Reverend Adam Gompertz, C of E Minister, artist, and founder of the REVS community talks with Tabs and Kate about love, humility and making a difference one person at a time.

Reverend Adam Gompertz is such a force of positivity, hope and inspiration. He is a brilliant artist and loved cars from an early age, latterly working as a designer for MG Rover, Dubois Yachts and the Bespoke Division of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. In 2011 he became a Church of England Minister and in 2015 set about combining these worlds together. The Reverend received the Royal Automobile Club Personal Endeavour Award in 2021.

The REVs community creates neutral, safe, supportive and inclusive spaces where people can discuss and share life, loves, struggles, a passion for cars and explore faith in whatever form that takes. Sometimes silence and presence might just be all that is needed.

We discussed faith, passions, the love of people, cars and the power of a safe space where everyone can be all of the unique and special person that they are. All recorded, fittingly, on Mental Health Awareness Day.

It is a serene, entertaining and inspiring look at life and how we can make the best of each day.

Thank you for listening, Tabs and Kate ❤️

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Title: Reverend Adam Gompertz, C of E Minister, artist and founder of the REVS community talks with Tabs and Kate about love, humility and making a difference one person at a time.

Tabi: Welcome to livestream. A podcast to inspire and provoke in which we delve into the meaning of success. We chat development, self-care and journeys with some phenomenal people. We are a mother-daughter duo who both have very different life experiences. So this is my wonderful mum, Kate Tojeiro. She is deep in the world of business leadership and she really cares about how people can make a difference.  

Kate: And this is my wonderful daughter, Tabi Tojeiro. And she graduated this summer from Leeds University as an actor and is stepping into her own world, forging her own path and doing a little bit of work, currently in the luxury event space and all sorts of things, which is very exciting. 

In this episode we're absolutely thrilled to welcome Reverend Adam Gompertz who is, in short, an incredible human being. Passionate about cars from an early age, Adam worked as a designer for MG Rover, Dubois Yachts and the bespoke division of Rolls Royce Motor Cars. In 2011, he became a Church of England minister, and in 2015 set about combining those worlds together. 

He's a brilliant artist and the creator of the Revs Community, which brings together people with a deep, old and pulsing passion for cars to come together, support one another through restoring, talking about cars and, of course, life struggles.  And in 2021, he received the Royal Automobile Club Personal Endeavour Award. We're absolutely so delighted to have you with us. 

Adam: Thank you, thank you.

Kate: Thank you for being with us. It's brilliant. I think, first thing I suddenly realised not that long ago, well I realised this morning obviously, it's World Mental Health Awareness Day . We're actually meeting with you on World Mental Health Awareness Day, which is brilliant. So the first question I want to ask you is really about how the Revs Community came about and what was the spark that started it?

Adam: It's been quite a journey, really. I mean, we started with our first car show. We actually started in 2014 with just one car show and I thought that would be it. You know, just getting people together in a church car park with their old cars, eating hot dogs, talking about life. I know I remember going to bed the night after we’d done that, thinking we’ve done something huge. I mean, it wasn't huge by any stretch, but it felt huge. And it felt significant in some ways. 

But at the heart of it is a desire to create spaces within communities that people can come to. They can talk about cars, they can talk about the struggles that they're facing, and they can talk about faith if they want to. They can explore it and ask questions about it. Even the questions that some vicars might shy away from. But, it's a safe space, and it's a neutral space. And it's a supporting space, and particularly it's an inclusive space. That's always been my kind of heart for it. And my love of people, a love of stories, a love of cars and all of them kind of mushed in together somehow. And here we are, what, seven, eight years later?  

Tabi: Yeah. It's amazing. And where did the initial idea for it actually come from? How did that get sparked?  

Adam: I remember going to vicar school and you kind of walk in and you kind of leave your previous life at the door, and then two years later, they kind of wheel you out with a dog collar and then “Hey presto, you're a member of the clergy.”

