The Beautiful Bible - Brian Chung | Faithly Stories

Who would have imagined, guess, oh my gosh, I don't get a number, 20 years later? I did a quick math that might not be accurate, but many years later, that God would have me actually publishing a magazine, but not just any magazine, a magazine of God's word. And so I think I just want to first, like, just say this is such an honor that I'm just so grateful to God for this, that there's not in the roadmap of my plan. Originally again, I wanted to become an accountant and God had a different story for that. Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life, brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, learn more at Faithly.co. I'm ready to be uplifted and inspired on the Faithly Stories podcast. Brian Chung, welcome to the Faithly Stories podcast. Thank you so much for having me. So it is really an honor to have you on today. As I shared before we started recording, I encountered my first alabaster Bible, like six or seven years ago, and I was so struck by it. So to have an opportunity to meet you and talk to you is really, really exciting. I'm excited to be here. Okay, so I mentioned alabaster. I mentioned the Bible, and it's because alabaster is a publisher of the Bible, but not just any publisher of the Bible, the publisher of beautifully crafted Bibles that are like works of art. And in fact, you will have a mission that is to see all of humanity experience, God as beautiful. So what first inspired you to start alabaster? I know that we're doing a podcast, but for the folks who are watching, I do have a sample right behind me. So the people can see what it looks like. Yeah. Pull it up. Let's see it. Yeah. I actually have a mini version of it right over here. That's perfect. Right into the screen. I love it. Wow. But it normally comes to the magazine version size of this, but it's what makes alabaster Bibles a little bit different is we weave beautiful imagery and thoughtful design into each individual book of the Bible. So we're thoughtful about typography, about the images, the images aren't random. We do an in-depth study of scripture, and we choose images to go alongside the scripture and the hopes that people can experience God through beauty. But where this all started was, you might be surprised to hear that I didn't grow up Christian. I grew up in a Buddhist household, born and raised in Hawaii. I am a son of immigrant parents in Hong Kong. And I remember coming into a college, agnostic, believing in a God, but not really following anything. And I had gotten glimpses of Catholicism, of Christianity, glimpses of Buddhism from my parents. And so that's why I landed as agnostic. I became a Christian after my freshman year in college. And that's a whole different story, but we could save that for another time. I became a Christian after my freshman year in college. I remember going back home to Hawaii after my time in LA, my freshman year in LA. And I remember saying, God, if you're real, like you showed up in LA, I want you to show up in Hawaii, where I have no Christian family, no Christian friends. And so if your God showed up there and got totally showed up, two of my closest friends became Christian in college, they started a Bible study in Hawaii and they invite me. And I remember going to my bedroom, opening up my journal and writing, you're real. I guess I'm a Christian now. Next thing I know, I go to the local Christian bookstore in Hawaii and I get my first Bible. It's a leather bound Bible, traditional Bible, the first couple pages as you know are actually not the story of the Bible, but things to fill out. It was about the translation had maps and so I was really excited to just jump on in, but it was just different than what I expected. The text was small, the pages were thin, two columns, some words in red, other words in the block. I didn't know what any of that meant and I was just a little intimidated at reading the Bible. And so I go to college, I take my marketing class and I remember getting my marketing textbook and loving to read my marketing textbook. And the reason why is because it was designed like a magazine. And for the first time, I felt excited to read any college textbook just because of how it was designed. And I thought to myself, could the Bible be designed differently and do anything about it at the time? So it became Christian originally I wanted to become an accountant, but God totally like redirected my career plans went into ministry, college ministry after college for eight years. And it was towards the end where I meet my co-founder. His name is also Brian Schum, split with a Y instead of an I. So my first name is Brian, B-R-I-A-N. His first name is Brian, B-R-Y-A-N. We both share the same last name Schum and not related at all. And I remember I, having a conversation with him about art and faith. And I told him about this book written by a pastor in Southern California. His name is James Chong. And he writes about how every generation asks a spiritual question. So for boomers, a spiritual question was what is true? So that you see a rise of the apologetics movement. People wanting to prove and show that God is true. Nexers, their spiritual question is what is real? And so you see giant exers not wanting to how to debate. We just want to be authentic and real with each other. Millennials, that's my generation. So our spiritual question was what is good and so