“Let’s wash this off and see how deep that cut is,” Dolores said. “If it hit an artery, we need to call an ambulance right away. If it’s somewhat deep, we need to take you in a taxi to get stitches. If it’s a minor cut, you’ll just need a Band-Aid. How are you holding up?”
“Bleeding on the streets of New York City isn’t half as bad as I thought it would be. I’m ready to go to the Bronx,” I replied.
“What?” Dolores asked with deep concern. “Are you delirious?”
“I’ll explain later,” I said.
Thank God, I just needed a Band-Aid, although it would leave a permanent scar.
Mark or Wally would accompany me as I walked and prayed throughout the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx. One Saturday afternoon, we took cartoon-filled Chick tracts with us and handed them out. A young Puerto Rican girl, probably a thirteen-year-old acting like she was eighteen, walked past us all dressed up. Her face was caked with tons of makeup. It looked like she was heading to a nightclub. I tried to hand her a tract.
“No thank you,” she said, and kept walking.
I responded by saying, “You need Jesus!”
She stopped, spun around, and walked back toward me, looking right into my eyes. She emphatically declared, “Mister, I love Jesus with all my heart. I just can’t stand my grandmother’s church.”
I knew exactly where she was coming from. She was probably saved in her grandmother’s church a while back, but the legalism that marked many Spanish Pentecostal churches could be unbearable. She needed a healthy, English-speaking church in her neighborhood, like Times Square Church.
A friend from church named Tommy invited me to do street preaching with him. He would go out to 42nd Street in Times Square on Saturday afternoons. He’d buy a sound permit from the local police precinct so he could use a small amplifier. One week, Tommy announced that he had to be out of town the following Saturday. He already had the sound permit so I told him I’d be glad to fill in for him. I would read aloud a number of verses from the Bible on God’s love and mercy and simply explain them to the throngs of people passing by. As I was quoting from John 3:16—“God so loved the world”—I sensed a heavy anointing upon me. One thing about anointing—it tends to stir up a hornet’s nest. Two things happened at once. A man from a hate-filled cult across the street called the Black Israelites came over with scissors hidden in his pocket. He cut my microphone cord! At exactly the same time, Pastor Dave’s secretary, Barbara, was walking by, and she stopped to encourage me.
“You’re doing a great job,” she said. “Reminds me of another skinny preacher I know from the country,” and she winked at me as the walk sign flashed and she proceeded across the busy street.
Wow, to be compared to David Wilkerson…and by his secretary! I was so encouraged that I kept right on preaching for a while, even without a microphone.
I soon asked Tommy if he could help me get my own amplification system so I could preach in the South Bronx. He bought me an entire system, complete with a microphone and carrying case! I started preaching on a weekly basis at the Hub. There were always huge lines of people waiting for twenty minutes or more for various buses. It was a great place for street preaching, especially since half the people in that neighborhood had been to their mother’s or grandmother’s or aunt’s church at some point in their childhood.
One day, a very elderly man slowly, painfully made his way over to me. “Young man,” he began, leaning on a wobbly cane, “when I was young, I used to preach at this very spot. Now I’m too old, but I’m glad God raised up someone to take my place. Be encouraged and keep up the good work!”
I was not encouraged by his words. They actually discouraged me tremendously. After he left, I stared into space like a baseball pitcher when the umpire calls a ball and everyone knows that it was clearly a strike.
“Oh, great,” I finally complained out loud to the Lord. “One day I’ll be too old to come out here and minister God’s Word.”
I heard the Lord speak these thoughts to me: “If you raise up a church in this neighborhood, it could be a witness for Me until I return.”
What a concept! But it was more than a concept. It was a calling, an assignment that I knew was from the Lord. As we were cleaning Times Square Church the next day, I shared my heart with Wally. “I love my job here, Wally, but I feel the Lord is calling me to the South Bronx to pioneer a new church.”
“You need to tell the leadership here about this, Charles.”
The following Tuesday evening before the service, I walked up to Pastor Don and told him I’d like a word with him.
“Sure, Charles,” he said in his cheerful manner. “What is it?”
“Well, I’ve been praying over the South Bronx for a number of months. I’ve been doing street preaching there and…I feel the Lord is calling me to start a church there.”
He just stared at me, speechless, for at least sixty long seconds. Was he holding back a hearty round of laughter? Did he think I was joking? Was he thinking, “You? Plant a church in the South Bronx? A young, white guy going to one of the most dangerous parts of this entire region? Are you crazy?”
Instead, he finally, carefully responded, “This is interesting.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Just today we pastors had a meeting about what evangelistic outreaches we should have this summer. We’re a fairly new church, and we need to have something, but we’re not ready to do a lot. After praying together about it, we unanimously decided to have one major outreach this summer…in the Bronx. Since you’ve been praying for the Bronx, why don’t you pick the neighborhood?”
I was so pleasantly stunned that I couldn’t even talk. I nodded my head and went to my usher’s post as the service began. Pastor Jimmy Lilley, the outreach pastor, picked the date for the Bronx meeting. It wasn’t until he told me that I realized it was six months to the day from when I arrived back in the city.
