TV Gladiator Star finds Jesus and becomes Vicar

In this powerful episode of the Jesus Studio Podcast, we sit down with Warren Furman, known to many as "Ace" from the iconic TV show Gladiators. Warren shares his incredible journey from a challenging upbringing in Essex to becoming a household name on one of the UK's biggest television shows. But this story goes beyond fame and fortune; Warren opens up about his deep spiritual search, the struggles of maintaining his identity in the public eye, and how an encounter with faith and finding Jesus transformed his life.

Listeners will hear Warren's candid reflections on the fleeting nature of fame, his battles with body image and substance abuse, and the moment he found true peace and purpose through Christianity. This episode is a must-listen for anyone grappling with questions of identity, purpose, and faith, offering hope and insight into the transformative power of God's love.

Whether you're curious about the Alpha Course, exploring spirituality, or simply a fan of Warren's Gladiators days, this episode has something for you. Join us as we delve into a story of redemption and faith.

Subscribe, listen, and be inspired by Warren's remarkable testimony.

Guest Links:

Warren Furman

Ace Active:
https://aceactive.org
Contact:
ace@aceactive.org

https://www.instagram.com/aceactiveministry

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Transcript

Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker 1
You're listening to the Jesus Studio podcast.
00:00:04 Speaker 2
Was a real rags to riches story from now on in really because I went from, as I say, being homeless on paper and having nothing. You know, I've literally never had any money just to build down down money was coming in to being on this biggest show on television and being one of its stars.
00:00:23 Speaker 2
And.
00:00:25 Speaker 2
And I remember the first experience of that for me was they sent a stretch limousine to the YWCA in Harlow that picked me up, and it took me to Heathrow airport, where I met all the other gladiators, wolf and jet, and lightning and rhino.
00:00:42 Speaker 2
And they flew me first class, Air Mauritius to Mauritius, obviously to the Gladiators training camp. I remember lying on the beach in Mauritius just looking up at the stars on a clear night, you know, here in the sea, lapping and thinking.
00:00:55 Speaker 2
But it's definitely gotta be more. I mean, look, look at the universe. Look at the stars in the sky. And why would I just be laid on the beach? My dad works like a dog. He's never experienced anything like.
00:01:05 Speaker 2
So here I am.
00:01:13 Speaker 4
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Jesus studio. I'm ash and I'm here with.
00:01:18 Speaker 3
Jim, good morning.
00:01:20 Speaker 4
And we are here today with Warren, who is an ex gladiator. So my children very excited about this, aren't they?
00:01:27 Speaker 3
Yeah, that would be exciting. That was fun.
00:01:27 Speaker 4
The girls were.
00:01:28 Speaker 4
Buzzing that that we have Ace who used to be Ace and the gladiators with us and and yeah, Warren, introduce yourself to us.
00:01:37 Speaker 2
Uh, hi Ash, hi, Jen. Yes, I'm one. I'm an OG gladiator.
00:01:42 Speaker 2
Or classic gladiator, but oh Gee, apparently. And but they, well, they say original gladiator. But I say old gladiator, I mean, it's been 25 years since I was on that show, but I'm loving the fact that it's enjoying a comeback. And I'm loving the fact that young, young people are enjoying it. Your kids, you're telling.
00:01:43 Speaker 3
Even better.
00:01:59 Speaker 2
Me. You're enjoying?
00:02:00 Speaker 2
It yeah. Yeah. And and and it's getting.
00:02:02 Speaker 2
Families back together, you know, and enjoying the the sort of the communal family again, rather than sitting on their tablets and their iPads in separate rooms. Yeah, we come into their own. We champion on champion on healthy competition, which can only be a.
00:02:04 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:02:14 Speaker 4
Good thing. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
00:02:17 Speaker 4
Warren, we'd love to hear your stories. So from the beginning, would you be have to share share?
00:02:22 Speaker 3
It to us. To you.
00:02:23 Speaker 2
Okie Doke so.
00:02:26 Speaker 2
I grew up one of five brothers. I was born in Doncaster.
00:02:34 Speaker 2
But I actually grew up in Essex. My dad was a a a roof Tyler. He was a hard working Ruth Tyler.
00:02:41 Speaker 2
And he had some sayings, actually, one of those was work. Was it work hard, play hard.
00:02:49 Speaker 2
And he said skills pay the bills and he said dirty hands mean means clean.
00:02:55 Speaker 2
Clean money. So. So my dad really had plans for us from the beginning, me and all our brothers that we would all grow up and be ruthless just like him.
00:03:04 Speaker 2
And you'd say, like the secret to a happy life is to is to work hard. But that's actually not what I saw at all.
00:03:11 Speaker 2
My dad was the most honest hard working person that that I knew, and yet we were pretty much poor. We wasn't in poverty. But if it rained.
00:03:20 Speaker 2
Yeah, being self-employed as well, there's sometimes not work, but we were always skinny and mum and Dad seem to be.
00:03:26 Speaker 2
Always be wowing.
00:03:28 Speaker 2
And the problem seemed to me like it was money. So.
00:03:31 Speaker 2
I was like, I don't.
00:03:32 Speaker 2
Want to be a roofer?
00:03:34 Speaker 2
And Dad used to take us to work at the weekend and stuff and in school holidays. And I've gotta say, I hated roof tiling. It was just such hard work climbing up ladders. Back then you had to carry the tiles on your shoulders and I was a skinny kid out and my brothers, I was sort of picked on. Not in a not in a bad way, but with there was a lot of rough and tumble, but you know.
00:03:54 Speaker 2
Was the the the lightest of us, the skinniest?
00:03:57 Speaker 2
And the job just didn't seem for me, and it was very poorly paid. My dad just wouldn't pay it. So there's no pay. I thought. I don't want to be.
00:04:06 Speaker 2
Doing this so I also observed that.
00:04:12 Speaker 2
This work hard play hard, was great to begin with. You know, mum and Dad seemed to live for the weekend.
00:04:18 Speaker 2
Where they let their hair down.
00:04:19 Speaker 2
Have a few glasses of wine.
00:04:22 Speaker 2
And that seemed like fun to begin with, but then one of my brothers died, and he was he was a baby baby brother, youngest brother. And when he died, everything changed. So Mum used to say good night. God bless. We didn't go to church or anything like that, but there was definitely a mention of God in our house.
00:04:40 Speaker 2
But when he died, that mention of God's stopped, and I remember asking mum, why don't you say, you know, God bless anymore. And she said there is no God. If there was a God your brother brother wouldn't have died. And that made perfect sense to me.
00:04:57 Speaker 2
But also what I noticed happened there as well was because they got angry with the God that.
00:05:02 Speaker 2
They didn't know.
00:05:04 Speaker 2
Instead of going for a grieving process, they went to the doctors and the doctors prescribed. I didn't know this at the time that the the doctors prescribed antidepressants.
00:05:15 Speaker 2
And opioids and start to take away the pain because they just weren't dealing with this very well at all. You know, with all these other kids, mum and dads were were really young back then, you know, they would probably been still in their teens themselves.
00:05:28 Speaker 2
So that weekend party got really dysfunctional and our family nearly broke down. It didn't quite, but it nearly did. But but as I say, we got really dysfunctional. We would literally.
00:05:39 Speaker 2
We would lose.
00:05:41 Speaker 2
Mum and dad at the weekend, we.
00:05:43 Speaker 2
We became like.
00:05:44 Speaker 2
Fair. They just got wasted and we didn't know what was happening. We would just like, we'd be like, well, one minute they're having a drink and everything.
00:05:50 Speaker 2
Seems.
00:05:50 Speaker 2
Great. Next minute they're arguing and fighting. Next minute they're passed out.
00:05:55 Speaker 2
And it just became a real chaotic.
00:06:00 Speaker 2
Unhappy childhood, really.
00:06:03 Speaker 2
But growing up back then, you know it was an MTV culture, a consumer culture, celebrity culture, like we've got now.
00:06:11 Speaker 2
And so I look to that. You know, your parents are your biggest influence. I've been told there was no God. You know, I learned that people die. So I was like, well, what is the point that, you know, you you're born into this world. What for? So I had these existential questions.
00:06:25 Speaker 2
For me, young.
00:06:27 Speaker 2
A young age and so I consume that celebrity culture. Back then, mussels ruled the world. It was, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
00:06:39 Speaker 2
And Schwartz Schwarzenegger was the highest paid movie star in history.
00:06:44 Speaker 2
And I was like, I'd watch this movies. I don't want to be disrespectful, but I thought he's not being paid for his acting ability here. It's obviously the muscle. So I just thought to myself, I've gotta go to the gym and get muscles. And of course, for me, I thought.
00:06:59 Speaker 2
You know, if I could look like Arnie, I wouldn't get picked on anymore either.
00:07:03 Speaker 2
And then again, you know, in a godless world, the world don't really make any sense. So I was watching things like David Attenborough, you know, his, his nature programmes and I could see that we live in a world where the strongly the weak, you know, the lion is the king of the jungle, he gets to eat everyone else's expense. And I.
00:07:21 Speaker 2
Could see this is what was happening with Army and.
00:07:23 Speaker 2
And Rambo and you know in Rocky only spawn. So I'm like, this is what this is what I've gotta do. I've gotta go to the gym and I've got to start looking like these guys. So that's what.
00:07:31 Speaker 2
I did start.
00:07:32 Speaker 2
Going to the gym, I didn't have any money to go to gym, used to climb over the squash court, climb under a fence, sneak in the gym, get kicked out, and then just go straight back round and sneak.
00:07:42 Speaker 2
In again and I think they just gave up in the end.
00:07:44 Speaker 2
My local sports centre. I thought they I think they just know these kids, desperate to be in this gym so.
00:07:50 Speaker 2
I'd start training and.
00:07:51 Speaker 2
And eating all the food that I.
00:07:54
And.
00:07:54 Speaker 2
My dad got a bit concerned about it in all honesty, because he just didn't understand this bodybuilding mentality, you know?
00:08:01 Speaker 2
He was very much like anything that consumes without producing, he would say sales.
00:08:07 Speaker 2
And you're consuming everything out of the fridge and the cupboards and you're producing nothing. Your brothers are coming to work at the weekend. They're bringing money into the house. They're helping to contribute. And what you're doing, you've got some weird deluded dream that you're gonna be a movie star and you telling me you wanna be Mr Universe? I've seen more meat. Or an Oxo, Sir.
00:08:26 Speaker 2
On an oxide cube and I was like he really tried to put me off and I remember at that time as well, he did come into our bedrooms and, you know, as all boys in the house, we all have posters on the wall back.
00:08:38 Speaker 2
Then there was.
00:08:38 Speaker 2
A shop called a few you know.
00:08:40 Speaker 2
And you.
00:08:40 Speaker 2
Could buy these different posters and and my brothers and have like Kylie Minogue on the wall. My dad was a very traditional.
00:08:46 Speaker 2
And you know, have a brother Madonna on the wall, you know. And he come into my room and every pictures of men covered in oil in their.
