conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a plot for a book about David, Cross, Nicky entitled The Cross and the Switchblade?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Cross and the Switchblade (film): The film is based on the true story of David Wilkerson (Pat Boone), a small-town preacher who gets caught in the shadows of a crime-ridden neighborhood in New York City.\nHe encounters the Mau Maus, a gang led by Nicky Cruz (Erik Estrada), and David brings a message of hope to the angry youths.\nGuided by the street-wise Little Bo (Jo-Ann Robinson), David quickly learns about the neighborhood and how to approach the cynical juveniles.\nDavid came to New York City from a Pittsburgh suburb with little money, and is put up in a small street chapel owned by a pastor with a loving family who supports David in his work and offers to help with food and shelter.\nCruz at first dismisses Wilkerson as a joke, then as a conspiracy to break up the Mau Maus, serving to only intensify his desire to be rid of the "preacher man".\nNicky\'s girlfriend Rosa prostitutes in order to support her heroin addiction, and later begs David to help her sober her drug habits.\nDavid realistically does not think Rosa can handle her heroin problem without medical attention, but agrees to allow the pastor and his wife to have Rosa live with them and stand vigil as she goes through difficult withdrawals.\nAfter Rosa is sober, she tries to convince Nicky that David comes to them out of love, but Nicky becomes more and more frustrated.\nWhen David tries an attempt to reach out to all gang members in the area through a revival, the pastor convince the NYPD not to survey the area in order to have the gangs think they are left alone.\nNicky agrees with Big Cat, the leader of the rival Bishops, that they should rumble at the revival since no one would expect that.\nHowever, during David\'s sermon, his message that no one can be labeled and Christ\'s death on the Cross reaches Nicky, and he stands up to Big Cat who is ready to attack David.\nThe film concludes by saying that in the question of the Cross and the Switchblade, the Cross proved stronger.\nNicky Cruz would go on to become an ordained minister, preaching the gospel due to the initial efforts of David Wilkerson.\nIn the end they start a center called Teen Challenge to support teens.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first three paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Cross and the Switchblade
  And with that, most of the boys lit up cigarettes, tucked their Bibles under their arms, and walked out.
  It was early the next morning that the phone call came. Mrs. Ortez stuck her head in the door of my little room. "Davie, it's the police on the phone."
  My heart sank. And when I stumbled out to the phone, the words I heard didn't make me feel any better. The lieutenant asked me if I knew the Mau Mau gang, and when I said that I did, he asked if I'd come right down.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He is Nicky. What a day it was for me when Nicky walked shyly through the front door of the Center with a beautiful girl on his arm!
  Nicky and Gloria had met on the West Coast while they were both in Bible school. I rushed forward to greet them, wringing Nicky's hand and slapping him on the back, and welcoming Gloria so warmly I'm afraid she was a little startled.
  Nicky, Gloria and I sat in the office and reminisced. I found it difficult to believe this was the same boy who had threatened to kill me just three years earlier. On our first encounter Nicky had impressed me as a hopeless case. Yet here he was, sitting before me a new person—a licensed minister, bursting with plans for the future.
  Our permanent staff really excited me as it grew. We were coming at the problems of the street kids from all angles. I was working with boys. Nicky with the parents. Gloria with the Little People. But there was one large gap: we had no one whose special interest was in the Debs.
  In recent years the role of the young teen-age girl has been growing in importance in the complex make-up of the gangs. She is known as a "Deb." She groups together with other youngsters like herself to form auxiliaries to the boy-gangs. Often these girl-gangs take names that echo the names of their male counterpart, as in the Cobras and the Cobrettes.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The canceled check, which Clem Stone now has in his files in Chicago, tells a mute story of the wonderful leading of God among young people in New York City. It is properly endorsed, properly deposited. But it is more than that. If you look closely at that check, you will see that it is stained: it is really quite grubby from having passed through the hands of two dozen youngsters who have learned what it is to believe. And perhaps there are a few tearstains on it, too. Tears of gratitude to a God who moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.
  But another volume is being written, too. This one is oriented to Chicago, not New York. A brand new Teen Challenge Center already exists and is in operation in that city. Borrowing on the mistakes and successes of our pilot project here, Chicago's Center is bounding ahead.
  As long as He remains in charge, the programs will thrive. The minute we try to do things by our own power we will fail.
  This is the guiding principle of the Center here in New York; it is the principle which directs our new Center in Chicago, and the one that is starting in Philadelphia, and in Boston, and in Los Angeles, and in Toronto.
  We should write it for all to see on the lintels of every doorway we build. But since that might seem like so many words, we will do better: we will write it in our lives. And in all the lives we can reach out to and touch and inspire with the living Spirit of God.