A couple days later, Pastor Dave approached me and said, “Charles, since you’re called to start a church in the Bronx and we feel led to have an outreach there this summer, let’s make it the kickoff for your church. My son Gary will be happy to help you.”
Pastor Gary was very excited and offered to help me find a store-front where we could begin our new church. He loves grassroots stuff, and he also has a way of believing in those who don’t usually get nominated “Most Likely to Succeed,” like skinny white guys from Tennessee. Gary believed in me—really believed in me—and that meant the world to me. Gary said the budget would be one thousand dollars per month for church rent. Times Square Church would generously pay for an apartment for Mark and me in the Bronx. (I needed someone with me who could swat down screwdrivers and switchblades.) They would also give me enough of a salary to live on so I could focus on the new church. What a way to plant a church—a strong mother church fully supporting a daughter church in the same region!
Pastor Gary and I found a small storefront a block from the Hub, right next to a large empty department store. The storefront was going for a thousand a month, but Gary was immediately interested in the much bigger place next door. The real estate broker said the department store was vacant and would remain that way for the next year because Con Edison was eventually buying the entire building. Nobody was going to fix up a department store just for a one-year lease. Pastor Gary asked, “And what’s the market price for this department store if it came with a ten- or twenty-year lease?”
The broker said, “Well, it’s got two bathrooms, a large front room, three small rooms in the back, and it has its own heating and A/C units. I’d say about ten thousand a month.”
Gary responded, “And it’s just going to sit here empty for a year?”
“Yep. We’re going to have to board it up so no one breaks these large department store windows.”
“Tell the landlord we’ll take it for a thousand a month. He won’t have to board it up, and in a year, he’ll have a nice newly-painted space to give to Con Ed,
” Gary offered.
“The landlord isn’t interested in such small change,” the broker insisted, “and he doesn’t care about fixing things up either. Con Ed has already agreed to buy it as is. OK, I’ll ask him anyway. Won’t hurt.”
A few days later, we had a one-year lease for the large space and we were cleaning and painting it, getting it ready for our opening service in a few weeks.
Two weeks before our street rally, we had an unusually powerful Friday night service at Times Square Church. When Wally, Mark, and I finished doing a security check of the building, we met back at the altar. We all clearly sensed the lingering presence of God. “Let’s pray for a while,” Wally remarked, and soon we were soaring in prayer together. Before we knew it, it was 3:00 a.m. When I told Wally how late it was, he replied, “I’m not even tired. Let’s turn off all the sanctuary lights and keep praying up in your room, Charles.” All three of us were praying in the Spirit, and we alternated between praying whatever was on our hearts and singing some of the songs from our services.
I kept getting a picture of a huge Apollo spacecraft mounted on a launching pad, steam billowing out of its sides, ready to shoot up into the heavens. Our prayers soon were 100 percent focused on the Bronx. We interceded about all aspects of the coming street rally and the new church plant. Time flew by, and it was a good thing that nothing was on the calendar for that Saturday. We never did open the church doors. We knew the sun had come up, but still I was surprised when I looked at my watch and saw that it was already noontime! We kept praying and singing and waiting on God, sensing that He was doing something powerful through our intercession.
That evening, all three of us finally stopped praying at exactly the same time. We sat quietly for a few minutes, waiting to see if the Lord was definitely finished. Finally, Wally said, “Man am I hungry!” We all looked at our wristwatches and were amazed to realize it was past 9:00 P.M.! We had prayed for almost twenty-four hours, but it seemed like just a few hours.
Again, Wally spoke up. “Charles, let’s go to the deli around the corner on Seventh Avenue and get some sandwiches. Mark, you want anything?”
“No thanks. I have leftovers down in the kitchen.”
We got our sandwiches and exited the deli. I said to Wally, “Hey, let’s go over to the corner of 42nd Street for a minute.” Wally didn’t even bother to ask why. He had been with me when I suddenly began preaching or singing or talking boldly about the Lord in public places.
Before we had even arrived at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street, I saw a short Hispanic-looking man handing out tracts to whomever wanted to grab one as they briskly walked past him. He turned around and faced me as though he’d been waiting there for me and then said in perfect English, “Thus says the Lord, I have called you and anointed you and appointed you for the work ahead. Do not be afraid as you walk through this new and open door of ministry that I, your Lord, have opened for you. Be bold and courageous, for I am surely with you wherever you go.”16
My mouth hung open, and I turned to Wally and exclaimed, “Wally, did you hear that? This man doesn’t know me from Adam, and…” I turned back toward the street preacher, and he was gone! Could he have jumped into a taxi? Did he run away? Was he a missionary in Mexico who was transported there and back, like Philip, just to give that message to me?17 Was he an angel? I think so, but I don’t know for sure. I knew that the prophetic word was from God. I would go forth to the South Bronx, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world, and I would not be afraid, for God was surely with me!
