 Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here in York, Pennsylvania with Clayton Shank and you've started a school here in the city of York, Pennsylvania, and I think there's also a church you've been heavily involved with for the last while. Can you just start by telling us some about this city? What unique aspects does it have? What makes this city really tick? York like many other inner city, inland cities is a dying city. It's declining in population, but at one point York had 60,000 people and today they're 43,000 people. So Caterpillar, Alice Chalmers, Mac, all of those manufacturing jobs have more or less disappeared. Harley-Davidson is still here, but a lot of the manufacturing jobs have left York. One of the things that really makes York unique and we're only across the river from Lancaster. So in just an hour you can be in Lancaster. But William Penn, when he bought the land from the Indians, he promised that nobody would ever settle west of the Susquehanna River. So Lancaster, filling up with people, in 1783 there was about 581 people in Lancaster and they were sure that was too full, they were sure that it was somewhere else and so they began to come over and the Indians complained and went to Harrisburg and the National Guard came down and physically took the settlers back to Lancaster County. Wow. And so the people of York traditionally way, way back 250 years ago were the rebels, were the ones who were defying an agreement with William Penn. And so now a lot of people went to Chambersburg, which was far enough west that the Indians didn't care about that, but the ones right here in New York County really cared about that treaty that William Penn made. But York, the Articles of Confederation were settled here, Congress met here for seven months during the Revolutionary War and so there's a number of historic things that happened here, but it has an interesting root. And so in the book, Taking Our Cities for God, Dawson says that there's a spirit behind every city and if you're going to be a missionary to the city, you should figure out what that spirit is. Well, one of the spirits here is that spirit of rebellion, the spirit of, no, we're not going to listen to the treaty, we're not going to listen to honor what has happened there. Okay, so tell me about, how long have you lived here? When did you move in? In the early 80s, when I was born 60, so in the 80s I was 20 years old and I wanted to do some V.S. somewhere, I wanted to figure out how to serve the Lord and I volunteered my time actually at the Lancaster radio station. Really? It's not the only JTL, but back then it was WPTG and I served my nine months of V.S. as an evening board operator and I had a program there, Children's Goodnight program, I played the Moody stories. One of the stories I played was Dwight Moody's story and when he became a Christian, he wanted to teach Sunday school class, I didn't have a Sunday school class for him, so he said, well, if you let me find the boys, will you give me a room? And they agreed, so eventually I had four rows that he rented and he had filled up with boys and he had his own boys school. They had two weeks of summer Bible school here and my girlfriend, now my wife, was one of the Bible school teachers. Monday night was my night off from the radio and so I came along with her and she had no scholars, fourth grade, nobody showed up that night, so she said, oh, should we just go to the adult classes and do what Dwight Moody did and so we went down the streets and went around, are you in fourth grade, are you in fourth grade, are you in fourth grade, are you in fourth grade? And so we, by the end of the two weeks, she had the biggest class, she had twelve fourth graders and they said, we've got to get that guy here and we don't have to go there. And so they started hounding me, will you come to your, come to your, come to your. And they don't realize all I was doing was what I learned from somebody else. Yeah, yeah. I'm not very original in many things. I hear from other people and I say, well, I just did what Dwight Moody did. So I agreed to come for one year. Actually they asked, will you come for six months? Just come for six months. So that's all I agreed to was six months. I've been here for 35 years now. I came as a Sunday school teacher and then summer Bible school superintendent and when they talked about ordination, I was ordained pastor. Did you help start this school then? Was this here already? The church was up the street, the church building was there and this was a building that was a daycare center for handicapped adults. They had an open house and I came through and I said, if you ever want to sell, I'd like to have a school someday. I'd like to start a school. Jay Fox from Redding was encouraging us to get a school started and telling us the advantage of the school and so he called me one day and said, hey, we're going to move out. You may assume the mortgage. Just take over the mortgage and you can have the building. $70,000. And I said, well, it's very kind of you but we're not going to go in debt. We're just not going to go in debt and so we'll have to pass up the offer. A year and a half later he called and said, my tax accountant tells me I can give you the building at half price and so give me $30,000 or $35,000 and you can have it. And I said, do I get to choose? Which one of those two? He said, of course. I said, well, that's very kind and generous but no, we're not going to go in debt and so I can't take it. We decided that by July 1st, if we have $5,000 in a fund for the school and we have three students and one teacher, we'll start this year. But July 1st is the day, is the year that we're going to start. So that was sort of the fleece. Those three things, by July 1st, July 1st we had no money, no teachers, no students. So I was like, okay, well, forget that. Well, on July 3rd, he called back and he said, I don't want that building for one more year. It's a headache. You may have it. Just take it. If you pay closing costs, you may have the building. I said, I'm very, very interested. So praise God, we got the building. I have this little enclave, you know, we have a church building, a school building, three houses. My son owns