The Times Magazine 49cofounders. Costa was struck by Beccle’s
intuitive understanding of how people use
and consume social media.
A general trend towards mindfulness was
in full swing. Secular wellness and meditation
apps such as Headspace and Calm had been
doing very well for a while. So why were there
no Christian equivalents?
Beccle began to do some research. It
wasn’t that Christians don’t use social media
but rather, the apps that were designed for
them specifically were just not very good.
“They were poorly built,” he says, “and the
user experiences didn’t connect with people.”
Even when they found an innovative use
of Christian technology – let’s call it Christ-
tech – it tended to be designed with a particular
denomination in mind. It was too specific and
thus not scalable. But then the pandemic
happened. Across the world, church services
began to be streamed online, which necessarily
opened up many Christians to the possibility
of incorporating technology into their daily
worship. At the same time, many people who
had been content to use wellbeing apps in a
pre-Covid world perhaps began to find them a
little shallow. “Those apps are really well built
and helpful to so many people,” says Beccle.
“But it’s just not the same level of depth and
connection as something like Glorify.”
It also helped, says Costa, that particularly
in the United States there has been a trend
towards celebrities talking more openly about
their Christianity. “We’ve seen a massive shift
in breaking down that stigma, especially with
athletes. That’s immediately de-stigmatising.”
The app was released in January 2020. In
the run-up to launch, they had so much to
do that they neglected to find somebody who
could provide the voiceovers, reciting hours
and hours of Bible passages, prayers and
scripted meditations. In the end, Costa insists,
the only option left in the time they had
available was for him to record it all himself.
“I cycled to my brother, who had recording
equipment, and recorded every day.”
Glorify was not an instant success. The
Portuguese-language version received a surge
of interest this time last year, however, when
a Brazilian pastor with more than 10 million
Instagram followers posted about the app and
encouraged people to download it. Likewise,
the English version received a boost when the
likes of Michael Bublé and James Corden got
involved. But how did they even come to hear
about it in the first place? Beccle grins. It is,
he explains, kind of a long story. But the short
version is that one day he encountered an
unnamed tech billionaire and decided to
approach him. “Just to tell him what I was
up to,” he says brightly.
So he and the anonymous billionaire fell
into conversation about Glorify. And at the
end of the chat, the billionaire told him that
he wanted to introduce Beccle to a couple of
people. The first was someone called Connie
Chan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
The second was Michael Kives, a former
Hollywood agent turned investor who is
“ultra, ultra well connected”. They arranged
some Zoom meetings that went very well
and then not long after, Kives told Beccle
he needed to meet some people he thought
would be the perfect backers.
“It was the Kardashians,” says Beccle,
blinking a little. “I said... ‘Oh, yeah, it would be
great to talk to them.’ I didn’t actually know
they were religious at all. But he said, ‘Look,
I’ll get you on a Zoom with Kris and Kim next
week.’ So I did the Zoom and they loved what
we were doing and wanted to get involved.”
If it was an audition, then he passed.
Because soon after, Kives got back in touch
to tell Beccle he should come along to a
dinner party he was going to be holding at
his Beverly Hills mansion. The list of guests
included “25 or 30 of the most famous people
on the planet” and they were all handpicked
by Kives as being people of faith who may
also be interested in investing in the app. To
comply with travel restrictions, Beccle spent
two weeks quarantining in Mexico before
flying to LA. He arrived outside the mansion
just in time, a little stressed and dishevelled.
And then he walked inside.
“And it was just extraordinary. Every single
person I’d ever watched on TV was just...
there. People were coming up and talking,
assuming I had to be someone. A big deal.
Some technology multitrillionaire. And I’d say,‘Sorry, I’m not...’ ” he says, laughing at the
memory. He was nervous, he says.
He couldn’t have been that nervous, though,
because he got a few selfie videos with “certain
people” to send to his little sister, even if it did
involve pushing his luck. “I did what I knew
was juuuust about OK.”
The following day, Kives called him to say
that “he’d never seen anyone come away with
so many people wanting to invest and be part
of the journey”. Since then he has attended
similar dinner parties at Kives’ mansion often,
guilelessly winning converts and investors. He
is now pals with Jason Derulo. Earlier this year,
the R&B star tweeted a video to his nearly
four million followers of the pair of them
working out at the gym. When in LA, he gets
lifts from James Corden. He chats regularly
with Bublé. In fact, when our interview
finishes, Beccle will check his phone to see
that he has a missed call from the singer. “I
should probably have taken that,” he mutters.
Both Beccle and Costa understand,
nevertheless, that while A-list investors are
incredibly helpful, they remain a means to
an end. It is the millions of ordinary people
looking for meaning and connection that
remain their focus. “Everyone’s looking for
connection. But a lot of people are getting
that connection from the wrong places,”
says Beccle. “Because you can jump on
your phone and hop on TikTok or Instagram
and suddenly you’ve got that superficial
connection you think you need, only not
to have it as soon as you put your phone
away. And so you feel like you have to pick
it back up again.”
Both men say they are surprised by
the number of people who do not identify
as Christian, but who nevertheless find
themselves using the app every day.
“Increasingly, people are opening themselves
up to exploring this side of themselves,” says
Costa. He and Beccle hint that the long-term
plans for Glorify are grander and more
ambitious than simply being a place where
users can have some scripture read to them
or send prayers to their friends. “The people
who have invested in us saw a really big
vision. Something gigantic. And they were
willing to back that,” says Costa. “We’re very
aware of the scale of what we can do. And this
is the exciting bit. There’s a crisis of faith in
many countries, and it’s spreading. We are
reacting to that crisis and breaking down the
barriers to provide more access points for
people to be able to connect with God.”
Perhaps it will happen. After all, if you can
create a piece of technology that manages to
unite the Kardashians and Justin Welby, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in their praise, then
who knows what else you can do? Beccle seems
excited. Costa seems amazed to be here at all.
It feels, he says, like “an answer to prayer”. nGlorify fans (clockwise from top): Kris Jenner, Kim
Kardashian, Michael Bublé, James Corden, Jason Derulo