The Cross and the Switchblade

by David Wilkerson

  This was true. We never seemed to have more than a hundred dollars in our account at any one time. It took a good hard scolding from Gwen to shake me free from the fear of launching forth just because we had no money.

  Gwen came to New York as soon as the school year was over in Pittsburgh. I found an apartment near the office in Staten Island. “It’s not exactly the Hilton,” I said to Gwen on the phone, “but at least we’ll be together. Get packed—I’m coming to get you.”

  “Darling,” said Gwen, “I don’t care if we live in the street, just as long as we live there together.”

  So Gwen came east. We crowded all our furniture into four rooms again, but we were extremely happy. Gwen followed all the moves of the new ministry. She was particularly interested in my dream of a working family with a center of its own.

  “David,” she said one night, after I had complained again about lack of funds, “you’re going at this backward. You’re trying to raise your money first, and then buy your home. If you’re doing this in faith, you should commit yourself to your center first, then raise your money for it.”

  The more I thought about it, the more it reminded me of biblical stories. Wasn’t it always true that man had to act first, often with what seemed a foolish gesture, before God performed His miracles? Moses had to stretch his arm over the sea before it parted; Joshua had to blow some horns before the walls of Jericho fell; perhaps I had to commit myself to the purchase of a new center before the miracle could come to pass.

  I got together with my central committee, which consisted of six ministers and three laymen. All had wonderful spiritual vision and were willing to give time to our organization.

  I told them of the growing need for a home where gang members and narcotics addicts could associate with Christian workers. I told them about Gwen’s feeling that we ought to commit ourselves to a place first, then worry about paying for it later. The committee was willing to go along with the idea. “We can think of it as an open experiment in faith,” suggested Arthur Graves, one of the ministers.

  This is what happened immediately following our decision:

  On December 15, 1960, at two o’clock in the morning while I was deep in prayer, I received the sudden clear impression that there was a particular street in Brooklyn we were supposed to investigate. We knew that our home should be close to the heart of the troubled Bedford-Stuyvesant area, so we had been making our first inquiries along Fulton Street. But now came the name Clinton Avenue. I got out a map and located the street.

  The next day I called several of the members of the committee, and we agreed to meet on Clinton Avenue to see what kind of houses, if any, might be available. Before I set out, I called Paul, our treasurer, and asked how much money the organization had available.

  “Why?” asked Paul.

  “We thought we’d go look at houses on Clinton Avenue.”

  “Jolly,” said Paul. “Right now we have a balance of $125.73.”

  The first house we looked at seemed to fit our needs, and the price of $17,000 seemed reasonable. An old gentleman showed us around. We actually got to the stage of talking money with him. The terms sounded good. But when we came back the next day, the old gentleman began to stall. This went on for several days until finally we felt we were supposed to look elsewhere.

  We looked at another house on Clinton Avenue that had a “For Sale” sign in a window. We had less than a hundred dollars in the bank now. And this time, instead of looking at a $17,000 house, we were talking to the owner of a $34,000 property. It had been a nursing home and in many ways was ideal for the center—completely furnished with beds, offices, and accommodations for staff. The man came down in his price, too, while we were talking to him. I was ready to sign up.

  “Before we make any decisions,” said Dick Simmons, a young minister on our board, “I have the key to a house across the street. I think we ought to look at it.”

  “How much is it?” I asked.

  Dick hesitated. “It’s $65,000.”

  “Great,” I said. “Every time we look at a house, the price goes up.”

  The $65,000 house was a mansion. I must admit my heart leaped when I saw it. It was a stately Georgian house built of red brick and as solid-looking as Monticello.

  What a shock awaited us, though, when we stepped inside.

  The house had been unoccupied for two years. For several years before that, students from a nearby college had used it for wild parties.

  Now a squatter lived in the place, illegally. He was a hoarder, and he had filled every room in the house with junk: newspapers, bottles, skeleton umbrellas, baby carriages, and rags. Each morning he set out with a grocery cart, collecting trash, which he would tote back into the house and stash.

  Most of the water pipes were broken, plaster fell from the ceilings and walls, banisters lolled on their sides, and doors were ripped from their hinges. But you could still see that this had once been a truly regal home. There was a private elevator to the second floor. There was a whole attic of servants’ quarters. The basement was dry and sound, as were the walls.

  We walked through the debris, silent, until all of a sudden, in a loud and clear voice, Harald Bredesen said, “This is the place God wants for us.” There was something so commanding about his voice that it had the quality of prophecy.

  Dick Simmons returned the keys to the owners, and he told them frankly that a price of $65,000 might be appropriate for the house in perfect condition, but had they seen it lately? The owners came down in their price. Dick talked some more. The owners came down again. Eventually Dick had brought the asking price down to $42,000!

  We had one hundred dollars in the bank. But if we were intended to move into this house, who was I to object?

  That night, during my prayer time, I placed the question before the Lord.