00:08:52 Speaker 2
Don't, don't, don't close. It would be like. I don't know what's going on here so, but I've not liking it and said this is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Daddy. And he said, listen, I'm not going to enable this delusion anymore. He said he for you, you have a job by the time you leave school, he said, I've seen your school.
00:09:12 Speaker 2
The bolts, none of were any good. We didn't know at the time that it was sort of a bit of an unheard of thing, but I had ADHD as well, so I wasn't. I wasn't done at school, but I couldn't seem to retain what they wanted me to retain. You know, when they're scratching that chalkboard.
00:09:26 Speaker 2
I'd be looking out the window counting the bricks.
00:09:28 Speaker 2
On a wall and so and.
00:09:30 Speaker 2
So I'd you know, he, he.
00:09:32 Speaker 2
Knew that I was sort of heading for a crash, so he said.
00:09:35 Speaker 2
If you don't have a job.
00:09:36 Speaker 2
By the time you leave school.
00:09:39 Speaker 2
I'm kicking you out and that's it.
00:09:41 Speaker 2
And you know and that.
00:09:42 Speaker 2
Was that was that was tough love, really.
00:09:45 Speaker 2
But at the time I was like, well.
00:09:46 Speaker 2
I don't know why does my dad not like me, but obviously this was.
00:09:49 Speaker 2
Is discipline.
00:09:51 Speaker 2
And so he lived up to he lived up to his word.
00:09:56 Speaker 2
When I finished school, when I was 1617, he was like, right. What job have you got? You don't have one. You've got no skills to pay the bills. It's time.
00:10:07 Speaker 2
You moved out.
00:10:08 Speaker 2
And he and he kicked me out. So.
00:10:11 Speaker 2
I sort of sofa surfed for a little bit. I I lived in a a van for a little while. It was really grim actually. But then if you were homeless in Essex in Harlow where where I grew up.
00:10:23 Speaker 2
You were referred to the the YWCA, the Young Women's Christian Association.
00:10:30 Speaker 2
And so that's a hostel. You're officially homeless, but there's a temporary hostel. So I moved into there and I didn't choose the YW said. There was just no YMCA. If there was a young men's Christian association, obviously I would have been.
00:10:44 Speaker 2
Sent to that.
00:10:45 Speaker 2
But it just wasn't money.
00:10:47 Speaker 2
So so I moved into there and so here I am sort of.
00:10:51 Speaker 2
Late last I was there like a couple of years just going to the gym every day.
00:10:57 Speaker 2
And then I started thinking, actually my dad.
00:11:00 Speaker 2
Was probably right. I have no skills to pay the bills. I'm going to the gym every day.
00:11:06 Speaker 2
I'm not really getting anywhere. I was I was, you know, getting little bits of work here in there sort of odd jobbing, trying to sort of sustain this body wielding lifestyle. But I gotta say, I start to feel like a loser because my brothers were getting on, you know, they were working. They had the skills.
00:11:21 Speaker 2
My friends were getting.
00:11:22 Speaker 2
On.
00:11:23 Speaker 2
A recession came and things got worse.
00:11:27 Speaker 2
And also I learned there was no Internet then, so I didn't know that the likes of Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. I mean, it's common knowledge now that you cannot look like a professional bodybuilder without taking anabolic steroids. Now the trouble with me at that point is I I wasn't the risk taker, but I put all my eggs in that basket. It's like if I don't make it as a body.
00:11:46 Speaker 2
Make a living out of this.
00:11:48 Speaker 2
I'm. I'm just going to be a complete failure now because where do I go from here? I'm sort of, you know, registered over this.
00:11:55 Speaker 2
I've gotta do something. So I then had to forage into the murky world of self administration of anabolic steroids.
00:12:03 Speaker 2
From the black market and then the safest way to administer steroids is injection as well. You know, you take tablets, a lot of people don't realise if you take the tablet, the liver has a hard.
00:12:14 Speaker 2
Task of breaking that drug down because your body is your liver's job is to get rid of any drugs out your out your.
00:12:20 Speaker 2
Body, whether that?
00:12:21 Speaker 2
Be an aspirin, whether that be still.
00:12:24 Speaker 2
And so then I felt like a real loser cause I had to cross that threshold. You know, the bigger the risk, the bigger the pay off. I thought, well, there's no turning back now. I was really disappointed when I learned that my idols had taken steroids. I read it somewhere, but I was like, ohh, I've been deluded there and there's no one that I'm not looking like them yet. I'm just getting seem to be getting more ripped and shredded.
00:12:44 Speaker 2
I don't look like one of these beasts that I'm seeing on TV.
00:12:49 Speaker 2
So I bought some stairs and started to take them and that's.
00:12:53 Speaker 2
When everything changed.
00:12:55 Speaker 2
So my training didn't change, but I started to just put on the mask that I needed to look like my idols and so it wasn't long. A few weeks, people started to say wow, you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
00:13:08 Speaker 2
And I was so great, this is.
00:13:10 Speaker 2
Exactly what I want to look like.
00:13:13 Speaker 2
And so, you know, people say steroids are not addictive, but you can imagine, you know, it's a bit like Superman and it, you know, if you go.
00:13:20 Speaker 2
To kryptonite and loses his power. This is a bit worse, like with anabolic steroids boots. So they're not addictive. But of course, if they turn you into superhuman superhero looking, then when you come off and you go back to being skinny, you of course these are gonna be addictive and destructive.
00:13:38 Speaker 2
That when I was young you don't realise the risks you think?
00:13:41 Speaker 2
You have to last forever.
00:13:42 Speaker 2
And.
00:13:44 Speaker 2
It but but it was then that that I'm starting to think, OK, I'm taking a bigger risk now.
00:13:50 Speaker 2
This is taking all my life dedication. How am I gonna make this pay off? I can't just you know. How do I sustain this? And so I started to look for ways of making money with the way I looked. And as luck would have it, for me.
00:14:04 Speaker 2
This was when the first, the first series of bladder is was aired and it was global back then. There was just three TV stations. Believe it or not, there's hundreds now. There was just three TV stations. One of those stations.
00:14:19 Speaker 2
Had all the money.
00:14:21 Speaker 2
And that was London weekend.
00:14:23 Speaker 2
Television. They they they had product placement. So they had all this revenue and this global reality TV show that started off in in America was now being franchised around the world. They come to Britain and we had some great producers back then still and Nigel Lithgow can wear it. They got a hold of this show and just turned it into something even bigger.
00:14:44 Speaker 2
These guys produce, you know X Factor and Pop Idol now, but back then it they were all over gladiators.
00:14:50 Speaker 2
And so they made this, you know, phenomenal reality TV show that was high octane and all these great fun games with the Gladiators fighting contestant.
00:15:00 Speaker 2
And then it became staples Saturday night TV for for for over 16,000,000 regular viewers in the UK. So I've watched that on a Saturday night and think that now that is a way in. You know if I could get a job on there not as a contestant going against the bladder, it's to me that seemed like madness because I was like you're gonna get 5 minutes of fame and then you're gonna be finished.
00:15:21 Speaker 2
Yes, you might win a car, but you might also get a broken leg, which which is it gonna be? So I was like, I'm gonna send a letter in and and say I wanna be a gladiator.
00:15:32 Speaker 2
And so that's just what I did when the address came up at the end. Now it'll be an e-mail when you watched the show. Glad it's but back then.
00:15:39 Speaker 2
It was a letter and.
00:15:40 Speaker 2
I just wrote in but I.
00:15:41 Speaker 2
I went I I sent in a really cheeky letter.
00:15:44 Speaker 2
Actually I was.
00:15:44 Speaker 2
Quite introverted and and shy, but I realised that if I was going to get a foot in the door in the shower, I had to sell myself. So I remember in that letter right something ridiculous like you know, I'm. I'm gonna take Bobby during by storm.
00:15:59 Speaker 2
And just to let you know, I could beat up any of your gladiators with my arms tied behind my back.
00:16:06 Speaker 2
And if only you would give me the opportunity to sort of thing and I sent that letter and not expecting a response.
00:16:12 Speaker 2
And and I've got a response and they were like, yeah, come in. You can have a fight with our gladiators. We're doing a tryout in London at Blackfriars, in a school gym. Come along and change your arm. So initially I thought it was a. I thought it was a joke because they rang me. He left an answering machine on the phone, I thought.
00:16:30 Speaker 2
My brother winding me up, so don't be ringing me well.
00:16:32 Speaker 2
He's the only person I've told I've written.
00:16:34 Speaker 2
In.
00:16:35 Speaker 2
So don't give me any stupid messages from London weekend television talking about gladiators. And he was like, I haven't read. I haven't. I didn't ring you. And I was like, you're serious and he.
00:16:43 Speaker 2
Was like, yeah, it's.
00:16:44 Speaker 2
Like, that's like right? Anyways I went.
00:16:47 Speaker 2
Up.
00:16:49 Speaker 2
To London and I went into this triumph, which was essentially.
00:16:54 Speaker 2
A5 by 5 for about a day with 60 other blokes all built like barn doors. It was horrible. It was an odd day in the office and they ought to be honest, it felt.
00:17:04 Speaker 2
To me, like they were all more.
00:17:07 Speaker 2
That they would fit the bill better than I did. I mean, there was championship bodybuilders who already made a name for themselves.
00:17:14 Speaker 2
I know a massive, you know, these guys were freaks in nature and I was like and they just got rid of a guy on bladder. It's called shadow. And shadow was pretty much the best gladiator and he was got rid of because they found out he was taking steroids.
00:17:28 Speaker 2
And and it become a big kids TV show by then. So they couldn't afford to to have people on that show taking.
00:17:34 Speaker 2
For it. So they were looking for somebody who wasn't on steroids, or if he was on steroids. They needed you to come off steroids fast.
00:17:43 Speaker 2
And so I think looking back, the fact that I didn't look like a championship bodybuilder probably helped me, but I've sort of had enough muscle to look.
00:17:52 Speaker 2
Different, you know, set apart from other people. But I hadn't gone to these sort of lengths.
00:17:57 Speaker 2
Of of you know, world class bodybuilders. Yeah. And also I think what helped me in that try out was I recognise that a lot of these guys were really aggressive in the fights they go to sees pugs.
00:18:08 Speaker 2
Sticks these flintstone sticks, climbing cotton bads give us his gladiator helmets.
00:18:13 Speaker 2
Put them on our head and said just fine and they just kept pairing us up. But what I noticed is these guys were trying to kill each other.
00:18:20 Speaker 2
I remember thinking well, I'm probably not gonna wear today along in the fire, but are they really going to want to?
00:18:24 Speaker 2
Take someone on for that show.
00:18:27 Speaker 2
Without with us seems to have no self-control. You know, steroids bring out the worst in you. They make you very aggressive.
00:18:34 Speaker 2
And then I just thought that's a giveaway. You're taking notes to start with, if you're, you know, if you're like a Mad Dog out there and you can't control yourself.
