Like Billy Graham, he has reached millions of people throughout the world to share his faith in Jesus Christ. Some of his methods are totally unlike those Billy Graham uses, however, and the life of Nicky Cruz before he had a faith in Jesus Christ was totally unlike the life of Billy Graham (or other evangelists) had ever been. Nicky Cruz has often told people that while some people get high on alcohol, drugs or sex, his life before becoming a Christian was violent, and he got high on hate.
Before he became a Christian, Nicky Cruz was a leader of the most feared street gang in New York City, and a psychologist once told him he was headed to jail, the electric chair, and hell. Nicky has said that when he was younger, his parents had been into witchcraft, séances, and animal sacrifices, and his father often threw him into a room full of pigeons-where the birds would scratch him all over. He has said his mother hit him and knocked him unconscious many times.
Growing up in such a manner, some might not be surprised that Nicky Cruz grew up to be so violent and filled with hate. He became the leader of the Mau Maus and after becoming a Christian said that he had behaved like an animal. He said that animals “don’t know right from wrong” and kill other animals just to survive. He said he wanted to treat others the way he had been treated as a child. He was 19 at the time and figures he couldn’t have lived the way he was living for more than a year before something would have happened to kill him.
Nicky Cruz changed forever, however, after he met David Wilkerson, the former pastor of a country church. While Nicky says he did not want to hear about God or the fact that God would forgive him, his live was forever touched by the words of Wilkerson after Nicky Cruz threatened to kill the skinny country preacher.
You can cut me up in a million pieces and lay them in the street,” Wilkerson replied. “Every piece would still say I love you.”
Cruz and members of his gang began to attend the rallies led by Wilkerson. One by one they began to believe in Christ as their Savior-including Nicky Cruz–as they were touched by the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Son of God for their sins. Nicky has said at crusades he felt as though God loved him even if he had broken the Ten Commandments “one by one.”
Nicky Cruz, the violent leader of the most violent street gang in New York City, the man whose parents had been devil worshippers, left his gang, went to Bible college and was on his way to becoming a different kind of evangelist-with a testimony that listeners have a hard time ignoring. At Bible college he met and married Gloria.
Nicky and Gloria moved back to New York City, where they ran Teen Challenge, a program to help troubled teens. Nicky Cruz and Gloria have also raised four girls, and Nicky has traveled throughout the world as an evangelist and head of Nicky Cruz ministries. While millions of people have heard, and many responded to his message, Nicky Cruz believes his greatest success has been that his mother, father, and brother became believers.
One way that Nicky Cruz is a very different kind of evangelist has been his ministry called, TRUCE-a program in which each outreach takes months of planning and preparation. A team travels to targeted cities to set up camp with local churches to reach into some of the most dangerous neighborhoods with the gospel.
Often the outreach may start with the playing of very loud music. In one outreach, in New York City, some gang members who came to see what was going on carried machine guns. The TRUCE team goes throughout the crowd to find people to pray with and invite to see a production of Nicky’s life story, Run Baby Run.
Since the TRUCE program began, thousands have people have expressed faith in Christ.
Other outreaches Evangelist Nicky Cruz has been involved with have included crusades, like the crusades Billy Graham was involved with, outreaches in school assemblies, television specials, and literature distribution, which includes the distribution of Bibles and the Run Baby Run book. Gloria ministers in prisons and juvenile detention facilities.
Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Nicky Cruz, and other evangelists have all shared the same message, and all have used crusades and other means to do that-including television. Nicky Cruz, however, is a different kind of evangelist-one who had a different kind of life before becoming a Christian and who uses some unusual means to share his message.
