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On a recent summer day, David Wilkerson and Nicky Cruz led the members of Wilkerson's Times Square Church out to Black Harlem for an evangelistic event. It was sweltering; you could see waves of heat radiate off the concrete.

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David and Nicky closed off one bustling street. David's choir sang. Nicky's drama team performed Run Baby Run—a reenactment of his conversion from gang member to follower of Jesus. At one point in the presentation, a well-dressed woman pulled up in a taxi, got out, and approached the front. She had read Nicky's book and put two and two together when she saw the crowd. That day, she was ready to receive Jesus Christ as her Savior.

Nicky preached at the end of each production. The crowds were so big that David and Nicky would give their ministry team a break before running through the whole production again.

"There were drug addicts, hookers, and prostitutes," Nicky recalls. "There were nice people. The expression in all of their eyes was like springs of waters rushing down, melting into the valley. When I made the appeal [to turn their lives over to Christ], I didn't have to beg or anything. They were running to the altar. They were throwing their drugs down. … The presence of God was so strong."

Night fell, but the people continued coming. At 2:15 a.m., people were crying as the drama team once again reenacted Nicky's life. When the altar call was given for the last time, nearly 500 people came forward.

"It was awesome," recalls Cruz.

God's business hasn't changed
Wilkerson, 64, pastors Manhattan's 5,000-member Times Square Church, which includes more than 50 nationalities. He looks out at hundreds of high-rises from the window of his 38th-floor office on 50th and Broadway.

"I see a lot of these buildings as huge tombstones," he says, "housing a lot of dying people."

Wilkerson knows that some folks think he comes across with too much gloom and doom. Yet he insists his message really hasn't changed.

	Wilkerson looks at hundreds of high-rises from his 38th-floor office. "I see these buildings as huge tombstones housing a lot of dying people."

"People are tired of hype today. I determined I'd preach the cross of Jesus and separation from the world, a straight message of love. Thousands want to hear that message. They still line up two hours ahead of time [at Times Square] to get a seat."

Those who've known Wilkerson for 40 years will tell you he certainly hasn't changed, but the world around Wilkerson has changed. Wilkerson's office accessories have changed. And Wilkerson's hair has changed—from brown to a winter-gray.

But Wilkerson's message? No change there.

Summers will find Wilkerson walking New York's streets. Often a good friend from the early years walks with him—Nicky Cruz.

Cruz, a 58-year-old Puerto Rican, loves to minister alongside the man he calls "my father figure."

For Wilkerson, Cruz is "his son in the Lord and co-worker in the ministry."

For Cruz: "If David Wilkerson had never come to New York City, I wouldn't be talking to you."

A fool arrives in NYC
In 1958, a 26-year-old pastor from rural Pennsylvania stepped into a world 350 miles away but a million miles from his experience. An illustration accompanying a Life magazine article had compelled him to come. The story covered a murder trial—a brutal stabbing committed by seven members of the New York City gang, the Dragons.

The story and drawing haunted Wilkerson. When a voice spoke to his heart, Go to New York City and help those boys, Wilkerson thought it was the most absurd thing he had ever heard—even from God.

But he obeyed. Into a land of switchblades and gang warfare, David Wilkerson brought nothing but a cross—the cross of Jesus Christ—to defend himself.

Naive to urban ways, he carried a burden—"what the Quakers called my 'bundle' of responsibility," recalls Wilkerson in his 1963 book, The Cross and the Switchblade.

Arriving in New York City's toughest gang-controlled area, Wilkerson's confidence sometimes waned. In one period of doubt, he worried he might "bring shame" to his family, his church, and even the entire town of Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. Was this idea foolhardy? he asked himself.

Just foolhardy enough.

When the tug of Brooklyn's gang-infested streets became too much, Wilkerson stopped commuting and moved there in 1959. And when the tug of Jesus became irresistible, one of the street's meanest murderers, Nicky Cruz, finally gave his life to Christ.

Initially, Wilkerson hadn't thought that possible. His first encounter with Cruz offered no flicker of hope. Said Wilkerson in his book: "I remember thinking, as I looked at [Cruz], that's the hardest face I have ever seen."

Wilkerson had offered a handshake.

"How do you do, Nicky?" he said. Then Wilkerson describes the conversation:

"He left me standing with my hand outstretched. He wouldn't even look at me. He was puffing away at a cigarette, shooting nervous little jets of smoke out the side of his mouth.

"'Go to hell, Preacher,' he said. He had an odd, strangled way of speaking and he stuttered badly over some of his sounds.

"'You don't think much of me, Nicky,' I said, 'but I feel different about you. I love you, Nicky.' I took a step toward him.

"'You come near me, Preacher,' he said, in that tortured voice, 'I'll kill you.'

"'You could do that,' I agreed. 'You could cut me in a thousand pieces and lay them out in the street and every piece would love you.'

"But as I said it, I was thinking: 'and it wouldn't do a bit of good—not with you, Nicky—there's no love on earth that could reach you.'"

David Wilkerson was right—"no love on earth" could reach this "son of Satan," a name Cruz's mother had given him early in life, when she practiced witchcraft. But Love did reach Nicky Cruz. God's love that originates beyond earth.

God's plan unfolds
Wilkerson sent the young convert off to a Bible college. After graduation, with new wife Gloria, Cruz returned to become the director of Wilkerson's first Teen Challenge program.