00:18:42 Speaker 2
And so I just thought, well, if I smile my way through these, you know, even if it's not going to be fun, if I could just try and smile my way through, maybe. And I'll think what this guy seems to have control of his aggression, his emotions. So that's what I did. I smiled as I was being hit over the head by these great big body builders. And. And then at the end, they gave me the job. So I couldn't believe it.
00:19:02 Speaker 2
They just came to me and they leaked it as well. They didn't tell everyone on the day, so you had all these guys and their families.
00:19:07 Speaker 2
And John Anderson, the rest of the show came, came up to me at the end, and he just whispered to me, he said you've got the job.
00:19:15 Speaker 2
He said. But don't tell anyone.
00:19:16 Speaker 2
Then he walked off and all these.
00:19:18 Speaker 2
Guys were just swimming me. What did he say to you? And I was like, ohh no, but my right side job. So I didn't think I was gonna get out alive.
00:19:25 Speaker 2
So anyways, that changed everything. It was a real rags to riches story from now on in really because I went from, as I say, being homeless.
00:19:37 Speaker 2
On paper and having nothing, you know, I've literally never had any money, just a bit of dull, dull money was coming in at that point to being on this biggest show on television and being one of its stars and.
00:19:51 Speaker 2
And I remember the first experience of that for me was they sent a stretch limousine.
00:19:56 Speaker 2
To the YWCA in Harlow.
00:19:59 Speaker 2
That picked me up and it took me.
00:20:01 Speaker 2
To Heathrow airport.
00:20:03 Speaker 2
Where I met with.
00:20:03 Speaker 2
Other gladiators, wolf and jet, and lightning and rhino.
00:20:09 Speaker 2
And they flew me first class, Air Mauritius to Mauritius, obviously to the gladiator is training camp and I thought I'd died. A lot of the heaven. I just couldn't believe it. I was completely starstruck in that airport.
00:20:23 Speaker 2
They're telling me, you know, you've gotta choose a gladiator name. Now. What do you want to be called?
00:20:28 Speaker 2
And I was just like first. I was just ignore. But secondly, I was like, whoa, if there is a God, I must be really blessed. I remember laying on the beach in Mauritius just looking up at the stars on a clear night, you know, here in the sea, lapping and thinking.
00:20:43 Speaker 2
Well, it's definitely gotta be more. I mean, look, look at the universe. Look at the stars in the sky. And why would I just be laid on a beach? My dad works like a dog. He's never experienced anything nice. Here I am. You know, 20 years old lady.
00:20:57 Speaker 2
I just couldn't.
00:20:58 Speaker 2
Believe it and.
00:21:00 Speaker 2
So.
00:21:02 Speaker 2
We started filming the show.
00:21:04 Speaker 2
My dad was very he sort of was humbled by it. He's like, I've gotta say so, and I take my hat off to you, he.
00:21:10 Speaker 2
Said, you know, you had a dream.
00:21:12 Speaker 2
You followed your dream.
00:21:14 Speaker 2
And it's paid off, he said. I'm getting work now, like I've never got before. When I tell him my sons are glad here and they're like, yeah, you've got the job. He's getting all these jobs. And he said, you know, this is, this is incredible. And then.
00:21:26 Speaker 2
I think the first taste of show business for me was realising it was a business. I mean, including the name show business is a business.
00:21:36 Speaker 2
I just thought that our my aim was to to get rich and famous because I wanted to be rich. I was quite introverted. I wasn't keen about being on the camber, but I wanted to be rich and I wanted an easier life than my parents had had before me.
00:21:50 Speaker 2
But as I say, show business is a business.
00:21:52 Speaker 2
And I'm quickly learn.
00:21:55 Speaker 2
That not a lot of it's real. You know, you it's bit like social media now, you know, you present the ideal you but it's.
00:22:01 Speaker 2
Not the real you.
00:22:03 Speaker 2
And and you become a commercially.
00:22:04 Speaker 2
Important person. This is what I was taught quite quickly. You're not a VIP now. You're above that line. You're CIP. You're a commercially important person because you're always gonna be selling something and you're now very valuable to the businesses out there. They're going to be associated with with you. It's called social proofing. Now that you're a celebrity.
00:22:23 Speaker 2
You're gonna wanna associate with you because they wanna be associated with the successful.
00:22:27 Speaker 2
Showing the TV.
00:22:29 Speaker 2
And you know you've you've you've been given a platform, so use it. Use it.
00:22:33 Speaker 2
For good and I.
00:22:34 Speaker 2
Was like, oh, this is this.
00:22:35 Speaker 2
Is this is incredible.
00:22:37 Speaker 2
But I didn't understand the paradox of pleasure. This is something that I had to learn the hard way.
00:22:43 Speaker 2
Which just essentially means the more you get of something.
00:22:46 Speaker 2
The less its size fires, you're known as a young man when the world suddenly at your feet and you're being given everything.
00:22:52 Speaker 2
A.
00:22:54 Speaker 2
It can have a a detrimental impact on on use a person and.
00:23:00 Speaker 2
And he did me. And you know, when it came to choosing a gladiator name, they suggested base, he said we think Ace is a really good gladiator name.
00:23:12 Speaker 2
And I said.
00:23:12 Speaker 2
I think place is a rubbish gladiator name.
00:23:15 Speaker 2
And they are.
00:23:16 Speaker 2
Why do you think it's rubbish and back then? Like, say, masculinity was real in the world, so the the gladiators that were more popular with the ones with like, you know, masculine names like warrior and and shadow and you know.
00:23:28 Speaker 2
But young and really their gladius to be scary and manly, you know, and so I was like ice. I mean, who's going to be scared of Ace? It's still gonna be. No, that's gonna give me no psychological advantage on that dual platform, is it? When they say he's facing his contestants facing Ace. I want the advantage. So they said, well, you come up with something better. So a couple of weeks.
00:23:49 Speaker 2
And by it's quite.
00:23:51 Speaker 2
A difficult thing to do when you're choosing.
00:23:52 Speaker 2
A name that you know.
00:23:53 Speaker 2
Could potentially stick with you for the rest of your life.
00:23:56 Speaker 2
It was a tricky thing to do and I remember speaking to Mark Gryphon, who was another star of the show, and he'd really lived the dream, so he'd not only become a gladiator, he'd also now broke into Hollywood and he was an actor in Hollywood and he was on his way to being an A Lister.
00:24:15 Speaker 2
And he was a star in films with Jean-Claude Van Damme. He had a deal with Hasbro. He became action man. He's making all this money. He had a house up in Beverly Hills.
00:24:25 Speaker 2
And he said to me, you know, as a commercially important person, got a well choose the name properly, he said. Are you sure about?
00:24:32 Speaker 2
Ice and said that.
00:24:33 Speaker 2
No, I'm not. And he said, well, I made a mistake when I chose Trojan. I said you're kidding me. Trojans are brilliant. Gladiator name the mighty wooden Horse of Trogan. Gets in there and conquers. And he's like, yeah, well.
00:24:43 Speaker 2
That's great in England, won.
00:24:45 Speaker 2
Said. But when I got to America, where I'm known as Trojan.
00:24:49 Speaker 2
The Trojan is a condom there, she said, and he said that's not a good thing for me to be associated, but like, alright, so. So just think. Careful, when you when you choose a name. So I'm like, OK anyways, I'm never going back to Nigel.
00:25:03 Speaker 2
IPhone 10, right?
00:25:05 Speaker 2
And they said, have you thought of any other names? So I've got a couple in there. And he said, well, just to let.
00:25:10 Speaker 2
You know, before you, you decide.
00:25:14 Speaker 2
Look, there is biscuit chocolate manufacturer bringing out another. They're getting rid of the club biscuit, which is, you know, this nation's perhaps most successful chocolate biscuit, he said. And they're super seeing it with the new biscuit.
00:25:27 Speaker 2
And it's going to be called the Ace Chocolate biscuit. And if you take that name commercially, that would be a great vantage to you. So because you'll get a.
00:25:34 Speaker 2
Sponsorship with them.
00:25:37 Speaker 2
Except it's worth thousands of thousands of pounds. I can't remember how many books a lot of money.
00:25:42 Speaker 2
He said if you take the name mate and I said.
00:25:44 Speaker 2
Nigel. Ken, I love.
00:25:45 Speaker 2
That name mate.
00:25:47 Speaker 2
Let's go, friends. I completely sold out. But what they didn't tell me?
00:25:52 Speaker 2
At the time.
00:25:54 Speaker 2
Was the strap line for this new biscuit that was going out to the club was and bear in mind it had a whole advertising campaign to it as well. TV adverts and all these these things.
00:26:05 Speaker 2
Was ace the incredibly thick chocolate biscuit that was its strap line, so you can imagine what happened to me, you know?
00:26:12 Speaker 2
When this come?
00:26:13 Speaker 2
Out everyone was like, oh, you're the gladiator. That's the thick biscuit. Is that cause you're a bit thick, is it? And I.
00:26:18 Speaker 2
Was like oh.
00:26:18 Speaker 2
This is a nightmare I've I've I've chosen that daft name, but anyway, so I went with and.
00:26:25 Speaker 2
And and so yeah, show business was great. Fun to begin with. Being with all the gladiators was great fun to begin with. You know, being on a TV show, you know, swinging around on rings in front of 10,000 people live in the nationally during a 16,000,000 viewers watching a.
00:26:45 Speaker 2
Whilst just an incredible high.
00:26:49 Speaker 2
But with every high comes a low.
00:26:52 Speaker 2
And I started to find that really life was boring for me after that. You know, if I weren't getting all this attention, you know, when everyone's calling you ace, you start to believe it. When I put on that life, I felt like Superman. And now when I'm, you know, walking down the shops to get a pint of milk and people are following me, asking me to.
00:27:12 Speaker 2
Sign bits of paper and stuff. I was like, this is actually becoming a bit of a pain because you become public property. I don't know. That sounds really ungrateful because it's like, hang on a minute. These are the people at home, they're licences, etcetera, and these are the the reason that you.
00:27:27 Speaker 2
Have in this.
00:27:27 Speaker 2
Great life, but as much as we earn good money on the show, we wasn't a list.
00:27:32 Speaker 2
Celebrity. So, you know, I still lived.
00:27:35 Speaker 2
My mum's house councillors, no people knocking on the door every 5 minutes. He's just like, OK, what's going?
00:27:43 Speaker 2
On here and.
00:27:43 Speaker 2
And just like saying, normal life just seems so boring. We filmed the whole series.
00:27:48 Speaker 2
In one month.
00:27:49 Speaker 2
Two shows a day in the.
00:27:51 Speaker 2
National and arena in Birmingham.
00:27:53 Speaker 2
So it was a hard month of work.
00:27:56 Speaker 2
We picked up a lot of injuries.
00:27:57 Speaker 2
But the incredible thing was we.
00:27:59 Speaker 2
Had the rest of the year off.
