The Cross and the Switchblade

The new mission establishes headquarters in Staten Island. Wilkerson sleeps on a couch at the headquarters. He finds that this improves his prayer life, though he misses his family. The mission’s first project, distributing pamphlets on issues like drug addiction and gang violence, is a failure. Their second project, a televised variety show featuring reformed teens, is more successful but proves expensive.

To raise funds, Wilkerson and his colleague, Reverend Harald Bredesen, visit Chase Walker, a magazine editor, to ask for money to support the show. Confused, Walker says that he doesn’t have the money; Bredesen explains that he felt called to visit Walker and apologizes for showing up at his office. As Bredesen and Wilkerson are leaving, Walker shows them a strange telegram he received from his friend Clement Stone, telling Walker to disregard their previous plans and meet him at the Savoy instead. Walker, who never made plans with Stone, assumes the telegram was a mistake, but he writes Wilkerson and Bredesen a letter of introduction and sends them to the Savoy to meet Stone in his stead. After a 15-minute meeting, Stone agrees to fund the mission for up to $10,000, which would wipe out the ministry’s debt and provide funds for future projects. Wilkerson interprets this donation as the hand of God supporting their work.

One day, Wilkerson has a vision of a house for troubled teenagers, named the Teen Challenge Center, in the roughest part of the city. The Center would have full-time staff dedicated to addressing the teens’ issues and making them feel at home. Wilkerson begins fundraising to buy a building that would house the Center, but Gwen tells him to take a risk and find the home first and to worry about paying for it later. While praying, Wilkerson receives a “sudden clear impression” that the home should be on Clinton Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant (139).

After a frustrating search, the group settles on a red brick mansion with severely dilapidated interiors. Bredesen declares that this is the building God has chosen for their mission. Wilkerson is responsible for raising $4,200 to secure the house. He asks God to provide exactly that amount of money to show Wilkerson that he is following God’s plan. Soon after, Wilkerson receives $4,400 from a congregation for a session of guest preaching. He discovers that the extra $200 is necessary to pay lawyers’ fees for the home, making $4,400 the exact amount he needs. The group succeeds in collecting the rest of the down payment in two large donations, one in the form of a blank check. Again, Wilkerson attributes this successful fundraising to God’s providence.

Overwhelmed by the junk accumulated in the new building, Wilkerson engages a group of teenage volunteers to help clear it out. Sanitation workers charged with hauling the junk initially ask for a bribe, but they then refuse to take any money when they learn of the mission. When the workers discover new structural problems in the building, Wilkerson and his fellow pastors travel across the country to raise funds to fix the home. Wilkerson arranges meetings with civic leaders in New York to collect donations of beds, furniture, and other items. He feels especially gratified that these prestigious and influential men are getting involved with the work of Pentecostals.

Wilkerson envisions a staff of 20 men and women working in the Center to serve the troubled teens living there and to help the larger community as well. One of Wilkerson’s early hires, a former gang member, is stabbed while out in the community, leading Wilkerson to question his hiring decisions. He goes on to visit Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, and Lee College in Tennessee to recruit young pastors in training. The night before the Center opens, Wilkerson and Gwen stand in the chapel discussing the night he first heard the call while he was standing in the wheat field. Gwen points to a carving of a tied sheaf of wheat on the mantlepiece, and they interpret it as a sign from God.

Wilkerson takes the new student workers into New York City in order to prepare them for their work at the center. He explains that loneliness is at the heart of the troubled teens’ problems: Without stable families, their loneliness and fear lead them to join gangs in order to feel some sense of security and companionship. He coaches the workers on the right language to use when talking to young people on the street, urging them away from clichés about new life and being born again.

The Teen Challenge Center is in full operation by the spring of 1961. In the first five months, over 500 boys and girls leave gangs and join a church as a result of Wilkerson’s mission. One of the teens, a conman named George, comes to the Center on a whim and prays for God to transform his life; he afterward dedicates himself to an honest job and begins to pay back his debt. Another, a boy named Pedro, lives at the center for three days before confessing to a stabbing and robbery. Miraculously, no one involved wants to press charges, and Pedro is free to dedicate his life to the church. A former gang president named Lucky loves living at the center so much that he stays on as a repairperson even after he is reformed.

Each morning, workers at the Center wake early to eat together, complete personal devotions, and attend chapel. Then they wander the streets to seek out teenage gang members. New leaders emerge at the Center, including the administrator, Howard Culver, and his wife, Barbara, who acts as nurse. Nicky, who was one of the first teens whom Wilkerson connected with, returns from Bible school to work at the Center with his wife, Gloria.

Wilkerson turns his attention to Debs, the groups of teenage girls at the periphery of gangs that often devolve into gangs themselves. Linda Meisner, a college student from Iowa, becomes the Center’s dedicated Debs missionary. She initially struggles when teenage girls show up drunk and disruptive for Center services. Linda’s first success story is a Deb named Elaine, who is full of hate as a result of her sexual encounters with boys and men. Linda’s connection with Elaine encourages her to push on. Work with the Debs is often dangerous; in one instance, Linda and another worker named Kay are talking to a group of Debs when teenage boys interrupt and threaten them. Although Linda brushes the boys off, they soon return with a larger group. Linda ultimately defuses the situation by saying, “God bless you” (175). Linda is rattled by this experience and she later writes a letter to her family, telling them that she knows her life is at risk.