I always found that I couldn't leave that old life completely behind. I loved cars still. I loved the people that I got to work with. And I kind of thought, well, actually, there's space for somebody to go back into that world and be hopefully, a source of positive good, of encouragement, of hope, of inspiration and for me, as a Christian, there kind of was a sense that God was leading that way, really. 

I remember sitting and reading a book about the future of the church, and it was really quite dramatic in exploring what future churches could look like. And they talked about a group of guys who were racing radio controlled cars in the park and this group of Christians went and got a radio controlled car each and joined them and just became part of that community and hoped in some way to share something of God's love in that community, you know, not kind of holding mass services for radio controlled car vans or standing on street corners preaching at them and judging them, but just going in and being part of what they were doing. Earning the right just to kind of share life with them and I just was majorly inspired by that. And that kind of started it really.  

Kate: I love that. Tabs and I were talking about it a bit before we came on air. And I think the fact that you've always had that sort of ethos if you like, to go to people, it's like anything, we can do all sorts of things in life, but ultimately you have to go to something. And I also think the lovely way you create an environment that is for those with faith, for those without faith, but also the fact tinkering with the car and the things that you've now gotten to do in terms of restoring and, amazing restoration car projects. But somehow there's something easier about talking to someone when you're side on, rather than when you're eyeball to eyeball. Sometimes it's easy especially when the emotions are a bit raw or hard.  

Adam: Yeah, and the minute people see somebody with a bit of white plastic around their throat, they can either do two things. They can either suddenly unpack their whole life story, or they become tongue tied and feel awkward. And I think as well, we in the church have to understand that church is not the default choice for people on a Sunday morning anymore. You know that they're going off and doing other stuff and if we want to do something positive and be involved in their lives in a good way, we need to go where they are, not expect them to come to us. And I think that's really important.

Tabi: I think it's also a lovely thing because you're very aware that obviously, even just in the last 100 years, it's changed. Even 50 years ago, families would have woken up on a Sunday got into their Sunday best and gone to church, whereas now it's obviously really different. And I think that you've recognised that but been like, “I know people aren't doing this anymore, but we still want to have that space for doing something.” So you've brought cars into it. I think it makes it a lot more accessible. 

Adam:  I think cars for me, you know, I've loved cars since I was a little kid and you only have to get people together around an old car and open the bonnet and suddenly it's like bees to honeypot. In some ways, there's no kind of hardship on my part I get to do what I love and that's great. But I also think that some people need a neutral space before they can start to want to talk about other stuff. They need to feel safe. They need to feel secure. They need to feel valued for who they are. And only then will they begin to kind of open up. And this isn't opening up, you know, I'm not out to kind of bash people over the head with a Bible and turn them into religious robots. I want them to know that God loves them because that's what I believe fervently and with my whole heart. But I think that there's so much good that can come out from that in so many ways in which we can serve communities and make them good places for people to hang out.  

Kate: Yeah, also when you're talking about a safe space to talk about whatever. I'm sure sometimes that must get quite deep. 

Adam: Yeah. 

Kate: You have got people that may be joining you because they love cars, but also there might be loneliness there…  

Adam: Yeah. 

Kate: Sometimes when, even if we're not talking with someone, we might feel less lonely just because we're with people that love what we love, even if we've not said a word. You know, there's that. 

Adam: And that's why things like food are such an important part of what we do. Because actually with food, again, it's a neutral space. It's an equal meeting place. And sometimes sitting there just chewing grub together, you just naturally start at all. And I think one of our core values as an organisation is hospitality. And, so food, welcoming and creating a safe space are very much part of what we do. 

Tabi: And linking back I'm very interested in your answer. Do you feel like lockdown during Covid had any effect on your faith? And also I mean, everyone lost the connection with being able to be physically with people but how do you feel that affected you and faith and the church without having that community that couldn't physically come together?  