00:28:01 Speaker 2
So you know the rest of the year.
00:28:02 Speaker 2
What? What do?
00:28:03 Speaker 2
You do and I started to pick up some.
00:28:07 Speaker 2
Destructive habits. You know, I was so used to being high on life that I was being invited to all these show this parties, you know, all these red carpet events and stuff. And every time you go to give your champagne, you know, free champagne sales knocking this champagne and having all this fun.
00:28:23 Speaker 2
And I was.
00:28:24 Speaker 2
Sleeping through hangovers so I didn't know what hangover was, so there's no low in that for me.
00:28:29 Speaker 2
Initially, but then I started to pick up some destructive habits. You know, I started to smoke. I never thought I'd be a smoke. I thought it was an athlete, but.
00:28:36 Speaker 2
You know, I was just looking for another buzz.
00:28:38 Speaker 2
So I call myself a social smoker, and then it started. The nicotine started.
00:28:41 Speaker 2
Getting grip on me.
00:28:45 Speaker 2
And I just.
00:28:47 Speaker 2
I think it was.
00:28:48 Speaker 2
The show ending actually.
00:28:51 Speaker 2
That that was a real turning point for me, but I think also a a point that was quite an eye opener for me was the fact that as I said, a show business is a business.
00:29:01 Speaker 2
And I realised that, you know, it was the the show was given a lifespan of three years and it ran for 10. And I was there, you know, I was thinking it's gonna come to an end at some point. So I knew I had to make all the money that I could while I was in show business and so.
00:29:16 Speaker 2
Everything that was private.
00:29:19 Speaker 2
We came up for public consumption as now we do that on social media, but back then you, you know, in showbiz you.
00:29:25 Speaker 2
Get paid for.
00:29:26 Speaker 2
It, and so everything was for sale and.
00:29:31 Speaker 2
So I started to sell stories to newspapers and magazines, and then when I went out stories to sell, they would say to me, have you got any store they have? You got any stories? And I'd be like, no, I'll be saying, can you make something up?
00:29:43 Speaker 2
And I'll be like like, well, you know, you going out with why don't you date this person? Why you know? And I started realising that current this currency and and in show business you know you wanna stay relevant you wanna stay in the newspapers and the magazines.
00:29:56 Speaker 2
So you start orchestrating all this and you start telling lies and you start fabricating stories. And that was a strange place to be for me because, like, I'm now selling stories on me and my girlfriend.
00:30:06 Speaker 2
And you know, and this is on the regular and I'm like, wow, this is a strange place to be. My dad works harder than anyone I know is the most honest person I know. He's got nothing. I literally put on a light thread. So I hit people over there with a stick. And when I'm not doing that, I'm selling lice to newspapers. And I've considered I'm worth celebrating. You know, I'm considered a success.
00:30:28 Speaker 2
You know, the only reason I look different from other people is because of body dysmorphia. Really, they called a bodybuilding, but it's body.
00:30:34 Speaker 2
Production because you know you take steroids, you breakdown the muscles to build them up again. But the reality is your body is in a state of injury. You're only you're only blown up like that, cause your body's saying, what on Earth is this idiot doing? He's breaking his body down, he's taking steroids. But but it's interesting that we live in a culture that celebrates that that you need to be different, that you need to create your own identity.
00:30:57 Speaker 2
And made a.
00:30:57 Speaker 2
Blessing for me with Gladys was that.
00:31:01 Speaker 2
We were drug tested because of the negative press that we've got with shadow. As soon as I started collaborate, they ask while you're taking stare at. And of course I didn't want to admit to that.
00:31:12 Speaker 2
Because I thought well.
00:31:13 Speaker 2
I'm not gonna, you know, get a chance. I was like, no. Listen, we'll ask you again. What story do you take?
00:31:19 Speaker 2
And I was like.
00:31:22 Speaker 2
And he said, OK, I'll put it another way. We use Olympic, though, it's their expense.
00:31:28 Speaker 2
If we know you're taking steroids, you can't look like you look without taking them. We've we've got enough body builders around us to know how this works. You will be tested at random, he said. We'll find steroids in your system. And at that point, I thought he was gonna say you'll be sacked. He didn't. He said we'll have you tested again. And if that level hasn't come down continually.
00:31:49 Speaker 2
But you will be sacked and I was like, right. And that was such a blessing for me because I remember going knocking on the door.
00:31:56 Speaker 2
Literally with a bag in his hand. And I was.
00:31:58 Speaker 2
Like yes, he.
00:31:59 Speaker 2
Said don't control. He's gotta come to the.
00:32:02 Speaker 2
Bathroom with you and.
00:32:03 Speaker 2
You gotta have a wee and Parkway. He's watching you and then he takes.
00:32:06 Speaker 2
It.
00:32:06 Speaker 2
Off and test it, you know not.
00:32:08 Speaker 2
A lot of dignity there, but you're like.
00:32:10 Speaker 2
They're serious about.
00:32:11 Speaker 2
This, but that was such a blessing because, as I say, you know and about there are.
00:32:16 Speaker 2
Are bad bad.
00:32:17 Speaker 2
Choice.
00:32:18 Speaker 2
And it's not the really the short term. Those short term they can have implication, but it's the long term. You know people don't really get a lot of people that take their drugs, don't get past about 50. I'm 52 now. And so I really do thank God that that for Gladio, it's an Olympic doping control because then I stopped taking any drugs and.
00:32:38 Speaker 2
And you sort of see it.
00:32:39 Speaker 2
If you watch the show.
00:32:40 Speaker 2
You know, people got a bit skinnier at a certain time. I'm not saying the other glad it took took there, but I certainly got.
00:32:46 Speaker 2
Skinnier at that time.
00:32:48 Speaker 2
But that was a that was a real a, a real blessing.
00:32:54 Speaker 2
Anyways, the the show ends. I've got used to this this first class lifestyle, now flying around the world first class, plenty of money, plenty of women. Everything that I wanted, you know, in abundance.
00:33:08 Speaker 2
You know, I've I've applied these massive appetites. I'm not denying my flesh anything that he wants at that point. And then the the show ends. They don't tell us about that because it's again, it's commercially valuable. So I just read about in the newspapers as gladiator as you are, Daddy.
00:33:26 Speaker 2
I was like ohh no, the show has ended.
00:33:29 Speaker 2
And I felt like.
00:33:31 Speaker 2
My world came crashing down. I was like, well, I'm not gonna service the big mortgage now, you know, I bought a house and stuff.
00:33:38 Speaker 2
And then and then either real.
00:33:39 Speaker 2
Identity crisis and that actually, who am I if I'm ace? From gladius. But there are no gladiators. I've built my whole identity around that.
00:33:49 Speaker 2
And this is where my community comes from that you know, I've got new friends that were, you know, I thought they were my friends. But when the show ended, they'll stop ringing.
00:33:51
No.
00:33:56 Speaker 2
Me.
00:33:57 Speaker 2
And I was like.
00:33:58 Speaker 2
Oh, I thought. They're my friends are my real friends buying any trailer off? They were like, you've got so many hangers on Klingons that are not really friends. You can't see it. You weren't gone. So.
00:34:06 Speaker 2
We are.
00:34:07 Speaker 2
On the backside 1, you actually start believing this nonsense that you're ace.
00:34:11 Speaker 2
And you're not.
00:34:12 Speaker 2
You know, giving to the rest of us.
00:34:16 Speaker 2
And so yeah.
00:34:16 Speaker 2
We an identity crisis. Like I say, it was a big it was a big blow back then. But when I look, look at it now, actually I see that.
00:34:25 Speaker 2
That was a.
00:34:26 Speaker 2
Blessing. Because I think most people would take sort of 40-50 years before they have an identity crisis. You know, I I do believe that.
00:34:34 Speaker 2
You know, if you don't know God and you're putting your faith in yourself or money or your job or or or other things to make you happy or to fulfil your at some point you're gonna be washed up on the rocks of reality and realise that none of this stuff will falls.
00:34:50 Speaker 2
And and you're going to realise there's an emptiness and you're gonna have an identity crisis and you're gonna really have to relook at life and your values. And that really happened to me at 20. I'm glad that it's ended because like I said, the show ending so really ascended with that. So I'm like, actually, who am I?
00:35:04
Right.
00:35:05 Speaker 2
So these are existential questions came flooding.
00:35:08 Speaker 2
Back because I had all the money in the world, really. Not all the money in the world, but a lot of money. You know, I didn't want for anything. I'd I'd experienced everything.
00:35:16 Speaker 2
And I've realised that meat, cheese and frame don't bring happiness. In fact, it brought me loneliness. You know, real people distance themselves from me. And a lot of shallow people around me and my phone stopped ringing. When that show ended, which proved it to me.
00:35:30 Speaker 2
And and you know, and I learned that you don't own property property owned you. The more stuff you get, the more you gotta look after it and maintain it. You know you buy a house and you know, just buy a bigger house, a bigger house. You gotta get a bigger house, you buy a new Range Rover you.
00:35:45 Speaker 2
Know just get the new.
00:35:46 Speaker 2
One, the newest. You gotta get the.
00:35:47 Speaker 2
New one otherwise, so I was perpetually living in this state.
00:35:50 Speaker 2
Feel I thought that fame, which is a big freedom and it didn't actually bring more bonding. So the show ended and I went on a real.
00:35:59 Speaker 2
Spiritual search and growing up.
00:36:03 Speaker 2
As I say, I grew up in a godless family, an atheist family, and also I've invested heavily in. I put my faith in myself.
00:36:11 Speaker 2
And.
00:36:13 Speaker 2
You know, I put my faith in what it is to be macho.
00:36:16 Speaker 2
What it is?
00:36:16 Speaker 2
To be a man. And so I wanted no association with Jesus. You know, if if I heard of Jesus in.
00:36:22 Speaker 2
The in the you know the the narrative that was very much the.
00:36:30 Speaker 2
2000 years ago, 2000 miles away week. You know Wanda Brown in his in his flip flops and a dressing gown, crying, weeping all the time. And he saw something evil nailed to a cross, you know, complete defeat. I wanted no association with any of that. I've been to enough. I've been to a couple of church services. Mum and Dad had tried sending us early on to to.
00:36:50 Speaker 2
Sandy skull to get rid of her so they could get on the pump for the weekend, I think. But again, anything related to school. I wouldn't wanna know. Suddenly school. I don't wanna go to school again on a Sunday now. Thanks and.
00:37:02 Speaker 2
I've been to church a little bit late as well. At Christmas, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down and it's like this and then something they're gonna start and it's usually on a Sunday morning when I had a headache from drinking the night before. The time is wrong. Everything's wrong here. So I'm gonna have fun dressed like your mother telling you to call him Father. I was like, what's all this about make?
00:37:21 Speaker 2
No sense to me.
00:37:22 Speaker 2
And you know, seeing all these old hymns. So I looked everywhere apart from the Bible and.
00:37:30 Speaker 2
It was.
00:37:30 Speaker 2
Only when I.