  “You have helped me know Your will in the past, Lord, by giving me a sign.” I thought back to when I wondered whether to sell the television set. “I’d like to put another fleece before You, Lord.”

  The next day I went down to Glad Tidings and had a long talk with Mrs. Marie Brown, co-pastor with Stanley Berg of the fine old church. I told her again about our reason for wanting a center, and I described to her the building we had found.

  “David,” said Mrs. Brown, “this has every feel of being right. If you were to buy the building, when would you need the binder?” The binder was an offer in writing.

  “Within one week.”

  “Would you like to come to church Sunday afternoon and make an appeal?”

  It was a tremendous opportunity, and I was glad to say I would come. But still, I wanted to know for sure that God was in our plans. I knew that the most Glad Tidings had ever raised for home missions at a single request was $2,000. We needed more than twice that amount. The 10 percent down payment alone would come to $4,200.

  “Lord,” I said that night in prayer, “if You want us to have that building, You can let us know for sure by allowing us to raise that in a single afternoon.” I went on, like Gideon, to make things more difficult. “And furthermore, Lord, let me raise that amount without mentioning how much we need.” I paused. “And furthermore,” I said, “let me raise it without even making an appeal. Let this be something the people do out of their own hearts.”

  After I’d put all those fleeces before the Lord, I waited to see what would happen.

  Sunday afternoon arrived. I preached a very simple sermon. Deliberately, I tried to make it as factual as I could, stating our problem and our hope. I told the stories of a few boys we had reached. At the end of the service, I said: “Folks, I’m not going to make an emotional appeal. I want this to be of the Spirit if it’s to be done at all. He knows what we need. I’m going to leave now and go down into the basement. If it should occur to you that you want to give a certain amount to this work, I’ll be glad to hear from you.”

  I went downstairs to the basement and waited. Minutes slipped away, and there was no sound of steps
on the stairs. Two more minutes passed. Five. Ten whole minutes went by and I gave up.

  Then the door at the end of the hall opened softly. In stepped an old lady with tears in her eyes. “Reverend Wilkerson,” she said, “I’ve been praying for fifteen years for this work to be raised up. Here’s ten dollars. It’s all I can give, but I know it will multiply and be greatly used.”

  Before she left, the back door opened again, and a steady stream came in. The next person was a lady who said, “Reverend Wilkerson, I’ve been paid some money from Social Security. I want to give it to your boys.”

  The next person to come up was a man; he gave us two hundred dollars. The next gave three hundred dollars. A little boy came up and said he had only fourteen cents, but he said, “God is in this. You’re getting all I got.”

  A schoolteacher came up and said, “David, I don’t make much money, but I do work with teenagers like you do. I know what you’re up against. I’d like to donate 25 dollars.”

  It took fifteen minutes for the line to walk through and lay its money on the desk. But each person brought more than just money; he or she brought encouragement, and above all they all brought a real joy to their giving, so that I felt the joy, too. When, finally, the last person left, I took the pile of bills and checks up to Mrs. Brown’s office where we counted it. The amount? Four thousand four hundred dollars!

  I told Mrs. Brown then about the fleeces I had put before the Lord. She was as excited as I. She was more convinced than ever that God was in the project.

  The one thing that I did not confide to Mrs. Brown was my puzzlement over that extra two hundred dollars. We’d asked for $4,200 for the binder and we’d received $4,400. Why were we given that extra two hundred dollars?

  A few days later, I was talking over the final costs of putting down our binder with our attorney, Julius Fried. I handed him the check for $4,200.

  Julius moved uneasily in his chair. “You know of course that I’m not charging the center anything for my services. . . . But the other lawyers have to be paid, and we’re going to need some unexpected money. We’ll have to have the check at the time we put down the binder.”

  “How much, Julius?”

  “Two hundred dollars.”

  The rest of the money for the balance of the $12,000 down payment we had agreed upon came to us in an equally peculiar manner. The following Sunday, at Bethpage, Long Island, a congregation came streaming forward at the close of the meeting and pressed over $3,000 into my hands. The following week, Arthur Graves called me to announce a decision his church had made. “David,” he said, “my board has voted to send me to the closing with a blank check. You can fill it in for the amount needed to close the deal.”

  That is how it worked out that God provided us with precisely the amount we needed for the creation of the Teen Challenge Center. Down to the penny, we were provided for. On the day we were handed the keys to the beautiful mansion on Clinton Avenue, I said to my wife, “Gwen, you were right. Do you realize that within just one month from the time you challenged me to step out in faith, we have raised $12,200?”

  Gwen was as pleased as I. “When is the second mortgage due?” she asked.

  “Not until fall.”

  It was months away. But that due date on the $15,000 second mortgage would be upon us in no time.

  15

  It was unbelievable how much junk one man could accumulate. We discovered whole rooms we did not even know existed because the door was covered with ceiling-high piles of debris.

  Gwen came down to look over the property with me. “Why don’t you get some of the pastors to set up a youth work party?”