The street meeting was awesome. We got permission from the mayor’s office and the police department to close off an entire city block on 143rd Street, between Third Avenue and Morris. We brought out a stage, a church organ, and the entire Times Square Church worship team. When we put out a hundred folding chairs, the kids in the neighborhood immediately filled them. I saw people coming to their windows from all the housing projects on that block. The worship team sang their hearts out, and Pastor Jimmy preached a very strong evangelistic message. He had a specific altar call for anyone who would like to accept the Lord as their Savior. “Don’t come if you don’t mean business. Don’t come if you’ve been saved before. This is only for first-timers.”
I was thinking, “Jimmy, if you keep narrowing it down, no one will come.” But he knew what he was doing, and seventeen people responded. All of them were clearly ready to accept the Lord as their Savior.
At the end of the meeting, Jimmy announced that in two days, where the old Lynn’s Department Store used to be, a new church would begin. It would be called the South Bronx Church and I would be the pastor. I began to make my way up to the stage to give my greetings and close in prayer. Someone in the vast crowd yelled out, “You mean that vacant store right beneath the Social Security office around the corner from the Hub?” Jimmy quickly looked over at my nodding head and said into the mic, “Yes, the new church is located near the Hub, underneath the Social Security office.” Everyone there knew exactly where to go on Sunday. Jimmy announced, “Pastor Charles, come and greet your new congregation.”
I looked down at the seventeen people who got saved. I saw hundreds of men, women, boys, and girls behind them and simply said, “Let’s pray.” I prayed with all my heart for the families and the homes and the people of the South Bronx and asked for God’s richest blessing upon each one. Hearty “amens” filled the air as the meeting came to a wonderful conclusion.
7
“That’s exactly what I would have done!”
AFTER PRAYERFUL CONSIDERATION, WE DECIDED TO START OUR SUNDAY services at three o’clock in the afternoon. Was I surprised when fifteen of those first-timers at the street rally showed up, along with sixty people from Times Square Church! It turned out that most of those sixty people came from far away, attended the mother church in the morning, and would usually hang out in restaurants until the 6:00 P.M. service. Back then, they had not yet started their 3:00 P.M. service. It worked out well for everyone.
A year later, our attendance was still about seventy-five people, but by then about sixty were from the neighborhood and only fifteen from Times Square Church. Once we took off, every few weeks or so a Times Square Church member would leave, telling me they had been there just to help us launch—but not without a hug and a big thank you from me. I’m convinced that a mother church birthing a daughter church in a different part of the region is the ideal way to plant a church. As I looked back, I saw so many situations where we really did not know what we were doing. But as Pastor Don said in one of his classic sermons, “It’s easier to steer a moving car than a stationary one!”
Our second Sunday was a hot, humid June day, and the Lord put on my heart to preach a sermon about the fires of eternal hell. As we opened the building and turned on the air conditioning units, they made a loud noise and died on us. No air conditioning! Not only did it feel like hell when it was time to preach, but I preached too long. A few times in the middle of that sermon, I commented on how the Lord was allowing us to feel what I was preaching about! But preaching over an hour and a half? It was miraculous that anyone came back the following Sunday! Dolores discreetly walked up to me in the beginning of that next service and asked me how many sermons I was going to preach—two or three? I got the message and tried my hardest to limit it to just one.
Gary insisted I join the weekly pastoral staff prayer meetings, so when I walked into the 68th Street office, Pastor Dave greeted me with a firm handshake. He said, “A friend gave me a cassette copy of your message on hell. A very good sermon. Also, Charles, I know my limitations, and I need to stay focused on what’s going on here in Manhattan. My son Gary says he’d love to preach for you on Wednesday evenings, but don’t expect me to help you in the Bronx.”
“I totally understand, Pastor Dave. And that would be awesome to have Pastor Gary help me.” So, for many Wednesday evenings, Pastor Gary preached for me and then sometimes treated me to dessert at a nearby diner. How wonderf
ul it was to spend quality time with him. I could openly discuss the many challenges I was facing there in the Bronx. When he later moved to England, local pastors Mark Gregori and Ben Torres often gave me valuable advice. But neither one was able to be hands-on like Gary was, so when I subconsciously tried to copy the mother church in everything, it only led to frustration and exhaustion. I was trying too hard to follow Pastor Dave and Times Square Church’s example. I was trying to follow in Abraham’s footsteps by unnecessarily becoming a desert-dweller just like him!
But, thank God, I had such a great assistant in Mark. When he got married to a sister from Times Square Church and moved on, immediately the Lord brought Samuel Henry along. Samuel was an anointed keyboardist from England. His family was originally from the Caribbean, and his father pastored a church in Hempstead, Long Island. Since Samuel was just out of high school and spent so much time traveling back and forth, I invited him to move in with me and told him that he could have Mark’s old room. After praying a lot about it and discussing it with his family, he agreed.
Soon after he moved in, suddenly all the people who sat out on the stoops of their buildings in my neighborhood were unusually friendly with me as I walked by. I had to find out why.
“Yo, what’s up?” I said to some of the guys on my block, trying to sound urban—except my southern accent was still coming through, kind of messing it all up. “I’ve been living here for months, and you guys hardly give me the time of day. As soon as Samuel moves in with me, I’m suddenly everyone’s friend. What’s up with that?”
Walking in the Footsteps of David Wilkerson Page 8