00:37:31 Speaker 2
I I studied lots of different spiritual teachings, lots of aid, looked at atheism in depth, you know, Dot Hawkins and Dawkins read all the books and.
00:37:39 Speaker 2
Stuff, but I just.
00:37:40 Speaker 2
Kept drawing a blank. You know, I could see that all these people would tell you that there's no God, but there was no better than a Ponzi scheme. You know, you're putting £20 in their bank account every.
00:37:48 Speaker 2
Time you buy their books or subscribing to what they're doing.
00:37:51 Speaker 2
Meanwhile, they're flying around the world first class, telling people there's no God and it's like, but they got no evidence. You get to the end of their book and there's no spiritually like that. It's just like, well, actually, we don't have a clue.
00:38:01
You know.
00:38:02 Speaker 2
It's like, what am I reading this nonsense for then? And it's the same with a lot of spiritual teachings.
00:38:06 Speaker 2
I think.
00:38:07 Speaker 2
What started annoying me is is most of these great ideas don't mention Jesus.
00:38:13 Speaker 2
And I'm like, why do you keep mentioning this bloke? I, you know I don't get it. And it took someone to.
00:38:17 Speaker 2
Invite me on a on an alpha course.
00:38:21 Speaker 2
And again, I think it shows where my where. My hope laid it was a very wealthy man called Julian Ritcher.
00:38:29 Speaker 2
Who's the biggest is the almost the biggest independent retail firm, second to John Lewis in this country.
00:38:36 Speaker 2
And he had a fellowship with his back garden on a Friday, and I already had a private jet and a couple of helicopters. And I heard that he.
00:38:42 Speaker 2
Was a nice fella and they they have.
00:38:45 Speaker 2
This fellowship in the garden, and I also heard that Prince Charles pays paid him thousands of pounds for business advice. And I thought maybe if I can meet this guy, he's cracked it and you know, money and power hasn't corrupted.
00:38:56 Speaker 2
And maybe you know I.
00:38:58 Speaker 2
Could learn something from it, so I went to this.
00:39:00 Speaker 2
To start on the Friday and.
00:39:02 Speaker 2
He gave me, he said. I'm going to give.
00:39:03 Speaker 2
You 2 bits of.
00:39:04 Speaker 2
Advice. Will you take them? And I was like, well, what are they?
00:39:06 Speaker 2
And he's quite to the point, he said. #1 go on an alpha course and I was like, what's an alpha course?
00:39:12 Speaker 2
And then #2, he said, then get back tyres and come back to me and when he said that, I've got to say it really shocked me. I was like, hang on a minute, 90 millionaire.
00:39:22 Speaker 2
Why on Earth is he trying to?
00:39:23 Speaker 2
Recruit me to a church, you know, and my wife always identified as Christian. You know, she never.
00:39:28 Speaker 2
Went to church.
00:39:30 Speaker 2
I'll never come in home and saying to her and she said, how did you get on at Juliano's house? I said he's one of your mother. He's a Bible basher.
00:39:36 Speaker 2
She's like what? She's one of only Wellness. She's, I said.
00:39:39 Speaker 2
Why? Why would?
00:39:40 Speaker 2
You why? She said well, well, maybe I said relationship with God and.
00:39:43 Speaker 2
I was like.
00:39:44 Speaker 2
Nah, I said. None of it makes any sense. She's got all this money in the world. Surely, if you're gonna follow God, you've gotta be poor. Yeah, because it's this disparity between rich and poor. And so how can you have?
00:39:53 Speaker 2
Private jets and helicopters and all that.
00:39:56 Speaker 2
This kind of start, but none of it makes any sense.
00:39:58 Speaker 2
He must be on the recruitment drive.
00:40:00 Speaker 2
You know, Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey then now I mean, this case is living large. It didn't make any sense, but I I do have to say he was really humble, you know, usually when I met rich and famous. But you know it they made sure that their private plates and all their were their cartoon and they were at their house, the Big Rolex being shut in your face. They really knew that.
00:40:20 Speaker 2
Make sure that you knew they were but Julian.
00:40:21 Speaker 2
Was really humble.
00:40:23 Speaker 2
And really nice.
00:40:24 Speaker 2
People like he's serving me. So what would you like to eat? It just makes no sense anyways. When?
00:40:29 Speaker 2
On this alpha course.
00:40:31 Speaker 2
And it was on the.
00:40:32 Speaker 2
On the alpha course, which is a chair. I didn't know this, but it's a course that's put on by the church, runs over 10 weeks with no follow up there. You can ask the big questions in life.
00:40:42 Speaker 2
And it wasn't held in the church.
00:40:43 Speaker 2
If it was.
00:40:44 Speaker 2
I probably would have gone because I had these preconceived ideas of.
00:40:47 Speaker 2
What a church was.
00:40:49 Speaker 2
And also.
00:40:51 Speaker 2
I didn't really know it was a Christian course. I thought Christianity was another religions. And as I say, I've researched all the religions.
00:40:58 Speaker 2
And I've I've joined the conclusions. At best, religions were morally commendable, but at worst they cause wars and they.
00:41:04 Speaker 2
Action.
00:41:06 Speaker 2
And so I didn't want anything to do with religion.
00:41:08 Speaker 2
But here I am on yourself, of course. And I'm being told that Christianity is not a religion. It's about it's a reality. It's not you trying to earn your way to God. It's it's the relationship with God made possible for the person of Jesus Christ. And and it was then that they explained the gospel to me.
00:41:25 Speaker 2
And and that's the first time I've heard the gospel people had.
00:41:28 Speaker 2
Said to me before.
00:41:30 Speaker 2
You know, we wanna tell you the gospel. So what's the gospel? So the good news of Jesus and and at that point, my hand would go up my palm in their face. Also look Jesus might be good.
00:41:39 Speaker 2
News for you.
00:41:40 Speaker 2
You know might be.
00:41:40 Speaker 2
A. A crutch that.
00:41:41 Speaker 2
You need, but it ain't no good news for me, so thank you. But no, thank you. So it makes you happy. And there I was just happy with the facts, you know.
00:41:50 Speaker 2
At that time.
00:41:51 Speaker 2
If I'm a good person, I do more good than bad. Surely I'll be going to have and I'll take my chances with that.
00:41:56 Speaker 2
But of course, that's not the message of.
00:41:57 Speaker 2
The gospel at.
00:41:58 Speaker 2
All, and it was on the alpha course. It was explained to.
00:42:01 Speaker 2
Me and I've got to say initially.
00:42:04 Speaker 2
They offended me. You know, when they said, you know, God created you, God loves you. You know, if you try and draw your identity from anywhere else, it's always gonna. You're always gonna draw a blank and be empty.
00:42:17 Speaker 2
That resonated with me. But then they said that you separated from God by sins and I was like, what? I don't make any sense. If God created me and loves me, why would?
00:42:26 Speaker 2
I be separated from him. I've done nothing wrong.
00:42:29 Speaker 2
And they said, well, well, you don't fully understand the concept of sin, then maybe you're looking at sin as the wrong way. You know, like it's like it's pleasure. And God just wants to get rid of your pleasure. And I and I took that. I was actually, because they said no sin is not that sin is just, you know.
00:42:44 Speaker 2
What sin is? Look, I it's the middle layer.
00:42:46 Speaker 2
It's just, you know, being selfish, going your own way, because when you do that, you know it has a cost for other people you're born to be a blessing, not to just be in this world and serve yourself and really well, that's what you've been doing. You've been looking everywhere except for God. But the great news of the gospel is that God's done something about that sin. You know, you've turned your own way. You've gone your own way. That's really what sin is.
00:43:08 Speaker 2
And repentance. This is what Jesus said when he was.
00:43:11 Speaker 2
Walking the earth was the Kingdom.
00:43:13 Speaker 2
Of God is at.
00:43:13 Speaker 2
Hand believe and repent, which just means turn away from all these things you're chasing.
00:43:20 Speaker 2
So sorry for it and invite God into your life and you'll come into your life because God is love that made sense to me. He's unconditional love and the only way love can be real love is if it's invited and God is never gonna force himself on you.
00:43:34 Speaker 2
And this is the whole message of the gospel and This is why Jesus came, because God loves you that that much that he's done something about that sin. This is why the gospel is such good news.
00:43:44 Speaker 2
And I was like, right, OK, So what? And they never mentioned the Holy Spirit and that blew me away. I've been looking for power all my life to try and be somebody. And they're like, when you're living in the Golden Age of God.
00:43:57 Speaker 2
You know, living in an age where God is pouring out, his spirit used to just be kings, priests and prophets. But there's anybody who puts their trust in Jesus. He'd fill you with his spirit. This is like, this is what it is to be a Christian. Christ comes in by the power of his spirit into your heart, your build of his power to do all that Jesus did and more.
00:44:16 Speaker 2
So what I can do all that Jesus didn't mind? Didn't miracles. Yes, you can do that. I was like hang.
00:44:21 Speaker 2
On a minute.
00:44:22 Speaker 2
What's this gonna?
00:44:22 Speaker 2
Cost me and they're like nothing at.
00:44:25 Speaker 2
The point of receiving it, it's like the NHS. Someone has to.
00:44:28 Speaker 2
Pay and of course it cost Jesus everything.
00:44:31 Speaker 2
He went to the cross.
00:44:33 Speaker 2
So that you can do what you did and more, because the Kingdom of God is at hand and this is the whole again, the whole message of Pentecost, isn't it, that this is when the church was born. This is when everything might applied. Jesus the master Delegacia commissioned his disciples and then you know, the church is born and.
00:44:49 Speaker 2
I was like, well, how?
00:44:51 Speaker 2
Didn't I know any of this?
00:44:52 Speaker 2
Why has no one ever?
00:44:54 Speaker 2
I'm sorry.
00:44:55
Now.
00:44:56 Speaker 2
And of course, I look at my watch.
00:44:58 Speaker 2
In the year it was, and I'd be like.
00:44:59 Speaker 2
2024 years since when?
00:45:03 Speaker 2
Since the most important event in history, you know Jesus coming to Earth is a bear for Christ, with the whole world in people that don't believe in people of different religions are counting their time on God's watch. I don't see any things and counting down for his return, you know anyways.
00:45:23 Speaker 2
I remember going on that course for 10 weeks and I think a real pointing part of that for me was my wife came along and I remember saying to the vicar who was telling me all this, I said, you know.
00:45:33 Speaker 2
I've I've examined the evidence now I've been up to London. I was going up checking the Dead Sea Scrolls. John's gospel. You know the codex and Atticus at the at the British Library. Think they of this exists? I don't think there's any evidence for Jesus, let alone there's so much evidence.
00:45:46 Speaker 2
You can't review it.
00:45:47 Speaker 2
So in my heart, I.
00:45:48 Speaker 2
Knew that Jesus was the son of God.
00:45:50 Speaker 2
But but I still couldn't.