millennials, we want to do good and just works in the world. And so you see a rise of justice movements that happen through millennials. And this was back in 2014 and he makes a prediction of what Gen Z's spiritual question would be. And he says their spiritual question would be what is beautiful. And immediately when I read that, I was like, I see that even happening now. This was before the rise of the Instagram influencer. This was when Snapchat was starting to become a thing. This is when the term Netflix, Netflix binging started to become like a saying. This was when people started judging companies and churches by their Instagram or their church website. And I saw us moving towards a very visual generation. And I thought to myself, I want to show the world that God is beautiful. And so I'm having this conversation with my co-founder Brian. And he said, let's do something about it. Let's put up a website, let's write a blog. And then I shared the idea like, no, actually, let's design the Bible like a magazine. It's point people towards the beauty of God through visual imagery and design and his eyes lit up. And he said, let's do it. And so the next week he comes back with a name, with a vision, with a design. And we're like, let's make this happen. And so that's sort of the launch of it. We had no idea what we were doing, no idea, no background in publishing. My background was in Christian ministry in business. He was an artist. And so we had some background in design. I studied design also at college, we had no idea what we were doing. All I knew is I wanted to put it on a Kickstarter, which is a crowdfunding platform. And so for those who are not familiar, you would basically support a campaign. And as a result, you would get rewards. So in this case, the reward wasn't book that we would make. And it was an all or nothing campaign. So you either need to raise for us as a $35,000 goal. And if you raise that amount, you get it. If you don't, you get nothing. And so we're like, let's do 35,000 because I think that's how much we need to actually make this thing a reality. And within 10 days, it was fully funded. Wow. And so what did 35,000 get you at the time? Did I get you one copy or did I get you like, talk me through what you could achieve with that? Yeah. So at that time, we released Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Sean. So all four gospels and it was for the first minimum order quality, which I think was around like 2000 per book. So would cover just that. And we likely raised more than that. But I think in that moment, I remember when we got fully funded, it was, there was this moment of, wow, this really matters. Yeah. Like people are longing to experience God in beautiful ways, in visual ways. Wow. And so also it was the time that I realized this is no longer going to become a hobby. That I actually have to figure this out and make this book because at the time, we only went to local print shop. We only made 12 pages. The rest were blank. If you look at our original Kickstarter, like they're just buying pages to make it look like a book. And everything else was just, yeah, we made 12 and so we're like, we had to design this thing. We didn't have a printer. We defined a printer. We defined a fulfillment center. We didn't know anything that we were doing, but we made it happen. And so that was kind of the start in the moment. What a story. I mean, there's so much that I want to dig into. I'll start out maybe just by saying that your story really resonates with me. Some people are surprised that I didn't grow up in a Christian home either. My parents were also immigrants from Taiwan. And to look at what you're doing now with Alibaster and what we're doing with faithly, I mean, it just is such a testimony to this family of adoption, right, that is the Christian family. And so anyway, that is so beautiful. And I love the all or nothing approach, you know, you had a vision. You knew what you wanted to do and you went all or nothing. So tell me about that moment when you realized you had to like actually do this and that this was this was your calling. Did you was there a job that you had to quit to do this? So still doing ministry at that time. I was working for a Christian nonprofit. We were ministering towards college students. And so I guess like that we did a lot of them work during the summer where things were a little slow. My co-founder at the time was doing a lot of the work while I was still doing ministry. I think I only gave like four hours a week to this. But I was the original designer. I was in the in design file. I have no background in in design, but I was in the in design file, designing the layouts. And I remember saying to my co-founder Brian, I don't know if this can be me. I don't know if I could do all four gospels. And so my co-founder was also working for the same nonprofit. And we were ministering at a campus called art center college of design in Pasadena. And that's where we also met our first designer. Wow. Her name is Josephine. And her background was layout design. Yeah. The tutorial design. And so we decided Josephine, we need your help. And so she was, she helped us make the books. But then it was finding a printer. And so we had ordered a bunch of books of magazines that we really, really loved. One of them was Ken Folk. It's this. Some people describe it as the Martha Stewart for millennials. It's a high end luxury