Adam: In some ways, actually, it was a really good thing for the church because it kind of got us out of the way of “We've always done it this way.” We had to rethink how we reach people. Now, I don't think lockdown was a good thing generally. I think it was pretty horrific for so many people. I still think that we've yet to feel some of the aftershocks of it, but I think it did inspire people to get creative with how they reached out and how they supported one another. And it certainly inspired us. We couldn't do our car meets, so we had to go and think about what else we could do. And I remember going for a walk with my wife one night when we had our allotted 20 minutes of exercise and we were taking the dogs out and she said, “Why are you grumpier than usual? and I said, “Well, I can't get my car out, don't go to car shows.” And she said, “Well, why don't you take it online, you muppet?” And that was the start of it. That was the birth of the online community, with a desire to reach people and to hear from other people and to give something of hope and almost something normal for people in the time where everything was but normal. 

I think to answer your other question about faith, yes, it did test faith. I think actually it's really important to have a faith that goes through tests, that goes down because actually in those times there's enormous growth potentially.  

Tabi: Yeah. 

Adam: I've been ordained now for 13 years, and I think there'll always be things that ask questions of my faith, the situations that I can't necessarily explain, and I don't think faith is about having all the answers. I think it's about a relationship. And so it asks questions, but it was also inspiring and challenging and in a good way. 

Kate: It's really interesting you say that and testing it. Actually everything in life we need to test a bit don’t we? There's sometimes that desire to have the answers, particularly when it's hard. If I do this it will fix this and it will fix that. But “fixing” is not the right word. Sometimes we have to go through generally, around or under. The other thing that occurred to me when you were talking, I was in America earlier this year, and I spent a little bit of time with a friend of mine's mother who's in her 90s, got dementia, lives at home with her and I sat watching a service with her at the Vatican with breakfast and I remember afterwards Kathy said, you know, I couldn't get her anywhere near a computer screen or anything else before, but you know, she sees her mum come back. It's just at that moment when she's having her breakfast and she is part of this service and doing her thing. But to your point about testing things, I would imagine when that community comes together, like any community, when we come together, sometimes it's because things are testing us.  

Adam: Yeah. 

Kate: We might not have told anyone, but we just need to go out and find some way where we can feel normal, whatever that is. 

Adam: And if you look at the history of the church, actually times of immense persecution have led to times of huge growth. And, you know, in the early history of the church, even the first 50,100 years are kind of set in the context of real persecution from particularly the Roman. And yet this little fledgling community grew and grew and grew and was having a massively positive effect on the areas around it. And I think that there are times in the church's history where it has faced huge persecution. I think of Christian community in China, that's grown massively under communist rule. When you think that communism stamping out all kinds of religion would stop everything, actually, the church grew and grew and grew, and I think it was because people congregated together. They met together, they supported one another. They found their faith to be of comfort and strength. 

People always say to me, well, how does your faith square when you know you're going through times of suffering? But if you kind of look in the pages of the New Testament, Jesus didn't promise an easy ride. You know, he didn't kind of say his life, and there it is, a gift wrapped for you to enjoy it. 

Kate: And it's all shiny…

Adam: Yeah. So actually, stuff happens in life that we don't have answers for, and really horrific stuff happened to people. And, actually my job isn't to sit and judge or to kind of work out why. My job is to weep when they weep and to celebrate when they celebrate.  

Tabi: Yeah. So I've never, ever thought of it like that. I think because I grew up in C of E primary school, so I grew up kind of around that and going to church and singing hymns but I think obviously at that age you don't really question anything. So it's not how I was, that's what we were doing. And I think as I got older, people do start questioning “Oh, such bad things still happen in the world. Such awful things are going on, how can you explain that?” But as you've said, it doesn't say anywhere, and I’m pretty sure of any religion, that everything's just going to come on a plate and be handed to you. And I also think, as you said earlier, going through tough and testing times means growth. I think that's a metaphor for life. That's something I very much stand by, that when you're going through a tough time, something will come out of that even if you see it ten years down the line. 

Adam: Yeah, yeah. 

Tabi: I think it's lovely to hear you say that and link it back to Christianity and faith, because I've never thought of it like that before. 