a house on the block. One day, somebody called the police and they complained here, something was happening in the neighborhood, neighbors were being loud or whatever. And they said, hey, the church has that block. That's the church block. He taught the church. Really? That was 911's response. Just go tell the church. And so we started to say, oh, well, if that's how it is, we're going to have to become more active and more, you know, and so one of our neighbors can just barely walk a really handicapped, but she doesn't have a handicapped parking. So I got blue paint. We painted sidewalks, put up a little sign, you know, the parking, they put a crosswalk, so our children could walk across it like, oh, okay, well. How has this neighborhood received you? I'm sure it's been a progression. You've been here for quite a while. But you're always going to have some who are just real happy to see you and some are like, what's going on here? You know, you know, there are some who, your question was how did we get received? Yeah. As long as we just smile and we're happy and we're cleaning up the neighborhood and we're having parties and block parties and those kind of things. Everybody's happy. But when we begin to preach on the street corners and do track distributions and those kind of things, not everybody's happy. Yeah, you're forcing them to confront what does the Bible say? And okay, so the Bible says this, I have to deal with that and I think sometimes people don't like it. That's right. They would just be, I'd rather just live my life and I'll have to face these things, just ignore them. At Sadler College, our goal is to produce well-rounded students who, as the scriptures say, can rightly handle the word of truth. To do this, we integrate discipleship with academic excellence. For our academics, we believe in implementing a rigorous and well-defined Christian core curriculum. These are classes that everyone takes regardless of your major. These classes include expository writing, oral communication, history, biology, and statistics. But in addition to that, every student will also take courses in Old Testament, New Testament, Apologetics, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew, and Church History. You get those classes regardless of your major. For more information, please schedule a call with our admissions team, download a course catalog, or even better, come visit our Boston campus. So tell us about the different ways that you've been able to engage with this city. You've already went into some of those, but what are some projects you've done and especially, how were they received, maybe difficulties you might have had, how did you overcome these, you know, especially since you have so much to experience? You have been here a while, you know. Yeah, go into some of that. One of the things that we have in this city is tremendous fear of criminals. So when something goes wrong, nobody wants to be a snitch. Nobody wants to tell. We don't go out of the way to inform people, but we don't lie. And so when a police officer said, did you see something, the answer was yes. This is what we saw. The State of Pennsylvania passed a law that if you sell drugs within a thousand feet of a school, you automatically get five years. And so the city plots where the schools are, all types of peace here. That's wonderful because now they're a thousand feet and this thousand feet. So don't move. Don't stay where you're at because we need you right there. We had across the street fire, it didn't affect our houses, but the ones right next door affected it. And then I read in the newspaper next day that the fire marshal was at Arson. And so I looked at our security cameras and you could see the three teenagers going into the house next door, the yard next door and leaving about five minutes later the fire truck's coming. And so I said, I called the police and I said, I might have some information you would like to see, modern security cameras and I said yes, yes. And so I saw this. When they put that in the newspaper, the picture, one frame of these three guys walking, it was very obvious it was our house. It was the teacher's house, it was the girl's house, it was their car. And so anybody who knows the neighborhood could know who was working with the police on that one. That was Wednesday morning that was put out and they're asking anybody who knows these guys, please let us know. Thursday night Bible school, we had a couple of the children who were acting rally. And so two of our staff members walked this child home and as they walked, they delivered the child and they were coming back to school, they met three young men, perpendicularly, and they passed them. And about 25 feet beyond that, they turned around and shot at them. And the girl got three holes in her dress, right? And so the police, I had nothing to do, nothing to do was e-reporting. I was like, well, I don't believe that, right, but I am. So we were at prison next week, next week later. And I was, as soon as I walked in, the guy was like, oh, you're the guys with the camera. Well, thank you. That was my brother's house that burned, right? And so he was grateful for it. Well, I said, well, I have a question for you. Was that right for us as a church to have cameras? Because all of a sudden it was this debate, you know? No, no, no. You shouldn't have had cameras. Oh, well. So the prisoners themselves were something like, yeah, you should have. Interesting. No. I said, well, if it was right for us to have cameras, was it right for us to call the police? No, no, no, no, no. It was pretty well universal, except for this one, whose brother's house burned. He was on our side the whole way, yeah. Most of them agree we could have cameras, but we shouldn't have called the police. I said, well, then what do we do with that information, right? Well, you should have gone and talked to the guys. You should have just, but I said, I don't know who they were, right? I didn't know who they were and what was I supposed to do. I would tell you another interesting part of this. I told the prisoners that these, about this two staff men was getting shot at and the girl. And they almost came out of their seats, the whole thing. I was like, you need to run. You got to get out of town, man. You're high. Your day is up. You're go. Really? And I said, but why? Greater is he that is in me than he is in the world. All right? There's nothing going to happen to us unless God says, okay, I'm going to lift the hedge. Why do we run? Right? We're as secure as can be here. Is it dangerous? Yes. Have we been shot at? Yes. One day I came into school and I'm coming to the back door of the gym and my teachers come running into the gym. They're shooting at us. They're shooting at us. Well, somebody shot three holes in our front window. And that particular, like in six months we had 29 gun incidences in this neighborhood. 