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Scripture for this chapter
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isaiah 6:8 KJV
At a glance
A photograph in Life magazine of seven Brooklyn teenagers on trial for murder sends a small-town pastor to New York City.
The Michael Farmer murder trial (1957-58) was a real, widely covered case that shaped public alarm over teen gang violence in New York.
UECF.NET summary
The book opens not in New York but in rural Pennsylvania, where Wilkerson is pastoring a small Assemblies of God congregation. Late one night he sees a photograph in Life magazine of seven teenage boys on trial for the fatal stabbing of Michael Farmer, a boy with polio, in a New York City park. Something about the image will not let him go, and he becomes convinced God wants him personally involved in the lives of the young people behind that headline, not merely praying about them from a distance.
Wilkerson drives to New York and attempts to reach the courtroom where the trial is underway, carrying a Bible and hoping to speak to the judge on the defendants' behalf. He is turned away and, in the chapter's most humiliating moment, is photographed by the press being removed from the courtroom — an image that runs in the New York papers the next day under a mocking headline. It is a discouraging, almost comic beginning to what becomes years of ministry, and the chapter closes with Wilkerson driving home unsure whether he has just made a fool of himself or taken the first step of a calling.
Key points
- A single news photograph becomes the catalyst for a life-altering conviction.
- Wilkerson's first attempt to help is a public, humiliating failure, not a triumph.
- The chapter sets up the book's recurring pattern: an ordinary, unlikely obedience that looks foolish at first.
- The Michael Farmer murder trial (1957-58) was a real, widely covered case that shaped public alarm over teen gang violence in New York.
Related Scripture
For reflection and discussion
- Has an unexpected image, story, or need ever “not let you go” the way this photograph would not let Wilkerson go? How did you respond?
- Wilkerson's first public step looked like a failure. Why is it often risky to act on a conviction before it makes sense to anyone else?
- What is the difference between being moved by a need and being called to personally meet it?
This page is an original UECF.NET study companion. It does not reproduce any text from The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson (with John Sherrill and Elizabeth Sherrill), which remains under copyright. Read the full chapter in a legally available edition of the book — see Further Reading & Legal Editions — or borrow the original 1963 edition via Internet Archive’s Open Library controlled digital lending.