Adam: When you become a priest people ask you about your sense of calling. For me my calling was to walk with people to hold their hand through the highs and the lows of life and to support them without necessarily having all the answers. And there are times where I've sat with people who were going through grief or struggling with something, and we just sit there together and go, yeah, “This is really shit, isn't it?” We'll just sit with you in this and we'll hold your hand. And if you cry, we’ll cry. If you celebrate, we'll celebrate. 

Kate: And sometimes that's the thing that people need and I suppose where the world is so busy at the moment. We’ll do this and do that and do positive things, or work out your plan, work out your goals, work at whatever. Obviously, I'm a coach, I talk about goals a lot in my life. But space is so important, massively. Sometimes, you know, in the heat of something that's impacting you, sometimes it's just sitting, isn't it? Sitting in that with you. And as you just said, sitting in that despondency, joy, heartache, terror, whatever it is. Someone not going through the same but just being there for you, you know, I'll put my arm around you while this is going on. 

Adam: Yeah. And obviously I believe that within the gospel there's a message of hope. And so I'm always going to tow that line if you like. But it's going to be in a way I hope that, you know, is not seen as browbeating, is not seen as pressuring people, and is hopefully lived out in my every day as much as maybe what I say on a podcast or a, you know, you know, whatever. But, the fruit of it is actually in the living of it. 

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Kate: Yeah, exactly. And I think that the thing about hope is so powerful. But hope sometimes is just tiny glimmers. 

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Adam: Yeah. Yeah. 

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Kate: You know, we all know if we're having a really difficult day. I love wildlife, for example if I'm having a hard day and then I see a beautiful little bird or something it lightens it for a moment. 

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Adam: People laugh at me but I say, I've had some of the most divine religious experiences behind the wheel of an old car because I felt close to God and close to being the kind of person I think he wants me to be. And I can't ask for more than that really.

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Kate: It's magical, which is a lovely segue to your latest campaign, which is called Bespoke, which I love. And I think I told you that the first time I heard you talking about it, it made me cry. It moved me. It moved me so much, I think because you were talking about this initiative and I love how you talk about uniqueness and individuality and celebrating that. And, you know, there's so much in life about fitting in, to talk about when we go back to normal.

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Personally, I don't think normal exists, but obviously sometimes we need something to hang on to, to try and make sense of where we're at, but I think how you're using that for people that maybe are struggling at the moment, or not struggling, but that link to bespoke cars and the fact that we are all unique and we are very individual and that's brilliant. It makes some days harder. But the top line is it's a really good thing. 

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Adam: Yeah, yeah. 

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Kate: Tell us more about that because I think it's fantastic movement that’s just in the early stages isn't it?

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Adam: Yeah. And even today we've put something out online about because obviously it’s World Mental Health Day and the theme of it is mental health in the workplace. That we've talked about how so much of our lives can be dominated by work, and particularly that gets bound up in our sense of self and our value system in how we identify with other people, you know, “Oh, I'm so-and-so and I do this for a living, or I'm so and so and I do this” and then we sometimes make value judgments about other people based on what they do. Some reason we think a CEO might be more important than a lollipop lady. But actually they're not. The reality is that each person is different, is bespoke and is worth celebrating as such. And I think where I really struggle is that pressure to fit in, that pressure to do what everybody else is doing or that pressure that there's only one way to make a connection with people, and that's whatever so-and-so says or whatever someone else says, or actually, particularly around the car culture, we can be hugely welcoming, but we can also be incredibly cliquey, if you haven't got the right car or if you haven't got the right colour or if you know…

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Kate: it looks like it did in the 50s rather than looking like it would today and…

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Adam: Yeah, yeah, all of that stuff. Yeah. What we end up doing is actually putting barriers that really basically say, if you're not like us, you're not part of this. And actually if we look at cars there’s so much variety. This last weekend we were at the Bicester Heritage with the Scramble Event and we had a Rolls Royce sat next to a brand new Rolls Royce sat next to an Austin seven special. I mean what a contrast. 

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Kate: Awesome composition!