00:45:52 Speaker 2
Buy in this into this idea of something for nothing, because I've been in show business, which is, you know, considered like the best business to be in. And it was so can't throw a backstabbing now, I'm told. Like actually there is something for nothing that's far beyond anything you can ever dream of.
00:46:06 Speaker 2
And I'm going to sit in front of that figure and and then I just said, look, let's just spare this out again. I think it was like week 5 or 6 in the House. Of course, it's all people.
00:46:14 Speaker 2
Sat down on.
00:46:15 Speaker 2
The tables and I was being really disruptive and you know, just trying to disprove God, not because I wanted to disprove him as such, but I just didn't wanna.
00:46:23 Speaker 2
Get wrapped up.
00:46:24 Speaker 2
In what could potentially be a cold.
00:46:26 Speaker 2
You know, I don't wanna go, you know, buy into something that could be a lie and just damage me and my whole family and be, you know, known as and nerd or a nut for the rest of my life. I was like, what is this?
00:46:35 Speaker 2
And so I.
00:46:36 Speaker 2
Said to the vicar. So just run it by me again. He's like, yeah, so. So I can have all my sins forgiven if I turn to Jesus, I can have all my sins forgiven, past, present and future.
00:46:46 Speaker 2
Don't have to be shamed.
00:46:47 Speaker 2
The shame or guilt about anything that I've done? No. OK, I can have.
00:46:52 Speaker 2
Eternal life? That means I don't have to live under with a life of feel like I've been living anymore trying to prove myself. In fact, I don't even have to fear death cause I won't die. I'll have eternal life with God. Is that correct? He's like that's correct. And I could also be filled with a supernatural power. Is that correct? And it's like I still a bit like Bruce Almighty, you know, I'll be filled with this power that and I'll be able to do all that.
00:47:12 Speaker 2
He just did. I'll be able to do. I have more. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, I said my wife is a Christian. He's like, right. I said there's absolutely no evidence that this supernatural power of.
00:47:26 Speaker 2
Jesus living in earth.
00:47:28 Speaker 2
And and and he went. And I thought he was going to say I said. I said so. Is she a Christian? And and I thought he was going to say to me where you're right. Sure. Well, be right. Get out the room. You. You've been disrupted day she said no wrong. You're right. I was like no way. You pretty much just said yeah, my wife not not Christian if if she's not going to church and if there's none of this.
00:47:49 Speaker 2
Evidence. No flu coming through enough, but then he said. I wonder why he said that. But then?
00:47:54 Speaker 2
He said. So what are you gonna do about it?
00:47:56 Speaker 2
So what do you?
00:47:57 Speaker 2
Need to do you know what you got to do about it? Work.
00:47:59 Speaker 2
He said the biggest block between you and God is you, he said. If you.
00:48:02 Speaker 2
Humble yourself, knowing your heart that Jesus son, son of God, he said. But but he said you you have a block because you just can't humble yourself to invite him in and.
00:48:13 Speaker 2
And and and he said. You want her away from knowing God. And he said that if you wanna play, I'll play with you. If you don't. You don't. And I said OK come.
00:48:20 Speaker 2
On, then, let's play. And I stood up in that room.
00:48:22 Speaker 2
And not probably one of the first to pray the prayer of salvation. You know, we know that, you know, it's not about really what comes out your mouth and all the Bible says can confess with your lips but God's interested in your heart and in and God know in my heart that I know Jesus was the son of God at this point. So I invited I said sorry for going my own way.
00:48:42 Speaker 2
Thank you, Jesus, for what you did on that cross, for your sacrifice. And please come into my life by the power of your Holy Spirit. Make.
00:48:48 Speaker 2
Me, the person you want me to be.
00:48:52 Speaker 2
And I've got.
00:48:52 Speaker 2
To say when I open my eyes in that room.
00:48:55 Speaker 2
I really I think I.
00:48:56 Speaker 2
Watched too much Bruce Almighty last night. I really thought maybe I'd be levitated. Or so I've been on so many of these.
00:49:01 Speaker 2
Esoteric courses and stuff about.
00:49:03 Speaker 2
Spirituality and freeing yourself. But I I expected some physical change in that moment.
00:49:09 Speaker 2
But nothing happened. I hope my eyes have thought everything seems the same.
00:49:13 Speaker 2
But I've got to say, within two weeks my wife saw such a.
00:49:17 Speaker 2
Change in me?
00:49:19 Speaker 2
That, she said this prayer that you said.
00:49:21 Speaker 2
I need to say that prayer she she realised at that point that when she identified as a Christian, you know my my wife and that point was a very good.
00:49:30 Speaker 2
Woman. Great mum. You know, great wife.
00:49:34 Speaker 2
Great with her kids, but she's no Jesus. She wouldn't change in the.
00:49:36 Speaker 2
World, you know she.
00:49:37 Speaker 2
Didn't go church. If we had a few quid, spare would give a bit to change stuff, but this wasn't world changing. Jesus stuff, you know? Yeah, a superhero. Anyway, she came to help and she said that prayer and then she was born again in the spirit, you know, we are born again. Nobody we. It sounds a bit cheesy sometimes.
00:49:54 Speaker 2
But actually, you know, she was born spiritually. And of course, until we we we, until we're we're supposed to be better spirits until.
00:50:00 Speaker 2
We spilled by that.
00:50:01 Speaker 2
Spirit the Christian life is no life at all, and so she came alive in the spirit. And this is where our whole.
00:50:08 Speaker 2
Lives were transfer.
00:50:09 Speaker 2
Formed from from that point on and I look back and sometimes I get a bit miffed, you know, and I initially I was a bit angry with the church. I was like, what happened, you know, though it was the church that put on this House, of course. And I was like, what happened? When did you drop the ball? How comes it took 40 odd years before my blind eyes were opened before my wife's eyes were opened.
00:50:30 Speaker 2
Because now.
00:50:31 Speaker 2
I'd like to.
00:50:32 Speaker 2
Say to people at that point I stepped out of the rat race and life is a race really. And it's a rat race and you can be successful at it, but still a rat race. And I I looked and it sounds a bit like King Rat. I had anything that I learned it. But what's what's the point in being King Rat? You know, I stepped out of that rat race and came into God's grace. And. And what I mean by that is I had.
00:50:51 Speaker 2
And then experienced a freedom and a peace that I've never experienced before and as much as I'd had a lot of happiness before, I was now experiencing joy which transcends that happiness. You know, just a real.
00:51:06 Speaker 2
Peace and a joy that can't really be taken away from you. Yes, life's battles and it's bless. And they still have battles. I have ups and downs, but now the world makes complete sense.
00:51:17 Speaker 2
To me, you.
00:51:18 Speaker 2
Know, you know well, devoid of God, but I'll never make any sense because there's no hope. You know, it's a tragedy. That's a death.
00:51:26 Speaker 2
But when you don't have to.
00:51:27 Speaker 2
Fear of death itself. There's a real.
00:51:31 Speaker 2
I remember, I think it was Oliver Stone said. Drinking drugs are the answer.
00:51:35 Speaker 2
To a mad world.
00:51:37 Speaker 2
And I think for a lot of people, they they seem to be, but actually not they no answer at all. They're just an escape. I think, you know, and that's what a lot of us try and do. We try to escape reality or we sort of justify that striving.
00:51:51 Speaker 2
And by just sort of switching the brain off by getting high at the weekend, you know, and when I was baptised, I was freed from those addictions. You know, I I hadn't realised that I was caught up in in alcohol and and cigarettes and stuff.
00:52:06 Speaker 2
Until the show had ended, you know where.
00:52:07 Speaker 2
I was having to get up.
00:52:08 Speaker 2
In the morning now and I'd have.
00:52:09 Speaker 2
A cracking headache because I've been drinking champagne. The.
00:52:12 Speaker 2
Night before and like what's going on there and.
00:52:15 Speaker 2
I start to realise these things had had got a grip on me and I couldn't stop her smoking on the regular now and.
00:52:21 Speaker 2
They got baptised and I came out of that pool and I I I went in that pool with my cigarettes in my back pocket and I came out of the pool and I was, and I prayed before I went in the pool. And I was like, can you, I've been trying for a good couple of years.
00:52:33 Speaker 2
Now to stop.
00:52:34 Speaker 2
Smoking and I just couldn't stop. I tried all the different Nicorette patches and these things that you cheer up.
00:52:41 Speaker 2
And I came out that Paul was.
00:52:43 Speaker 2
Like can you give me the power?
00:52:44 Speaker 2
To overcome this addiction, you know and.
00:52:47 Speaker 2
And I came out and I never forget my jeans on. I took my cigarettes out my back pocket when I walked outside the church.
00:52:53 Speaker 2
I was soaked. I walked straight out. I took these cigarettes out of my pocket and I expect them to be soaked and I'd thrown away anyway. But surely they were bone dry. The packets, cigarettes with bone drying and immediately just lit one up and started smacking it. And I was like ohh no, I thought that I was going to have to come this and here I am smoking a flag straight away. Anyway, that was the last.
00:53:13 Speaker 2
20 cigarettes I ever smoked. Praise the.
00:53:15 Speaker 2
Lord for that.
00:53:17 Speaker 2
He let me finish that last block of cigarettes, but I never smoked again after that. And I, you know, I look back now. I've seen and that's the power of Christ living in me. This is something that I couldn't.
00:53:26
Yeah.
00:53:27 Speaker 2
I couldn't give that all the time, you know, in this power.
00:53:29 Speaker 2
The Holy Spirit.
00:53:31 Speaker 2
Gives us power.
00:53:36 Speaker 2
And bringing us up to.
00:53:39 Speaker 2
Up to today, if you would have said to me.
00:53:43 Speaker 2
Ten years ago, when you know those guys at the front of the church that used to really irritate you, they dress like.
00:53:49 Speaker 2
Your mum's asking you to call him your dad. Well, you're gonna be dressed as one of them because I'm calling you into the Church of England to be a priest. I would have said you are insane. You are insane. But you know, the Bible calls this sanctification. It's part of restoration is initially.
00:54:08 Speaker 2
You know, once I encountered the person of Jesus Christ on alpha.
00:54:15 Speaker 2
Everything changed. You know, I was. I'd realised I've just been seeing life in black and white now. I'm seeing that whole spiritual in glorious technicolour and I just couldn't help telling people about it. I'm like, let me introduce you to the Lord Jesus. You know, a lot of people, the gospel is either the best news.
00:54:33 Speaker 2
In the world.
00:54:34 Speaker 2
Of people depending on where the Holy Spirit's moving in their lives at that point, or it's a rock of offence because they're observing themselves and they don't wanna, like, shine into areas of their life.
00:54:43 Speaker 2
And so I just want to tell everyone and I'm thinking we don't need the church to do this. You just need to tell people.
00:54:48 Speaker 2
About Jesus and I.
00:54:49 Speaker 2
Was a bit of a a long range of weird stranger. You know, people like. Who's this not? What's happened to him? He's found God and I'm not.
00:54:56 Speaker 2
I didn't realise I'd lost him.