like kind of lifestyle book. And we decided to reverse engineer where it was printed from. So there's these websites that you can see where they was printed from. And we just did that. We find the original printer, which was hemlock. We're very proud that we print from hemlock. They're based in Canada. And we're like, let's make it happen. And so we had just a lot, we just try to figure it out. I had a friend that was in e-commerce. He's a mentor of mine. His name is Vay. And he helped me with the business side of it. After we printed all the books, we shipped them. He was very generous and lent us his warehouse space. Wow. And I remember asking a lot of friends for just free pizza. Could you help us pack boxes? And so yeah, that's the story. We just kind of figured it out and we made it happen. Wow. OK, so just to give our audience a sense of how far you've come, you've been doing this for 10 years now. And you have won a lot of accolades. You and Alibaster, tell us about where you are in this moment in some of the milestones you've achieved. I never would have imagined us being here today. I constantly thank God for this wild journey that I've been on with Alibaster. And before I go into the accolades, I will say that I remember when I wasn't a Christian, I was in high school doing yearbook design. I was the art director for your book. And I remember asking God, God, if there's a job that I get to do this, I would love it. Wow. And who would have imagined, guess, oh, my gosh, I don't even know, 20 years later? Did a quick math that might not be accurate. But many years later, that God would have me actually publishing a magazine, but not just any magazine, a magazine of God's word. And so I think I just want to first just say, this is such an honor that I'm just so grateful to God for this that there's not in the roadmap of my plan. Originally, again, I wanted to become an accountant and God had a different story for that. But yeah, since then, we've sold over a million books, Bibles, and Bible studies. We've been one of the fastest growing private companies in America awarded by Inc. 5,000 more than five times. Personally, I've been an honoree of the Forbes Next 1,000, of most promising entrepreneurs. Our Bibles are now used at luxury hotels, one in California, just down the street from here, as well as in Paris. We have over 7,000 five star reviews across all of our products. And our products are now used by celebrities, like the Bebers and the Kardashians and the Jonas Brothers. And so it's just been a wild journey to see all those things happen. And I am immensely grateful. Wow, I think thank you for sharing all of that. I know it can feel like a little uncomfortable sometimes to share the accolades because it's certainly not what you got in the, it's not why you started it. But I think it's important and so encouraging, especially to ministry leaders out there, because I think these days, especially where I am and where you are, right? Like in a big city, being a Christian, I'm let alone being like a ministry leader. I feel so counter-cultural. So to hear things like a million beautiful Bible sold, to hear things like one of the fastest-growing private companies, I think that's a real encouragement to leader. So thank you for sharing that. How did you choose the name Alibaster? I mean, I knew how you chose it as soon as I heard the name Alibaster, but I would love to hear it from you. Yeah, it's a really old wild story. I mean, I'll go go the quick version first and then the long version. The quick version is in the book of Mark, there's a story of the women with Alibaster jar. And it's this expensive jar perfume broken in front of Jesus. The people were scolding this woman that that jar could have been sold for X, Y and Z, and Ari. And Jesus knows what she has done as a beautiful thing. And it is the first time in the book of Mark where Jesus calls something beautiful. And for us, as we're trying to answer the question of what is beautiful and show the world that God is beautiful, that's why we chose the word and the name Alibaster for a brand. The long story is my freshman year after my freshman year, I got invited to, so I guess the summer, my freshman year got invited to a Christian camp. And again, I'm not Christian, not religious. And they said, we're going to go to this camp for a week and it's going to be a lot of fun, brand, you should come. And for me, I'm like, oh, great, I love to hang out with friends and I love having fun, so I end up going. I end up going and then I realized that this wasn't just any camp. It was a camp that we would be studying the Bible for eight hours a day. They left that small detail. Yeah, they left that little detail. So here I am studying the book of Mark and not just any book of Mark, the second half of Mark, which if you, you know, I'm sure you are, the second half of Mark is really, really intense. That's when Jesus starts going to the cross and I'm reading, I'm reading, I'm reading it, I'm just like angry and frustrated for the first couple of days. And then slowly, I start opening my heart and just, maybe God will speak to me. And I remember studying and reading this story, the woman with the alabaster char. And I remember reading it and for the first time, I started crying and I had uncontrollably and I had no idea why. And I mean, now looking back, I feel like it was God speaking to me for the first time God really speaking