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Adam: But they're both in their ways bespoke. They're unique. You know somebody sat in a garage and wanted to make his Austin seven go faster up a hill. And so created this little hillclimb special and a whole lot of people at Goodwood have handcrafted this car so that it is the ultimate expression of bespoke. They're both bespoke, they're just different. 

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And isn't that like with people? We've all got different likes, we've all got different experiences, we've all got different stories. But everybody's story is worth telling and worth listening to, and we're sharing and we kind of take it back to the Old Testament. The Book of Psalms talks about humans being fearfully and wonderfully made. You know that is a pinnacle of God's creation, if you kind of tow the biblical line and in that sense, they're unique and they're special and they're of huge value. Each person. And so actually we want to celebrate that. 

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Kate: That's brilliant. It's brilliant. And I suppose it's that reminder in terms of the bespoke way of talking about things, to be curious and ask questions. Because as you say, we as humans, we're brilliant at assuming aren’t we? Really brilliant at assuming. And someone said to me the other day, “Are you assuming Kate, or are you presuming you think? and “Ehm, I hadn't actually haven’t thought that far!”

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Apparently when we presume, we have the knowledge, we assume, it's a hunch. I thought “Oh, well, either way, just ask a question!”. You know, and just ask a question, whatever it is. And then sometimes people say we don't or particularly I think it's again talking about Mental Health Awareness Day, asking a question how is someone but a genuine “how”.. And even if people say, “Well, thank you for asking”, but they don't tell you anything, but now you may well have noticed that they're not actually having a good day. So they don’t have to share everything with you, or they will share something with you. And sometimes you might get to share all sorts of things. 

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Tabi: Yeah, yeah. I actually think linking to that on a personal level, I recently set myself the goal of when I, I don't know, I'm paying for something or going to get a coffee or just chatting to someone who, like I've never met before. I always push myself to say, hi, how are you? Or hi, are you okay? Or like something like that? And I notice it's such a small thing, but it's something I would have never done before. I would've just been like, oh, hi, can I get a X, Y and Z? 

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But now I've started saying that I feel like all of my conversations I'm having with people, there's a bit more to them, which I really, really like. And I feel like you can notice sometimes when you say how are you, someone's a bit taken aback that you've asked. And I think that's actually a really lovely thing, because it's like when it's on the flip side, I remember when I used to work in a pub and someone asked, how are you? I was like, oh, it's actually really nice to be asked when I'm really sitting just here like I'm serving you. And also I think for me as well calling it Bespoke, I think it's lovely because you said all cars are bespoke, even if they're especially classic cars, even if they're meant to be a carbon copy of each other, that's never going to happen. Like you get two cars in the 50s that are meant to be exactly the same. They're never going to be exactly the same.

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Kate: One’s wonky on the left, one’s wonky on the right…

Tabi: Yeah.

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Adam: Some of us are wonky all over!

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Tabi: Yeah, yeah. But I think that's also nice because it obviously links to - no two people are the same. Even if you have two people in the same roles, they're going to view things differently. They're going to do things differently. And I think that's a really lovely sentiment to take from it. 

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Adam: And they've had different experiences, you know? Even within a family we all have different experiences. People say that me and my brother look quite similar. He's younger, and far thinner, but we've had different experiences, you know, thinking about the same set of parents. And yet we completely diverge into doing different things. It's just fascinating to see that. I think, rather than be worried about the differences, actually use those differences as an opportunity to learn something new or to give something of yourself that you perhaps thought wasn't worth giving, but actually, somebody else who wants to hear, wants to to get to know you. 

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Kate: Yeah, it really is. The other thing that is quite interesting, and certainly in terms of with Revs and Bespoke and I think there's something about that, the world currently is a bit hard looking at the news in the paper, you know, almost whatever we look at, it's not just bad, it's it's very difficult to comprehend. But those moments of smiling at a stranger asking how someone is, they're contagious, aren't they? 

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Tabi & Adam: Yeah. 