00:55:00 Speaker 2
But then you.
00:55:01 Speaker 2
Know again, as I was going to church, I started to realise actually we called to be. I like that free season, the calling. We called to be in the church. You know, first of all we meet Christ. But then we come into church into church because that's the family we calling to and that's the body of Christ. And it's in that body.
00:55:18 Speaker 2
We have you.
00:55:19 Speaker 2
Know experience, unconditional love and you know.
00:55:22 Speaker 2
Other people were helping.
00:55:23 Speaker 2
To take these edges off that you actually come into your calling.
00:55:28 Speaker 2
So I really like them three seats and I like what Jay John says that.
00:55:30 Speaker 2
You can't have church.
00:55:32 Speaker 2
You can't have God as your father without churches as your mother, as your mother. You know, Jesus said wherever two or more Gabby, this is not something you can do on your own. Get out of that idea and you can go on the golf course and meet God. Yes, you'll meet him in the glory of creation, but to actually move into your calling and to mature as a Christian.
00:55:48 Speaker 2
You need to be part of the church because that's the body of Christ and your gifting will come out in that. And that's when you start living in your divine.
00:55:56 Speaker 2
But I knew none of these things, but but praise God like say, I was a real pain at my first church. You know, I'd be going insane if.
00:56:04 Speaker 2
This is the body of.
00:56:05 Speaker 2
Christ, you know I'd be a proper consumer Christian.
00:56:08 Speaker 2
Having a go.
00:56:08 Speaker 2
About the worship or saying this is wrong and that's wrong. Thinking is all for me not.
00:56:12 Speaker 2
Realising that this is not for me.
00:56:15 Speaker 2
It's for God and it's for others.
00:56:17 Speaker 2
And I say if I'm a part of, you know, if I'm a part of the body, which part of the body am I? Because I feel like the appendix always grumbling, ready to explode. I feel useless in here. What do you.
00:56:25 Speaker 2
Want what? What's going?
00:56:26 Speaker 2
On and poor Vickers scratch his head and look.
00:56:28 Speaker 2
At me and like this.
00:56:29 Speaker 2
Guy complete Nutter. And again praise God because.
00:56:34 Speaker 2
He's put the right people around me. I've had some fantastic.
00:56:37 Speaker 2
People around me, some you know, this is how God works. He works through those people that follow him, that have nurtured Mary.
00:56:44 Speaker 2
And discipled me and brought us to where we are today as I was ordained.
00:56:49 Speaker 2
With my wife.
00:56:52 Speaker 2
Two weeks ago in Saint Paul's Cathedral, which was an incredible experience, other Bishop lay hands on you and this this they talk about Apostolic succession. This is going all the way back to the birth of the church, laying hands Holy Spirit, working in and through that receiving holy orders.
00:57:08 Speaker 2
And so I just feel like my life's just beginning. You know, people have said to me for the past few years why you should write a book. And I say, listen, I haven't got books around my life, just studying all of this is just beginning. You know, I'm 50 years old, and I feel like I'm, like, 20 again, you know, so I just. I thank God every day. And as I say, it is battles and blessings, there's ups and there's downs.
00:57:29 Speaker 2
But the great news is that God gives us his Holy Spirit to overcome.
00:57:33 Speaker 2
You know, I love that saying that the gods above us, Jesus, is always beside us in the Holy Spirit, comes to dwell within us. That's what it means to be a Christian Christ coming into your heart. And also it gives you the gospel resources, the army. He says life's gonna be a battle. It's not gonna be a breeze. But I've given you these resources that that you may overcome. And I'm with you till the.
00:57:51 Speaker 2
End of an age.
00:57:53 Speaker 2
And I'm aware that I've.
00:57:54 Speaker 2
Spoke till the end of.
00:57:55 Speaker 2
An age. So there I'm gonna stop.
00:57:59 Speaker 4
That's great. That's really cool.
00:58:01 Speaker 3
It's really cool. Just one quick question. What was your family's reaction to that?
00:58:05 Speaker 2
Do you know what, Jenna? That's that's one of the really exciting parts. Cause not just my family. I think it's more like so. So part of my family is really the the the Gladiators as well because we there's a unique relationship there between me and all the guys that we're on telly when we're on telly when this new.
00:58:22 Speaker 2
Show. Come on, come out. And they keep reeling.
00:58:24 Speaker 2
Out of the Indians on this morning or radio and all these different things and.
00:58:31 Speaker 2
It's just such.
00:58:32 Speaker 2
A privilege to be a Christian, you know, I mean, initially when I when I became a Christian, my phone stopped ringing. I was like, my a lot of.
00:58:38 Speaker 2
My prayer points.
00:58:39 Speaker 2
Would be go where are you in this? I thought that like I have this great life. No one rings me now. I want proper loser. I'm on my own.
00:58:46 Speaker 2
But he's now replaced all of these people that were just not really my friends. Do you know what I mean? And he's bought. So people around me that love me, I know.
00:58:53 Speaker 2
So many people I'm you know.
00:58:56 Speaker 2
I have so many relationships with different people, genuine people who are just.
00:59:00 Speaker 2
Unconditionally my friend.
00:59:01 Speaker 2
Friends.
00:59:03 Speaker 2
But on the same token, all those people.
00:59:05 Speaker 2
That start ringing me, rounding me on the regular.
00:59:07 Speaker 2
Because they can see.
00:59:08 Speaker 2
God at work in my life.
00:59:10 Speaker 2
You know, so for instance.
00:59:14 Speaker 2
You know, I've got. I've got three guys left.
00:59:18 Speaker 2
One of them to Christian, he came two stories. He came to my baptism in York to talk me out of getting baptised, cause my other bums worried about me becoming a nut. So they need to build on Fridays. They don't travel up to York from London, they go to the pub. When my brother turned up my door, knocked with tears in his eyes.
00:59:37
Well.
00:59:38 Speaker 2
But you can't get baptised. We're all worried about you're gonna lose, member. Great auntie Stephanie. She she went mad and then up and Nut house following. God, we're worried the same is gonna end up to you anyway. End up the same as you.
00:59:49 Speaker 2
He came to Saint Michael every.
00:59:50 Speaker 2
That day he was.
00:59:52 Speaker 2
In the second pier, as I was queuing up to get back tyres and he was and he was crying and just popped over to him, said Bob. You don't have to cry.
00:59:58 Speaker 2
I said this is a great thing. You're gonna see a great thing I said. Don't worry about it. It's gonna be fine. And he went.
01:00:04 Speaker 2
Well, that's my nickname, by the way.
01:00:05 Speaker 2
I said children.
01:00:06
I want to give.
01:00:07 Speaker 2
My life to Jesus. I thought you said.
01:00:09 Speaker 2
Peace. To be honest, I was like.
01:00:11 Speaker 2
What to only give my Lord?
01:00:13 Speaker 2
Jesus, I'm sorry.
01:00:15 Speaker 2
You know, and he was like, yeah, I went back to the vicar said my brother saying was give his love, he went.
01:00:19 Speaker 2
Turned to get in the queue to baptise him.
01:00:23 Speaker 2
What I did, he went back to work. He went back to my other two brothers who sent him up on a mission to talk me out of it. So.
01:00:26 Speaker 3
So no.
01:00:31
All about Jason.
01:00:34 Speaker 2
Well, it's a bit, I know, but it's they say it's harder for the camel to it's really hard and needle and things. One of my brothers like super well, he's like him and his miss like the posh and Becks of of Epping, you know? And so they went back like, this is insane. What's going on. But God's on the on the move in their.
01:00:34 Speaker 4
Wow, that's brilliant.
01:00:36 Speaker 3
Amazing is that.
01:00:50 Speaker 2
Life through him and through.
01:00:52 Speaker 2
That he has witnessed.
01:00:53 Speaker 2
And the same with gladiator. It's like saying, Humber said to me.
01:00:56 Speaker 2
We went on this morning show and Philip asked Philip Stalford said to me, you know, what do you do now? Said I'm still glad here, Philip, you know, bear in mind to be on that show commercially. It's very valuable for all these gladiators. But wanna get into.
01:01:08 Speaker 2
Show.
01:01:09 Speaker 2
But I've gone now. I don't wanna be on the new gladiators. You know I can't run a bath, let alone eliminate. So I'm going in there to, to share the gospel. So when you go to me, I said, Phil, I'm still a gladiator mate and he's like, well, how's that so. Well, I'm a gladiator for the.
01:01:20 Speaker 2
Gospel. Let me.
01:01:21 Speaker 2
Tell you about Jesus, right? Susan did this. The shadows come down.
01:01:28 Speaker 2
So the.
01:01:32 Speaker 2
You know what it's like, you know, it's even a rock of a fence. And of course, in some sense, it's a rock of a fence. And Hunter turned to me. And he said you'll never work in television again. Why did you do that? You would ever say. Listen, mate, I think come here to work in television. I come here to share truth when they're not sharing truth. So they let it all goes on this show. And they fought with Jeremy Kyle to load the.
01:01:50 Speaker 2
Crap. So actually, it's my pleasure to come and.
01:01:52 Speaker 2
Share truth with Babel.
01:01:54 Speaker 2
And anyway, we'll disperse in different directions and this morning ran me up not six months later and said, would you come on your own, please, and share this judge? You're having a voice active. And the fact you're going to schools and you're you're paying it back. And.
01:02:06 Speaker 2
These things and.
01:02:06 Speaker 2
They rang me up and he said and he said I'm paying 2 grand a month for an agent to get myself on that bloody box, he said. And you must know, people in high places.
01:02:14 Speaker 2
How are you getting on there? What age are you playing? I'm not. I'm. I'm not playing an agent. This is the work of God. So they invited me back to the gospel. And that's how it works. And that's how I know it's being answered to your question.
01:02:25 Speaker 3
Yeah, you do know people in.
01:02:27 Speaker 2
Exactly. OK back, please. So to begin with, I was trying to, you know, convert everyone, but again, through sanctification, I learned that we can't talk anyone into the Kingdom of God is.
01:02:27 Speaker 3
Yes, just not those type.
01:02:35 Speaker 2
To work it.
01:02:36 Speaker 2
Out for it. And So what you're seeing there is on the move, you know, my buddy's got a big truth festival going on. You've got 10 acres over in Epping this weekend. You've got a big truth festival going on.
01:02:47 Speaker 2
And it's all complete nonsense. Conspiracy theories, I mean, he's literally going into this void and and influencing a lot of people going dark alleyways.
01:02:55 Speaker 2
And I would have to be there, to be honest, with put colour on and go along. I can't because I'm doing a service and stuff, but I'm sure God will give me opportunities in that.
01:03:02 Speaker 2
At.
01:03:02 Speaker 2
Some point to go shine a light in the dark. Both these are the battles we face in there, and we've just gotta been a light these dark places.
01:03:09 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:03:11 Speaker 3
That's exactly the kind of place that this would go, isn't it? You'd.
01:03:12 Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. It's, you know.
