"Hey, Preach--You're Comin' Through!"

IN AN age when the formal liturgy and the pious "other-worldly" attitude of many churches has so completely "turned off" modern young people, it is refreshingly inspiring to discover a preacher who is "comin' through!"

It awakens within his fellow ministers a desire to know the answers and the reasons for his successful breakthrough. How do you reach young people today? How does a minister bridge both the communication and the generation gap? How can he possibly get members of the runaway generation to say: "Hey, preach you're comin' through!" Yet, this is the intriguing title of one of David Wilkerson's most recent books.

Reverend Wilkerson is already known to millions of readers for his first book, The Cross and the Switchblade. This amazing story has had a tremendous impact on young people, and some not so young, all over the world. It has already sold more than 4 million copies, in some twenty-six languages.

It tells of how a "skinny" young preacher felt led to leave his comfortable country parish in Pennsylvania and start a lonely, seemingly doomed, crusade in the slums and housing projects of New York City. It is brimful of the miraculous power and working of God upon the hearts and lives of "impossible" young people, who under went complete transformations.

However, it wasn't easy to bridge those gaps In his introduction to this latest book David Wilkerson explains what it was like in those early street preaching encounters:

Those New York youngsters had been crowding all around my street-corner pulpit in one o£ the city's worst neighborhoods, but I realized that I wasn't getting through to them. A girl in a tight blouse and skirt blew cigarette smoke in my face. Boys in bright shirts pushed against each other. Between whiffs of tobacco I could smell a sour mixture of bus fumes, stale perspiration and beer. I tried in vain to lift my voice above the jeers and curses that slipped so easily out of those hard young mouths.¹

What did it take finally to reach these incorrigibles? First of all, it took an over whelming love for those young people—a love that showed; one that was willing to do something; one that would not be stopped. Near the very beginning of Wilkerson's ministry to the tough, crime-rid den gangs that roamed New York's streets ten years ago, he met a particularly hardened young gang leader by the name of Nicky Cruz. Even after some of his fellow leaders had been impressed and softened, Nicky remained completely aloof. When Reverend Wilkerson tried to approach him, he spat on him and said: "Go to Hell, preacher! If you come near me, I'll kill you." Wilkerson's inspiring response was: "You could do that, you could cut me in a thousand pieces and lay them out in the street and every piece would love you." ²

That was the necessary first step of love that later resulted in one of the most startling and rewarding conversion stories of our time. Nicky Cruz, the terrifying fighter of the renowned Mau Maus, became an outstanding minister who was also filled with a passion to reach other "hopeless" young people.

A second closely related plank in this bridge of communication is a consuming desire to show a way of salvation to those young people. Almost everything that they do fairly shouts that they are searching for something, yet their various methods of approach fall so short of any lasting kind of happiness. As David Wilkerson stood on the home "turf" of some of New York's deadliest gangs in those first encounters, he felt a real fear. He says: "I wasn't afraid of getting killed, but I was afraid of making no impression on these young lives." s That is the kind of godly fear and desire that young people have a remarkable ability to sense. They seem to have a keen appreciation for honesty and sincerity when they see it---perhaps because they see so little of it in the adult world.

Now, admittedly, most ministers who witness to young people today have little reason to fear getting killed; but there may be fears just the same. What about the fear of being ridiculed, the fear of being thought nonintellectual, the fear of being "square" and "out of it"? Do these fears and misunderstandings ever keep ministers from a desire to reach these young people?

A third portion of this bridge of understanding is simply to realize that ministers., by themselves, cannot construct the bridge. All of the seminary classes in psychology and counseling, in theology and exegesis, and even in homiletics and communication, will not ensure attention and conviction in teen-age audiences.

David Wilkerson also illustrates the third point in this early street-preaching experience he is telling about. He says: "As the hubbub grew worse, I flashed a desperate prayer to God. I knew that He had brought me to this street corner, and that only He could reach those young people." *

Then, Wilkerson explains how he talked of God's marvelous love from John 3:16. This time, as he preached, he "noticed eyes locking with his, and the circle of attention growing wider and wider. He could see God's love reach out and touch those hardened and "unlovable" teenagers.

Here and there I saw something that might be tears. I knew that God was making contact. . . .

One of them shook his head incredulously, unable to figure out why he was reacting as he did to my simple message. He grabbed my arm and blurted: "Hey, preach you're comin' through!" ⁵

Since those early beginnings on the street corners of New York City, David Wilkerson's ministry to troubled young people has been rapidly expanded to include a nation, and even a world. As the founder and executive director of Teen Challenge he has seen the organization grow from an idea into more than twenty centers located in various large city slums around the world. His own ministry has now become a full-time youth crusade ministry. Wherever he has gone, he says:

I have sensed the same thing: an intense desire for something genuine and real. Young people today want something to live for, something to believe in, and in their expressions I often read the same message I saw in the face of that New York gang leader years ago:

"Mister, you're getting through to me. Man, it's never been like this before you hit me deep." ⁶ Reverend Wilkerson also hopes that the church will get hit deeply and soon. The church has the message that these desperate young people are searching for.

It is indeed encouraging to find a man with a mission to reach these young people. It is even more encouraging to see that his mission is succeeding so remarkably. However, it is with a measure of chagrin and shame that many Christians (and ministers in particular) should read the following reproachful questions. They are chosen from a much longer list in Wilkerson's excellent little devotional book, I'm Not Mad at God. They serve as a conclusion to dramatically point out the kind of sacrifice it will take to bridge that gulf:

6. Was the call of God to a specific field and specific service once a dynamic, burning brand on your soul that also left its mark on everyone you knew? Is it now a spasmodic mechanical testimony that totters on a seesaw of indecision and fear?

7. Did the compassion of Christ at one time so possess your soul that praying was not a task or a burden, but a time of brokenhearted supplication for the lost and damned? Do you now struggle in your prayer life? Now must you force yourself into the closet? Do you find the initial burden you once had no longer glows?

8. Did you once have a holy boldness to preach to lost sinners any time any place? Do you now have a professional shell that surrounds you and constantly pricks at your pride? Have you lately been satisfied with pulpit oratory alone? Do you rationalize your lack o£ personal work by bringing into focus scriptures that infer only certain ones are called to do street work and front-line evangelism? Have you convinced yourself that you can do it and will do it when and if it is ever really put upon you? How ever, do you carry a secret desire that you will never have to do it as a ministry?

9. Do you rejoice greatly when others spend their hours talking to the lost on the street and as they go from door to door, but somehow always manage to be occupied in another phase of ministry when it is time for you to join?

10. Do you preach witnessing to others, and even console your conscience by convincing your own heart that your ministry is to raise up and train others to do the job of witnessing? . . .

12. Are you bogged down with details, doubts, business, projects, activities, and cannot find the time to set everything aside and "go out into some highway or byway and compel someone to come in"? . . .

20. Does this sincere confession stir your soul and drive you to your knees with a broken heart? Can you cry out to God to deliver you from all your fears and to make you a mighty soul winner? ⁷