You know Alpha, right? Turns out the bloke who helped make it a global phenomenon, Nicky Gumbel, has a family story that'll stop you in your tracks - a German-Jewish refugee father who never spoke of his past, and a mother who survived four years in a Japanese POW camp as a teenager, also in total silence. Gary digs into what it's like discovering your own family history through a Berlin museum decades later, and how that silence echoes down through generations.

Then it's onto the Nicky Gumbel story you might expect - his reluctant, three-in-the-morning encounter with Jesus at Cambridge, his admittedly "insensitive and crass" early attempts at evangelism, and how a sceptical sportsman turning up for the girls ended up changing the whole direction of Alpha. Gary and Nicky get into why people say no to faith, why they say yes, and why - in a world more "connected" than ever - loneliness is hitting young people hardest of all.

Tune into A Very Tall Man from Midnight - 6:00am on the Rhema Media App.

For more from the show, visit the A Very Tall Man page at rhema.co.nz

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