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Kate: Often someone asks you how you are. You will then ask the next person, how they are. Or someone smiles at you like you know, that in itself is for humanity, if you like, without sounding trite, those things do move and do become contagious in a really positive way…

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Adam: I'm always reminded of the story and I don't know if this is true. I hope it is because it's such a great story. When they liberated the concentration camps in post Nazi Germany, and the American GIs and the British and the Russians all went in and found these horrific scenes and just absolute devastation. There was somebody who went in with a makeup kit, and she started doing the makeup on the female prisoners. One of the soldiers approached and said, “What do you think you're doing? You know, my goodness, they need food, money. And one of the prisoners stopped me, said, “No, she's giving us back something that was taken from us. She's giving us back our identity as women who want to wear makeup and want to look good and she's giving us something that's been taken away from us.” 

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And I just think that's the most amazing story.

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Kate: Really is.

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Adam: You know, how can we give people their individuality so that actually it's not seen as something negative, but it is the place where stories get shared and life experiences get swapped and maybe relationships get made and deepened. 

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Tabi: Wow. And again, linking very nicely into the next thing I want to ask you. Lots of what you do is all about a sense of community. So it's bringing people together, bringing people’s stories together, making people feel like they're really part of something. But on a personal level for you, what are the things that you do to keep yourself in check? So like mentally feeling good, and just really checking in with yourself?

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Adam: Yeah. It's a really good question to have because, I’m quite happy to talk about it, but I had a breakdown last year and was very, very poorly up until about May this year. And some of that was not looking after myself and certainly when I was in a better place, my wife and I sat down. In fact, we also sat down with the trustees of Revs and we said, what do I need to do to put things in place that safeguard my mental health? And there are some simple things, like watching what I eat because I love food. And so, you know, six Mars bars on the trot is probably not a good call. Well, actually, it's white chocolate twix I've got a real weakness for. Exercise, you know, the basics that we all have to kind of grapple with, I think. But also, taking time out from the kind of rush of work and doing stuff which gives me back a sense of energy. So sketching for me is just such, it's an absolute, no brainer for me. I sketch and I love it. And it's very much restorative for me. 

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Kate: We all love it. It's good for you doing it and it's good for all of us looking at it. 

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Adam: Thank you. I love it and I love sketching live as well. That's always good fun.  So, sketching is one of those things. Obviously my faith, you know, I'm finding times of just solitude or quiet and putting the answering machine on or not picking up my phone every five minutes to check. You know, some of the really basic stuff, but actually is really, really important. My wife is forever, and quite rightly so, challenging me about how many times I look at my phone in a given hour or whatever. And, actually doing stuff with families is really important and something that I know that I've let go of in the past and need to concentrate on that again. Even stuff like, we have a thing that we inherited from a friend of ours called ‘Unboxing Day’ which is on Boxing Day we each have a box of something to make, and we unbox it and make it. So my wife and my son were doing Lego last year. I think they were both in Lego Star Wars mode. They've already ordered their bits for Boxing Day, so my daughter and I have got to do something as well. So stuff like that really.

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Kate: Yeah. It's a really crucial point that you make, you know, as you say, the sort of fundamentals of being human. I think looking after people, that's easy, you know. It's the big stuff I've got to get my head around, that actually might not be the big stuff you’ve got to get your head around. Get the foundations in order. It sounds easy, but it's not actually that easy…

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Adam: No. And the other thing for me is reading. I love reading, I love reading history particularly and whilst I was off sick, I read loads and I've endeavoured to carry on doing that. So I make a point every time I go to bed at night, I'll have 20 or 30 minutes reading, just because that helps me. And it just enables me then to have a good night's sleep. 

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Kate: Yeah, it does take us into another world, doesn't it? For me, reading. Whatever, it is that we have and how we recreate what we're reading in our own mind, in our own voice with by definition, we're in someone else's world rather than our own. 

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Adam: And I think it picks up on my love of story. And I love listening to people and hearing what life was like when they were doing something or other. I find that fascinating. And so being able to read that in my own time, you know, a cup of tea there, the fire on and the dog beside me. Yeah. That's pretty cool. 

