InterVarsity Alumnus Brian Chung Shows the World a Beautiful God

Brian Chung is the co-founder of Alabaster, a company that designs beautiful Bibles and other resources. He’s also an InterVarsity alumnus! We sat down with him on the InterVarsity World Changers podcast to hear how his student experience in InterVarsity — including meeting Jesus for the first time — inspired him to start Alabaster. Below is a summary of his story.

How it Started — The Woman with The Alabaster Jar 

“Alabaster would not be here without InterVarsity,” Brian Chung said.

Growing up in Hawaii in a Buddhist household, Brian didn’t have any Christian background when he started college at the University of Southern California (USC). During his freshman year, InterVarsity students invited him to their first party of the semester, and even though they just played board games and got to know each other, Brian remembered it as the most fun he had at a college party. 

Soon after, the students invited him to something called a “GIG”—a Group Investigating God –– designed specifically for students who don’t identify as Christian but are curious about the faith. In this group, Brian felt free to wonder about who God is and ask questions.

Eventually, he was invited to an end-of-year chapter camp. All he was told was that camp “would be fun.” 

The first day opened with an eight-hour manuscript Bible study on the book of Mark —specifically the second half, where Jesus journeys toward the cross. Although this was an unexpected and intense start to the week, something huge happened a few days later when they studied the story of the woman with the alabaster jar. 

“This woman carries this expensive jar of perfume and breaks it for Jesus. And everyone around her says that was completely wasteful, but Jesus says what she has done is a beautiful thing,” Brian remembered. “And I think it's the first time in Mark where that word ‘beauty’ is mentioned.”

As he studied the passage, Brian felt God speaking to him for the first time. Later, when asked if he wanted to start following Jesus, he said no. 

He wanted to return home to Hawaii and see if God still felt real there. Little did he know, two of his close friends back home had just become Christian and invited Brian to a Bible study.  After this very first meeting, he went to his bedroom, opened his journal, and wrote: “God, you showed up. I guess I should now.” 

What is Beautiful?

Right away Brian wanted his own Bible so went and bought one. He noticed that every paper-thin page was full of tiny words, and there were no images or visuals to make it look interesting. Still, he was excited to read it.

When he returned to USC for his sophomore year, Brian noticed how beautifully designed his marketing textbook was and began wondering, Could the Bible be designed differently? 

After graduating, Brian came on staff with InterVarsity. While ministering to students from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, CA, he became increasingly aware of how visual Gen Z was becoming. Around this time, he also read Real Life by InterVarsity Strategy and Innovation Vice President, James Choung, which says each generation has a spiritual question. For Gen Z, that question is What is beautiful? 

Soon after, he met Bryan Ye-Chung (no relation), another InterVarsity alumnus and campus minister, and shared his dream with him about designing a Bible like a magazine. Bryan’s eyes lit up. 

“Let’s do it!” he said.

Neither of them had experience producing books, so they started by designing just twelve prototype pages which paired Scripture with thoughtful, visual storytelling. They gave the prototype to their InterVarsity students and asked questions like, “Is this something you’d actually use?"

After receiving positive feedback, they launched a Kickstarter campaign, reaching their goal in just ten days. The campaign spread through networks of InterVarsity students and alumni, and before long, the HuffPost and Bible Gateway reached out wanting to write about this new company –– Alabaster!

Alabaster quickly became a larger team effort, with his mentor offering a free warehouse space and hiring their first designer who was also an InterVarsity alumna.

“One of the biggest things that InterVarsity taught me is the value of relationships,” Brian said. “Doing business is not meant to be a transaction. Doing business is all about relationships.”

God is Really Beautiful

Since its first products shipped in 2017, Alabaster has created beautiful versions of 25 books of the Bible, plus devotionals, studies, prayer journals, pens, bookmarks, and more! Over one million books have been sold, and people around the world have shared with Brian how Alabaster Bibles helped them engage with Scripture. One message, from a non-Christian in Taiwan, said, “This Bible makes it easy for me to read God's word.” 

“When I think about beauty, I think about the opposite of beauty. And for many folks, they would say ‘ugly,’” Brian said. “As I think about my experience with people who aren't Christian, or who might have fallen away from the faith, I would say that's how they would describe Christians or even God. I wanted to show the world that God is not ugly, but God is in fact really, really beautiful.”

Listen to the rest of Brian’s story here! And pray for world changers like him as they continue showing the world just how beautiful God really is.