I was a teenage college student and still savoring my recent experience of conversion. I had been "born again," saved by Christ from sins that would have destroyed me, and I was eager to share my faith with other kids who seemed headed for delinquency. So I jumped at the chance for a summer internship in the inner city, helping to run youth programs for adolescents who lived in poverty. The ministry was run by two tough young men who had converted to Christianity after spending years in street gangs. One had been a member of the militant Black Panthers.

Their misspent youth was a providential preparation for ministry in that part of town-where most storefronts were boarded up and drug dealers and police cruisers were the most frequent visitors. They talked tough to me on my first day and showed me to the spartan room where I