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Kate: That's brilliant. And just briefly. I know the Pilgrim tour starts again tomorrow with the annual event. Presumably that must feed into all of those groups of people going off in beautiful cars, but being together, again. Faith is part of it but there are those that are different, but it must play to all of those things and the space, you know, just being in a car, a beautiful road with the sea or nice weather or whatever. 

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Adam: I mean, we started that. When did we start? 2021 was our first tour, and that was all about “how can we do a tour with a difference?” So, what actually, if we took people on pilgrimage and, you know, pilgrimage has become a big thing again. You see programs on it on the BBC. And it's for people of faith and no faith and everything in between. But the idea is that we take people out of the busyness of life, and we get them to reflect on what's important to them. We get them into some stunning scenery just to give them something else to think about for 48 hours. 

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But we do it together as a group - it’s going to be 40 of us. And, part of pilgrimage is about the relationships you make both with fellow pilgrims and people you meet on your pilgrimage. You know, whether that's the person serving you a drink at the pub. And again, it's all, as you say, it's everything kind of heaped into one 48 hour tour, it’s community, it's mental health, it's finding space in a busy world, it's the value of relationships, all of that together. And yes, if you want, then, there's the faith element too for those that want it. 

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One of my favorite things we do is we take everybody into an old church, and I say to them, “Right, I want you to shut up literally for 20 minutes. I don't need to talk to anybody, but I want you to go off and have a wander and just be alone in that quiet. And don’t view quiet as a big scary thing, actually view it as an opportunity just to find a bit of grounding, find some sense of peace, find some space to deal with the stuff you might have to deal with, but actually use that silence as a good thing.” 

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And it's really good. People kind of come away going “That was quite hard.” But actually it was really important. Pilgrimage in silence goes back thousands of thousands of years. 

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Kate: Silence, as you say, is quite difficult. But it's transformative. Once you get over the bit in the beginning and then you start being, just being, just looking, breathing, smelling, sensing…it's incredible. And in a beautiful environment. 

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Adam: It's great. And this church is right on a clifftop so you can hear…

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Kate: oh, wow…

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Adam: …you can hear the sea underneath you. You can hear the birds, you can hear and feel the winds. You know, all these things that actually we ignore or we're just so busy or so noisy in our lives that those things get drowned out. And if we can take people to that place where physically and maybe spiritually and psychologically, they find some sense of peace and some sense of meaning for them, then that's that's what we're aiming to do. 

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Kate: Yeah, that's really wonderful. Almost what it is to be human is you just sort of forget what is there, all those senses there so you can't help but be. That must be really visceral. 

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Tabi: Yeah.

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Adam: Yes. I think some people kind of look at you and go, “You want to be quiet for 20 minutes?” But actually, it's a really good thing. 

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Tabi: I can imagine. And just it gives you space to feel everything really like all your senses and you take in a lot more. Also when you're in silence. Because there's nothing else distracting you like when else in the world do you get that time especially being in a church I think because churches I feel like always have such lovely auras about them. That's a beautiful building and has so much history to it. I bet that's an incredible place to do it in. 

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Adam: Yeah, I think there are places like that where communities have gathered over thousands of years. Whether that's in worship, whether that's just being community, whether that’s just doing life together. But they've met in that one place, and there is such a sense of that history. We're going to take them this year to Saint David's Cathedral. And, again, it's one of those places where history just seeps out of the walls, almost. It's incredible. 

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Tabi: Yeah. 

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Kate: Yeah, you can almost feel it, can’t you? How wonderful.

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Tabi: Speaking to you, obviously you've done some absolutely incredible, incredible things. And for you, on a personal note, what do you feel like success feels like for you? 

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Adam: Oh, that's a tough one. What does success feel like? 