Operating out of Brooklyn, his old gang turf, Cruz worked with the down-and-out, including criminals and addicts. College students and other volunteers would canvass the streets, ministering to troubled youth.

"I was there three years," recalls Cruz. "It was the best three years of my life. Just married and so happy to work for the Lord. I made $10 a week, but I had my wife, the ministry, and David, so I had everything."

Then, Cruz sensed God calling him to move on: "It was very painful to leave, but God was calling me to be an evangelist." Combining his gang background, recovery experience, and Bible college studies, Cruz launched "Outreach for Youth Ministries" in the late 1960s, which became "Nicky Cruz Outreach" in 1974.

Wilkerson went on to lead several ministries, eventually planting Times Square Church in 1987, to which he holds tremendous allegiance, rarely accepting out-of-town requests to speak and serving on no other ministry boards.

Meanwhile, Teen Challenge has become a model for dealing with youth addicts. The National Institute of Drug Abuse substantiated Teen Challenge's "cure rate" at a whopping 86 percent (compared to the average rate for secular programs of less than 15 percent).

Since the first center's founding in 1959, Teen Challenge has swelled to more than 120 centers in the U.S. and 90 worldwide. In Puerto Rico, the organization is building an aids hospital. The ministries are privately funded, allowing addicts to access their care virtually for free.

Today, more than 10,000 people have received Teen Challenge's specialized vocational training at God's Mountain in Rehrersburg, Pennsylvania. Here, with the help of more than 60 staff members, Teen Challenge participants learn a trade—they also tend the farm's livestock and raise much of their own food.

Neither Wilkerson nor Cruz have their hands in Teen Challenge these days, other than in an advisory capacity or as an occasional speaker. Both men recognize God has raised up others to carry that torch. A growing number of "graduates" of Teen Challenge make up a younger Christian leadership impacting all of the United States, much as Wilkerson and Cruz have for some 40 years.

In the meantime, both Nicky and David have kept a full ministry load.

What's up with Nicky?
With his children graduated, and with America's inner city youth in desperate need, Cruz is jumping back into action. In 1994, Cruz founded an anti-gang program called TRUCE, "To Reach Urban Children Everywhere."

"The greatest message you can deliver to someone is your life," Cruz says. "You can't go to gang members and talk to them about hell. They know what hell is about. They live in hell. We need to let them know about heaven."

In April 1998, Cruz launched a national Pray for Teen America day. "God is calling us to take back our children. I want these kids to experience the same love and compassion from God that saved my life 40 years ago."

Cruz is re-publishing his 1968 best-selling book, Run Baby Run, which has sold more than 12 million copies and been translated into 43 languages. Cruz also is producing a 60-minute docudrama, shot on location in Cruz's native Puerto Rico and Brooklyn, recounting Cruz's transformation from street thug to evangelist. The live stage play of Run Baby Run depicts Cruz's story in the language and setting of the 1990s.

Gangs then and now
Is it really possible to modernize Cruz's 1950s-era gang story? Sure, there was gang violence in 1958. But does it compare to the inner-city streets Cruz and Wilkerson seek to reach today?

In Cruz's days, knives and clubs were the weapons of choice. "Sticking" someone, a practice not usually fatal, was the rite of passage. Today, high-powered guns have replaced knives; shooting has replaced stabbing. Firearms are used by 75 percent of all juvenile homicide offenders. Thirty-three percent of all reported crime offenders are under 21 years old, reports the Family Research Council.

The number of gangs also has grown: in 1980, 286 jurisdictions reported an estimated 2,000 gangs with nearly 100,000 members. In 1995, about 2,000 jurisdictions reported an estimated 23,000 gangs with more than 650,000 members. Violent gangs, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, are active in 94 percent of all medium and large American cities.

Cruz cites other differences between gangs then and now: "We used to protect our nation, our neighborhood, and our turf. We fought the enemy, which at that time, was the rival gang. The code of ethics was very strong. [Gangs] don't have that now.

"Today, there is no communication. You just start shooting. The kids are heartless. They just want to destroy anything and everything.

"When I was in a gang, you still had three things, and regardless of how bad you were, you had a respect for God—many of the guys—there was respect for the school system, and there was respect for your parents. Having prayer in the schools was at least a sign of respect. Little by little, these things have died in this country."

Standing on his convictions
Wilkerson has stern words for the American church. Both Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker were personally warned by Wilkerson to clean up their acts or face a big fall. Neither heeded his admonitions, Wilkerson laments.

"The reason God was dealing with both of those ministries is because they were robbing the poor, taking advantage of widows and the poor. That's why God shuts ministries and nations down. God never lets this stuff go very long."

In Wilkerson's soon-to-be-released book, America's Last Call, he pulls no punches. "I'm going to publicly stand against this kind of foolishness."

One thing is for sure, David Wilkerson and Nicky Cruz won't be discouraged from their first calling—evangelizing.

"We work together three or four times a year in the summer on New York's streets," says Wilkerson. "Nicky still has the fire and guts."

Long ago, Nicky Cruz laid down his switchblade when he was confronted by a rural preacher who was willing to take a risk. Forty years later, he and David Wilkerson continue to watch God perform miracles right before their eyes.

A Christian Reader original article.

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