01:03:14 Speaker 3
Be there. Be there.
01:03:15 Speaker 2
It's all being run by a guy called Dear Dan.
01:03:17
Me.
01:03:18 Speaker 2
And my brother is probably one of the most probably terms successfully successful people I know. I mean, he lives a life of luxury, but you, you meet this dear.
01:03:26 Speaker 2
Danny and he's just nuts, you know, he's.
01:03:28 Speaker 2
Talking about lizards and reptiles.
01:03:30 Speaker 2
And lizards running the world and I'm.
01:03:32 Speaker 2
Like Jay, how can you?
01:03:33 Speaker 2
Be buying into all this. You're like, no, he's.
01:03:35 Speaker 2
Like no and.
01:03:36 Speaker 2
Tell you? Well, you've lost the plot.
01:03:37 Speaker 2
The Bible is the world's best sales book, and you've lost the plot. You know the queen ain't dead. You've swore allegiance to Charles the King and the Queen's not even dead. He says. I'm like, it's like talk.
01:03:46 Speaker 2
To Mad Men. But such is life.
01:03:53 Speaker 3
Can you just? I know you were running short of time, but could you tell us a little bit about these ministries because we don't.
01:03:57 Speaker 3
Actually know that like what you're doing.
01:03:58 Speaker 2
Yeah. So ice active was really a charity that I formed because.
01:04:04 Speaker 2
When I first came to faith, I'd shared testimony and I thought I'd shared testimony once or twice, but just carried on. And I was like, like, I feel like a broken record. Now I feel a bit like I'm flogging the dead dogs. You know, I keep getting asked and asked to share. And again, like I.
01:04:17 Speaker 2
Say that's my nature is sort of introvert.
01:04:20
Weird.
01:04:22 Speaker 2
But I could see God was using the story and and the Archbishop of York at the time John sent him. Who's like Randy answer. Can you come on a mission with me? You could help me because you're sort of working class. You've enjoyed a bit of celebrity and you could shine in the light and that would you come and.
01:04:36 Speaker 2
To started sharing a bit of testing here in there, but what I know is quite quickly is the church didn't seem to be investing in evangelism where I was, it was like they'd get some money they'd seen. There was a problem with evangelism that people weren't hearing the gospel, and they'd throw a bit of money at the church and they spend it on the roof or something. You know, instead of saying, OK, we need to empower evangelists. I could see that alpha was doing great things coming out of.
01:04:56 Speaker 2
And but I recognised quite quickly that the outreach into communities wasn't really really up to par. You know, I think if we're gonna do things with, we've gotta be doing a bit of excellence. And I went to a few church fates.
01:05:09 Speaker 2
I started to see that church fate was a fate worse than death itself. You know, you go and it'd be like we're gonna throw a few wet sponges at vicar. You know, we're gonna draw a picture on the wall and hope that the whole village is gonna come. And I'm like, why do you think people and work hard all week long? You know, they got the kids at the weekend. Why do you think they gotta come?
01:05:26 Speaker 2
And stand in this damn church in this wet churchyard.
01:05:29 Speaker 2
To phone Victor, you know sponges in a.
01:05:31 Speaker 2
Vicar and I was like, OK.
01:05:33 Speaker 2
But like I said, my church didn't really know what to do with me at the time. I thought we need an evangelistic ministry, a charity that's well organised.
01:05:41 Speaker 2
And that works with churches, helps parishes outreach into the communities and looks at contemporary culture, looks at what people are consuming, and doesn't succumb to that, but actually goes along with it. So if you're consuming, if you know, if you take your kids to a fair at the weekend and they really enjoy inflatables and bouncy castles, what we're gonna do is.
01:06:02 Speaker 2
But we can do it better in the church.
01:06:04 Speaker 2
So I started ace active as a a register registered charity. And you know, it was quite a clear vision. And so I'm not gonna bow down to anything culprit. You know, we're not gonna dilute the gospel here. It's a gospel ministry where we're going to schools wherever we called, actually, communists helping churches outreach. We'll take the.
01:06:23 Speaker 2
You know, whatever we need to to.
01:06:26 Speaker 2
To sort of hook the community. So I bought a load of glad air inflatables to begin with and I've set them up in the church gardens and I'd say we're turning into a gladiator day and to come on the Sunday and we'll do some do some.
01:06:37 Speaker 2
Testimony as well and.
01:06:38 Speaker 2
Of course, the kids have seen that inflatables. They're dragging a bit like McDonald's, you know, making the happy meals. You get them by the kids, they bring their parents in. And of course.
01:06:46 Speaker 2
Then we were hitting with a gospel and stuff, and God was opening doors with that. So we.
01:06:50 Speaker 2
Just carried on and carried on and.
01:06:54 Speaker 2
I thought that might that.
01:06:55 Speaker 2
May be you know two or three years and I'd hand that baton on to somebody else. You know, just finding creative ways to share the gospel and help the church to do that. But.
01:07:04 Speaker 2
It seems now that got drawn that ministry into the church. You know, I just trained recently at Saint Melius and they're recognising that, you know, as training new vicars and curates that actually we need formational training. We need to be amongst the people that.
01:07:18 Speaker 2
Trying to reach, you know, getting out into schools, getting out into the community, getting out into our parishes. So I think the ministry is working well again, you know, through the training up to two years of theological training. Take my foot off the gas a bit with that, which was annoying because I'm like, pick me to the Gosport. I'm sat in the classroom talking about the Gosport. We need to get out there.
01:07:38 Speaker 2
But the good news is that I think what God's doing in.
01:07:41 Speaker 2
This is, I think he's gonna raise up young people, young leaders, and he's gonna put them into a active cause. All A stands for. It's a bit cheesy, but active Christian evangelism. Get out there and tell them the gospel. Don't be ashamed of it because if you don't, then boys will be filled with other things. And I I think we're really seeing this now with, you know, toxic, masculine and stuff, you know, because we're not speaking into contemporary issues.
01:08:03 Speaker 2
Other people are.
01:08:04 Speaker 2
And I think.
01:08:05 Speaker 2
The church needs to be doing that, and I'm hoping that active will be a vehicle that I can hand on to.
01:08:09 Speaker 2
Younger people, I'll be honest, I'm beyond.
01:08:12 Speaker 2
Just dressing that I do. You know what I do in some of these schools? I dress up as a woman. Glad hair in it and hide in the.
01:08:17 Speaker 2
Cupboard was 52 years old when.
01:08:20 Speaker 2
I'm like they're expecting a glad out of the TV to run out. Of course I run out and tell the real story. The Roman gladiators. The arrival of Jesus. The fact that Roman Empire tried to kill him, but they couldn't because he's the son of God and then the whole Roman Empire.
01:08:32 Speaker 2
Become Christians within 300 years and this is, you know, this.
01:08:35 Speaker 2
Is where we're at now.
01:08:37 Speaker 2
And so, yeah, I'm hoping that this will be a ministry that God uses greatly.
01:08:42 Speaker 2
For proclamation of the gospel and I.
01:08:45 Speaker 2
Just need some young, some young spirit filled.
01:08:48 Speaker 2
Christian that are on.
01:08:49 Speaker 2
Fire that we can send back out into the schools as glad he is for.
01:08:53 Speaker 2
The gospel. Really.
01:08:56 Speaker 3
Amazing.
01:08:57 Speaker 4
How do how do they get in?
01:08:58 Speaker 4
Contact with you if you're listening.
01:08:58 Speaker 2
Active.org.
01:09:01 Speaker 2
If you just. Yeah, very easy. You wanna contact me? If you if you e-mail ace@aceactive.org, that e-mail will come straight to me and I will reply. I'll be glad to hear from anybody who want.
01:09:16 Speaker 3
Amazing. Let's hope that that happens. And then if you could just pray for anyone listening that's been really touched by your story is in that place, you know, searching, there's so many people searching and looking into everything isn't there? And I just feel like there's.
01:09:29 Speaker 3
Probably will. I hope there's people listening that have typed in.
01:09:34 Speaker 3
You know who is good or they're looking for something. Can you just pray us?
01:09:36 Speaker 2
Yeah.
01:09:38 Speaker 4
And and also I just have a real feeling of anyone who might be on the edge of thinking of going on an alpha course. And I'm I'm aware a lot of people invite people to alpha courses and I just really feel from your story that alpha was a really good thing for you and and maybe if you can.
01:09:51 Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
01:09:52 Speaker 3
Include that as well. Yeah, that'd be great.
01:09:56 Speaker 2
Father, I thank you, Lord, for the divine privilege privilege that he is serving you, Lord, and thank you for asking Gemma Lord and then ministry Lord and all they're doing for you. Lord Jesus, I thank you for this podcast, Lord, and I thank you for everybody who's given their time to listen to it. Lord, they say time is money, but time is more precious than money.
01:10:16 Speaker 2
We can replace money, but we can't replace our time. Our thank you, Lord, for all those listening that have given their time to listen to this, their best.
01:10:23 Speaker 2
News in the.
01:10:24 Speaker 2
World is the Gospel Lord and out of the world actually so.
01:10:28 Speaker 2
I pray in particular for those that are listening, that are that are like I've lost that are like, hang on, this sounds a bit too good, be too good to be true. I can know God.
01:10:37 Speaker 2
Personally, really, can I? There's more. God has a purpose in my life. I'm that important that God has funded me uniquely and I don't have to defend myself like what I did by taking steroids or having body this month. And I'm perfect as I am.
01:10:54 Speaker 2
I pray Lord.
01:10:56 Speaker 2
That those listening that have any objections and or preconception.
01:11:01 Speaker 2
About who you are.
01:11:02 Speaker 2
And why you came, Lord Jesus, that they will examine the evidence log.
01:11:08 Speaker 2
Perhaps listening to some more podcasts, but perhaps coming on Alpha course, father, like I did as Alphas running all over the place all over the country all over the world now. Actually, this is a great place to examine the evidence of who you are and why.
01:11:23 Speaker 2
You came and there's no follow up.
01:11:26 Speaker 2
And I have no dog in the fight. I'm not selling anything here more.
01:11:28 Speaker 2
Than I hope that they see.
01:11:29 Speaker 2
That that but this.
01:11:32 Speaker 2
Moment in time is a divine encounter, and I pray, Holy Spirit, that you touch hearts right now.
01:11:40 Speaker 2
The people hear something.
01:11:43 Speaker 2
People can feel your presence that those listening can feel your presence.
01:11:48 Speaker 2
I pray that you reveal yourself to them more powerfully, Lord, in the coming hours, days, weeks and I pray they would step towards you and come into the reality of the relationship with you, coming to their divine purpose.
01:12:03 Speaker 2
And that's an abundant life now, the glorious one. After this one, the life of love and not fear. And we ask this in the mighty name of your son Jesus Christ, Amen.
01:12:15 Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to the Jesus Studio podcast. Please rate and subscribe the testimonials and stories shared. Reflect the personal experiences and unique journeys of our guests.
01:12:27
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01:12:29 Speaker 1
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