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I guess really to illustrate it, we're doing this - one of the projects we run is a restoration project on an old Land Rover we were very kindly donated by a chap. This land rover had sat in a field for years in the Falkland Islands. It had been all over the place, and it was growing its own moss on its bonnet when we got given it. It was it’s own ecosystem on wheels. And I haven't got the first clue about how to restore something. But I'd come up with this idea. I wanted to get people together, and in restoring this vehicle, maybe they could find a bit of restoration for themselves. And so we've kind of been doing this for about 18 months, two years now. People can come, spend a weekend with us working on the vehicle, we eat together, we talk about mental health, we do community, basically. And somebody, their partner came up to me and said, “Adam, I just want to thank you because so and so, he comes into the house now and he smiles after your weekends.” 

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Kate: Aw, that's amazing. 

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Adam: And that was huge for her. Massive, massive, massive. And they’re the bits that I kind of go “Okay, we've done something positive.”  And actually not that I've done it or because actually Revs doesn't work without our whole team of people behind it which includes my own family who allow me to go off and do stuff and support me and encourage me and have held my hand in the darkest of times to a brilliant bunch of trustees, of which, you know some of them, Tiggy, for instance who again, just really kind of held my hand through this all, to the guy, John, who's done our pilgrim tour to the people who come and just be part of our community. You know, without them, it wouldn't happen. And so I think when I kind of look at them and when I look at the encounters they're having and the positive conversations they're having, I kind of sit back and I go “Yeah, this is doing what we wanted it to do.” 

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Kate: Brilliant. It's really brilliant, really for what you do is absolutely fantastic. It really is. But as you say, it's that whole element of yes, doing something that is very much about cars and, you know, and the joy around that, but actually, like the heart of anything, it's about people. Bringing it back to that, you know, that heart…

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Adam: Yeah. I always remember, my dad was a vicar and my mum was a vicar too. I spent most of my life trying to run away from being a vicar and suddenly it caught up with me but I always remember talking to my dad and my dad saying to me, “Adam, 99% of ministry is about relationships. And the other 1% is your rest time, but it's about relationship.” 

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And actually it's not about winning some theological argument, it's about relationships. And I happen to believe in somebody who said “Love your God and love your neighbor.” And that's what life is about. 

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Kate: Philosophy for life. Yes. Very much so. Oh, it's been such a joy speaking with you. It really has. Real inspiration.

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Tabi: Yeah, very much so.

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Adam: Thank you very much. 

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Kate: And one, one final question we ask everybody. What is your piece of advice for life? 

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Adam: Love generously. 

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Tabi: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. Yeah. 

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Adam: With all that you have, whether it's your time, your money, your resources, your whatever, love generously. 

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Tabi: I'm going to write that down. I really really liked that.  

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Kate: And I'll just compose myself while you’re doing that.

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Tabi: Well, thank you so much for coming. 

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Adam: No thank you. 

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Tabi: So open and just it's been so lovely to chat to you about it. You can so open and I think something you said as well, you said very early on at the beginning talking about bringing people together if they have faith or if they don't. And I think that's a really lovely, I guess, philosophy that it's like, you want to do something for everyone if you do or if you don't. And I think that's a really lovely takeaway from talking to you, it's obviously, you know, you're a priest, you're in the world of the church, and you're also welcoming those that aren't and you're not trying to convert them. You're not trying to, you know, you're just like, welcoming them in because that's the person you are. And I think that's a really lovely thing that chatting to you that's really come through, which is really lovely. 

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Adam: Yeah. No thank you. I think I'm just a signpost, you know, if people want to explore who God is and what it might mean for them, then I'm a signpost to do that. 

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Kate: Yeah, and so much more... 

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Tabi: Yeah.

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Adam: Yeah, and a serial consumer of Jammie Wagon Wheels as well. But there we go, that’s another story. 

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Kate: Or white chocolate Twixes.

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Adam: Or white Twixes! Shocking…

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Tabi: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real privilege to chat to you.

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Adam: Thank you very much for having me. It's been great.

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Tabi: So everyone at home, I hope you also really enjoyed this. If you did, please leave us a comment and subscribe and follow where listen to your podcast. And come along for some more incredible interviews with some more amazing people. 

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Kate: Yes, absolutely. We've been inspired and we hope you have too.

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Kate, Tabi & Adam: Bye.

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