to me through his word. And why it spoke to me was because the question that the facilitator was asking was, what is your alabaster jar? What is this thing of extreme worth that Jesus might be asking you to break in front of him where the world might see it being a waste, but I might see it as a beautiful thing. And for me, it was, I mean, I didn't just go to USC to just do ministry at after graduating college. I went to USC to become a CTA to have a nice paying job, to drive a nice car, to have a nice title. And I felt, even as someone that, again, wasn't religious, I felt like I was like, could you give that up? Could you break those things and could you do something else? And that story has been really, really impactful for me after graduating college. That was the story that God brought me back to, like, okay, could you not pursue business? And just to ministry for eight years. Could you waste your life, how the world might see it, be wasteful for your 20s? And so it also, I guess also the long story is that this story has been really impactful and meaningful in my faith life. And so that's also why the name alabaster. I love it. Well, isn't it so like God to ask you to give something up and then to give you something even better? All those things that you wanted, when you can surrender them at Jesus's feet, like what he'll give you is so much better. So I wanna talk a little bit about the Bible in the digital age. So we just had you version on our podcast and we talked to their head of communications about the fact that they're celebrating over a billion installs of the U version family of apps. I'm one of those people. I know, me too, me too. I think there are hardly any Christians especially in the US who don't know that icon on their phone, right, like we all know the U version app. And it's amazing. And I'm just curious as a publisher of the physical Bible, how do you see the role of the physical Bible in this digital generation? Yeah, that's a really, really great question. I don't think it's mutually exclusive. This just might be me. But I'm the type of people just for any book. I have the physical book. I have the Kindle book and I have the audio book. Anytime I have very, very different options to read a book. And I think, for example, I might just want the physical book to not have any destruction. I might want to have the Kindle book when I am traveling or carry everything around. I might want the audio book when I'm working out or on a commute. And I just feel like the more options for people to experience God and read God's word the better. And so it's just creating more spaces that people can engage in God's word. And so for me, yeah, I mean, I carry this around and it's easy, it's light, it fits in my pocket. But sometimes I don't want to be distracted. And I have all the apps on my phone that's trying to get my attention. And sometimes I need just something physical to read, to highlight. I'm still very like, I like to write and highlight things down in my books. And so that goes similar for, I believe, physical book because that people can do that a little bit more. And so I don't see them as mutually exclusive. I see them as just giving people the opportunity to engage in God's word in a variety of different ways and in more ways than ever before. Yeah, that's so good. So you mentioned Brian that you're a millennial. I'm a millennial as well. Yeah, a millennial. Yeah, that's right. Well, so I wonder if the newer generations can absorb from digital. For me personally, as a millennial, because I grew up reading physical books, that is the only way I could truly absorb material. I agree with you. I use all the mediums. I'll listen to the Bible. I'll check out a few verses on my phone, like the U-version episodic reference for me. But I wonder if you feel like I feel that you need to see and feel. And it needs to be a physical copy to like really have it soak into you. Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's why we're really intentional about our design. And that's, I think, what says it's a part that other not just Christian books, but just books period where we're really thoughtful about the layout, the design, the imagery, how people use the book, how people engage the book. I remember when I was in ministry, we would hand out a bunch of Bibles to people who weren't Christian, as just please be engaged with God's word. And I will never forget the response that I saw from someone who wasn't religious. They would open it up, flip a few pages, and then put it in their backpack. And then I remember, I was so excited, I handled the first prototype of our Bibles. And for a good five to 10 minutes, they would just flip page after page after page, reading, absorbing, experiencing God. And in that moment, when I saw that, I was like, there's something here that the medium of how things are presented actually do matter. Yeah. And so for us, we're really nerdy about it. We even think about the paper type and the paper color. Wow. Different types of white paper. Cool paper, warm paper, different trees that they're printed on. But for us, we all know that the story of God is a beautiful story. And for us, like, could we create a really, really beautiful reading experience? And so that's why we're really attention about that. Yeah. Well, so you have a lot of objectives that you're trying to balance. There is a clear sort of creative artistry that is at