4. Her credits include: Nicole Farhi show; Vivienne Westwood show; Paul Costello show; Jasper Conran show; Elle magazine; Glamour magazine; Placebo music video.
Her modelling career will be taking her to New York and Milan soon. She hopes to embark on presenting or acting in the future.
In 2004 she attended the Alpha course at Holy Trinity Brompton. The course helped her with her Christian faith and introduced her to the church.
Kim said:
‘When I was asked to do the Alpha cinema ad I was delighted. I loved doing the ad and I hope it reaches as many young people as it possibly can and that people will come on Alpha as a result. It's a wonderful course.
Many young people need direction in their lives today and I believe that the Alpha course can really help them’.
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 Bear Grylls
Bear is one of the most well known and successful young adventurers in the world. At just 23 years old, he became the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest.
In August 2003, he led the first crew to cross the Atlantic via the Arctic Circle in an open rigid inflatable boat. In September 1997, he became the youngest Briton to climb Mount Ama Dablam in the Himalayas (22,500 feet), a peak described by Sir Edmund Hillary as ‘unclimbable’ this year. Since September 2006, he has been filming a wildly succussful American TV series called "Man vs. Wild".
Bear is one of only thirty British climbers to have successfully returned alive after climbing Everest. His natural talent for communicating and entertaining on all levels with everyone and anyone has made him a popular personality in his own
right.
Bear went on an Alpha course during the year 2000 at Holy Trinity Brompton with his wife Shara.
Bear said
‘I have always struggled with the religious side of Christianity and I think I still do to quite a large extent. I find church often quite daunting and people smiling too much. That has always put me off faith.
‘Alpha was a real relief to find that actually the baby is a hell of a lot better than the bath water and actually faith isn’t smiling and polite. It’s very raw and very painful sometimes but very forgiving. I think what I hungered after in my life was to be held and to be forgiven and to be understood and I think that is what I found on Alpha.
‘I found that you didn’t have to be together, you didn’t have to be sorted, you didn’t have to be perfect. It was OK if you swore or needed a cigarette suddenly.’
Of the advert, Bear said ‘I think they have done it in a really clever way. It says you can stuff as many things you like in to this gaping hole we all have but we all need something more…
‘That is a strong message when we live in this world that sees other stuff as everything. Alpha is a way for people to explore what we really hunger after – which is meaning and intimacy and relationship.’ |
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 Nicky Gumbel
Nicky Gumbel is vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, a church of England church in central London. He studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1973-1975, and practiced as a barrister from 1977-1983.
In 1983, he went to Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, to read theology (M.A. Cantab, M.A. Oxon) and to train for ordination in the Church of England. He joined Holy Trinity Brompton as curate to Sandy Millar in 1986. He took over the running of Holy Trinity Brompton's Alpha course - a practical introduction to the Christian faith - in October 1990. The course grew rapidly and attracted wide interest. The first Alpha conference was held at Holy Trinity in May 1993 and in 1996 the Bishop of London appointed Nicky as an 'Alpha Chaplain'.
More than 178,000 church leaders have been trained to run Alpha courses, which are now running in 153 countries. There are over 7,300 courses running in the UK and over 31,000 world-wide. 80% of the prisons in the UK are now running Alpha. An estimated 6.7 million people have completed the course world-wide.
In 1998, Alpha extended an ‘invitation to the nation’, inviting the whole of the UK to attend an Alpha course. Similar national initiatives took place in 1999-2004 and another is set to take place during September 2005. Sir David Frost presented a 10-part series on Alpha for ITV in autumn 2001.
Nicky Gumbel has written several books. Questions of Life - the Alpha course in book form - was published in 1993 and contains the complete set of Alpha course talks. It was declared ‘Christian Book of the Year 1994' at the Christian Booksellers' Convention and has reprinted 26 times. The evangelistic booklet Why Jesus? and its sister publication Why Christmas? have sold more than four million copies.
Nicky speaks regularly at national and international Alpha conferences. He is married to Pippa. They live in South London and have three children, Henry, Jonathan and Rebecca.
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