  That’s what we did. One Saturday morning toward the end of January, three cars pulled up and out swarmed fifteen young boys and girls jabbering and yelling and proclaiming that they’d make short shrift of any junk we showed them. When they went in and were taken from attic to basement, I watched the enthusiasm drain out of them.

  But those kids did a wonderful job. They started at the front of the building and cleared a path for themselves, and room by room, floor by floor, they kept steadily at it until they had carried every bit of that junk out into the backyard.

  Paul DiLena alerted the sanitation department of the job ahead of them. “I think there will be at least four truckloads of trash to haul off,” he said.

  The trucks arrived at 416 Clinton on schedule, but the men did not start working. The junk piled high on the sidewalk and street, and the sanitation crew just stood around. When Paul saw what was happening, he caught on. They expected a tip.

  “All right,” he said, “how much do you want?”

  “Thirty dollars.”

  Paul shrugged as one used to the ways of New York. Rather than hold the project up, he would pay the tip himself—when the job was done.

  Hours later the last of the trucks was filled. Six garbage trucks had rumbled down the street, groaning under their burden. The foreman came and asked Paul if everything was all right.

  “Perfect,” said Paul. “You did a good job.” He reached for his wallet.

  The foreman gave a forced laugh. “Look, mister, these kids told me what you’re doing here. I’ve got a teenager of my own. Do you think we’d take money for helping you out?”

  With that he got into his truck, revved it up, and stormed away with a show of one who was really pretty tough.

  At the end of three weeks, we were finally ready to begin work on the house itself. Painters from various churches arrived, and room by room we covered up the graffiti on the walls. Then plumbers came. They had to tear the walls apart as new frozen and burst pipes were discovered. All this cost money, which I raised by taking time out for flights all over the country to make appeals. One blow came when the city announced that before we could get a certificate of occupancy, a complete sprinkler system had to be installed in the building. The cost: five thousand dollars.

  Off I flew again, taking time out from the work I really wanted to do, to raise money. But I could never have done all the fund-raising by myself. Everyone on the board helped in his own way.

  Finally, the last painter and the last plumber left the center. God had raised up this home. Now we had to put it to use. We wanted to fill it with His children. Before we could do that, we had to give His children a place to sit down. We had a fine building, but there was nothing in it.

  At this stage of our experience I realized how much God wanted all sorts of people to be a part of our work. We started mostly as an Assemblies of God program, and before we knew it, we had an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian and a Baptist and a Dutch Reformed committee member.

  We had also attracted the interest of some influential businessmen.

  One business friend of the Teen Challenge Center was Grant Simmons Jr., president of the Simmons Bed Company. We were introduced to Mr. Simmons and went to him with a specific request. We needed twenty beds. For an hour we sat in Mr. Simmons’ Park Avenue offices telling him about our hopes and about the strange way God was working in the city. Mr. Simmons was generous. From that day on, many a boy who was used to sleeping on subway benches slept at the center on Simmons beds and mattresses.

  We planned to use the home in this way: Eventually we would have twenty workers at the center. Each morning these young men and women would rise, have breakfast, and then spend the morning in prayer and study. This would be essential. I had long ago discovered that too much running around, without a base of quiet meditation, produces little.

  After lunch, our street day would begin. Teams of two or three workers would start walking over a prescribed route, keeping an eye out for signs of trouble. They would be trained to spot the symptoms of narcotics addiction; they would be on the lookout for the teenage alcoholic, or for the girl runaway. They would talk to gang members, especially the members of fighting gangs.

  They would go not with an eye to gaining converts but with an eye to meeting need. The conversions would take care of themselves. If we really m
et a human need, the world would beat a path to our door.

  Most of the teenagers we contacted in this way would never live at the center. We would put them in touch with a minister near their home and work through him. We would follow up regularly until it was clear these youngsters could stand on their own.

  But some boys and girls would need special attention. They would be brought to the center, the boys to live in the top-floor dormitory with the male workers on our staff; the girls to live on the second floor with the women and the married members of our staff. We expected to be working mostly with boys, but if a girl was in need we would not turn her away.

  The key to this whole plan lay with the workers. Where was I going to find twenty bright and aggressive yet empathetic and healthy young men and women, who would work for very little? Who would literally risk their lives?

  As if in answer to this question, I received an invitation from Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, to go there for a lecture. I flew out and presented the challenge of our streets to the student body. It was a wonderful service in which everyone felt the same gentle moving of the Holy Spirit.

  Afterward, the president of the school stood up and made an amazing statement. He offered financial help to any needy student who wanted to go to New York to work with us on the streets. Those who were interested were to meet me in the school library.

  When I got to the library a few minutes later, seventy young people were standing in line!

  Out of these seventy, I knew we could use only twenty workers. So I really went to work painting a dark picture. I promised them no money. They would even have to pay their own way to New York. All we could give them was a place to stay and food to eat. I stressed that they were going to risk their lives. I told them about some of our boys who were beaten on the streets. Then I told them there would be lots of other work involved, doing dishes and scrubbing floors and getting the home ready.