the center of what you're printing. But then you're also, there's sort of spiritual integrity that you're trying to maintain. And you're also trying to build a successful and sustainable business. How do you manage the tension of those things? Because I imagine that sometimes they might seem a little bit in conflict. Yeah. For me, this might sound controversial, not intention at all. My investor, and he is also Christian. He runs one of the largest baby crib brands in the US. I will never forget how he talks about writing his business, where he says that sales and profit, you should never aim for sales and profit. That's always a result of loving God and loving people. And so he talks about how do we worship God through our work? How do we worship God in our business? Is it to produce sloppy work? Is it to not be excellent in our work? And he said, no, it's to do everything in an excellence the best of our ability. And so for me, I think about what does it look like to run an excellent business, not just for the sake of it being a good for sales and profit, but actually in worship to God? And then secondly, love people. What does it look like to love our customers? Well, what does it look like to love our teammates and our employees? Well, what does it look like to love our partners and printers and manufacturers? Well, and so for us, that's also really, really important. And so I think about loving God and loving people as the things that my primary objective and sales and profit, that's a result. That is so good. Thank you for sharing that. Running a business in that way isn't easy, right? It's almost easier to follow the business principles textbook and go after those sales and profits. You're doing it in the Jesus way. It can't be easy and you've been doing it for 10 years. So I'm curious if you can share any mistakes you've made. Lessons you've learned over this past decade. After we printed our first Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I would never forget this mistake because it was one of the most painful mistakes of launching Alabaster. We sent all the books out and one of my friends emails me. Jesus, Brad has started reading. I'm on Mark chapter four and I don't know if this is just my book or not, but their verse is missing. Yeah, yeah. A couple of weeks later, not a couple of weeks. Like maybe like a couple of days later, he was, I finished it. I finished and there are more verses missing. I remember that weekend because I'm the, you know, I'm working. That weekend, I drive to our warehouse to open up every single box and read our Bibles and I find out every single book has verses missing from the book of, okay? Look, we're, I can, I can almost feel the pit in your stomach that you fell all those years ago. I was so stressed. I was like, what, what do you do? What do you do in the situation, right? Like a couple of different options, one, not tell our customers, just let it be, okay? Two, let our customers know and just let it be. Three, let our customers know and fix the problem, reprint it and re-ship them out, okay? For those who listening at home, what option would you choose, okay? Also letting you know that a reprint would also cost you $25,000, not including shipping back to the customer, okay? And that you have no money because you spent all the money on the first production run. I think I would, I would want to do three, but it would seem like so insurmountable to me. I might settle for two if I couldn't get all the way to three, I would be tempted to do one because really many people will not notice. Gosh, this is a tricky one. So what did you end up doing? Yeah, I mean, obviously three. It, I think for us, it was this question of, this is our first time running a business. And so what does it look like to set a standard of integrity for us? And you know, I didn't know the language of the time was not mentored by my investor at the time, but I think for us it was like, what does it look like to love God and love people while in this moment? And for us, it was making it right to our customers. And it was the Bible. We could not have verses missing from the Bible. And so we informed all our customers, we let them know and we also made a fun, little fun thing or as I can use the chapter to the verses missing. Wow. Well, so it's no wonder that you've been able to do what you've been able to do since from day one, you have done it the Jesus way. You've done the heart thing, you've done the integrity thing and you've built what seems like a very loyal following of people who know they can expect quality and beauty from you as a publisher. Well, thank you for sharing that story. Yes, that was a big mistake. Well, well, okay. So you didn't grow up a Christian, you became a Christian and then you became a ministry leader and then you became a Bible publisher. And so in a lot of ways publishing the Bible has probably been like the preponderance of your faith journey, right? Like over the last 10 years, like how has it shaped your faith journey? How has your faith grown in that time? That's a really great question. I think when I first started running alabaster, I mean, it was like, it was right after ministry. So I was like, okay, like producing these books, I could have greater impact. There's, you know, I was leading a ministry about 200 students and I was like, now 1 million Bibles. Wow. And so I think that was like, oh, like this could be a place to really impact a lot of people. And that's, I remember like people were asking me, what's the vision, what's the goal? And I think I wanted to show the world that God is beautiful. And, but if you were to ask me today, what's most important or the thing that I think, like I wake up and I think about, it's actually my team. And creating a beautiful workplace for them. And I think why that has changed and what God has spoken to me about is the Jesus ministers all about people. And yes, he ministered to the crowds, but he had his disciples, which over the 12, he had his three and then he had his one. And he also had face to face times with people. It wasn't just the mass preaching. It was to the leopard. It was to the bleeding woman and had this really small moments of face to face moments with people. And I think God has just continually to remind me that in my faith that, yes, you're impacting the crowds, but you still have to remember the people in front of you. And so for me, that's been like the, I know God's sort of bringing me back to that. Like you have these like big visions for what you want to do, but you can't forget about the people in front of you. Yeah. I know I talked about like the accolades of a million books. Like I think also about the stories of the, like more than just the number of the actual people that our books are being impacted. And so sharing stories like yours of like your first time experiencing our products, just it makes me, I'm like, this is all worth it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to talk about your team for a second. Because I can't remember if you mentioned this accolade, but you, Alibaster has won an award for one of the best places to work. Can you tell us about that? I mean, is it a free Starbucks, you know? Yeah, endless vacations. What can people expect at Alibaster? Yeah, I mean, I'll just first start off with, it was never always like this. I think it's really important for me that I communicate that like, I really care about our team members. And so how do I physically express that more than just the standard norm? One of our values is above and beyond. How do we go above and beyond for our customers? And one of the things that I ask as a boss and an employer is how do I go above and beyond for you? How do I go above and beyond what is the standard? In meeting a lot of church leaders, ministry leaders, over the last few years as we've built faithfully, I have really, truly never come across a group of people that have had in them this desire to create and build. Like, I've spent a lot of time in other sectors, I spent a lot of time on Wall Street. And there are creatives there too, but people on ministry, man, like there's something about knowing that you're made in the image of God that I think sparks like this creativity. Everyone wants to build something, start something, create something. As someone who followed that spark, who followed that call and built something that is alabaster, what would you tell those people who are feeling that tug to do something? What are some of the maybe things they have to do, things they should avoid? Yeah, I would say for folks who want to do something to just do it. I also have a lot of people who have expressed, yeah, ministry leaders, creatives, other aspiring entrepreneurs that have a lot of ideas. I would say only one percent of those people actually make it happen. It kind of sticks in the idea of mode. And so I think I always encourage people with that. It's just try it. And why I say that is because, and to share that percentage is, I ask the question, why? Why is it so low percentage of people who actually go and do it? And I think about what were the barriers for me and it was fear of failure. It was fear of what people think of me, a fear of making mistakes, fear of wasting money or just losing it all, fear of instability, fear of not being able to pay the bills, all real fears. And I'm reminded of multiple stories in the book of Mark where Jesus talks about the opposite of fear is faith, to step out, to deeper waters, to put out the nets in the deeper sea and to have faith. And I feel like for in our walks of Jesus, it's like, what's that continued next step of faith? And sometimes it is starting that new thing. And trusting that that may be something that God might be speaking to you or moving your heart in. And the act of faith is obedience to those things. Wow, I love it. I love it. Well, I don't know if you can see this on the screen, but there's a work of art behind me that was created by a Christian artist named Hannah Robinette. And what you probably can't see on the screen is that it's filled with white squares, like hundreds of white squares on this canvas and this piece is entitled faith, what cannot be seen. So I feel like that's a great place to leave the conversation. Thank you so much, Brian, for sharing your heart for the Bible, for God, and sharing your alabaster story with us. It is so beautiful and so inspiring. Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff, and volunteers. The Faithly Digital Platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration, and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, great, and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the Frontlines of Ministry on the Faithly podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful, and never underestimate the power of your own story.