29 different situations. Some shooting, some just that we saw a gun. All right? Mark it up. Yeah, there's times. You think about it. You have children. But we have to remember that the hedge of protection and the job, nothing could happen to Job unless he lifted the hedge. And so you're safe and you're guarded and you're protected. That's important to remember because one question, I have then like what encouragements do you have for people watching this who may want to get involved in their own city or maybe move to a ministry in the city? Obviously fear plays into a lot of this. You know, people are scared of some of the things that happen in cities. Yeah, what would you say to encourage them? Listen to the pineapple story series. Okay. Okay. We'll put a link to that. Yeah. That's a good point. Auto coning. What a powerful, powerful testimony of he was over there with the headhunters. He was over there with the rattlesnakes and the poisonous, whatever. And nothing can happen to us. And Job, read the book of Job. I mean, it's a powerful house. One day I said, God, would you just show your power? I was laying in bed. I woke up and I just show your power. Lift the head just a little bit just like it's your power. It was a stupid prayer. Never pray. Don't do that. My son trips and falls and we had to go to the hospital. Wow. So now I pray, dear God, make it higher. Make it wider. Yeah. Auto was such an encouragement to me to recognize that I am safe when I'm in the midst of God's will. And wherever I'm at, there's nothing going to harm me. There's nothing going to get me. I'm still human, right? Okay. He's not flesh. So I mean, I'm pretty comfortable in this neighborhood. People know me. I've been here back and forth. I used to go from here, going across town to our house. But I was on the west side. I was in that area I wasn't sure about. I wasn't a neighborhood. And here comes two guys coming to me. I don't know who these guys are. Oh, boy. So I started, and immediately God brings the mind, peace be still, the song. And I started singing it. It's just great peace came upon me. It's just a tremendous thing. All right. One day I heard that Satanists, their service lasts till about two or three in the morning. I forget what, two, one. And then the last thing they do in their service is they cast spells on Christian pastors. And so the speaker who told me to say, if you ever wake up and you look at your clock and it's three o'clock, you know that you just got attacked by Satan, right? And the Satanist just attacked you. I'm like, God, I get up three o'clock lots of times. Oh, my. It's three o'clock. Okay. So I began to pray before I went to bed. I said, dear God, put a mirror around me. Put a mirror so that any weapon from the enemy that comes my way is reflected back to their camp. Right. And so I sleep through three o'clock. I hardly ever get up at three o'clock anymore. No. Yeah. There's this, there's this awesome protection. One day we, we met with a dealings as a person. And yeah, I reckon, oh boy, now you're in the controversy. Yeah. But that's a whole other story. But this, I walked in the room after a number of times, right? There was a number of encounters. But I walked in the room and she said, I hate you. Well, I knew by that time that I'm talking to a demon and also an individual. I said, you don't hate me. You hate Jesus Christ who lives inside of me. They would talk to us. Well, through that whole experience, and it's a long, long story, right? But through that whole experience, the power that we have in Jesus, the protection we have in Jesus, the fact that they couldn't even touch me, there was another lady demon possessed and right on the floor, she was crawling on the floor and there was four or five of us there kneeling, praying. We're forming a straight line and she's going back and forth along the sink and the stove and the refrigerator, back and forth just screaming and hollering. And, but she couldn't touch us. There was no way she could touch us. There was a young boy one time he called me slick. I don't know, that was my nickname back then. But they said, slick. I can hit you. His nose is about this far from my nose. He was really, really mad at me. And I said, you can't touch me. You can't touch me unless God lets you. And he doesn't have the confidence that that is. Now, yeah, sure. There's days we can go, look who's coming. I think my number is up. But yeah, there's so many times when I look back, so many times being here in this city I see God's power, God's protection, God's way. And I could go a long, long time telling you about many, many stories of God's protection. And I have hundreds of stories I don't even know about because I don't even know how many times God's protecting me. I wasn't aware of it. Oh, I'm going to tell you this next one. Sure. There was a young lady who came to Christ and she went home and told her boyfriend we better get out of here. We're married, we can't go to bed. So we were living upstairs above the church. And we were in the back apartment. And I hear these footsteps. I hear somebody coming back to the hall towards my door. But nobody knocked. And all of a sudden I hear running, running down the steps, slamming the door. And I'm like, oh, that's strange. I'm going to go find out what's going on. So I walk out and I get downstairs. Well, here Ivan and Arlene are having a Bible study with Emma and Gloria. So the four of them are saying, oh, Clayton, we're glad to see you. I said, yeah. This Virginia's boyfriend just came in and said, where's Clayton? He said he's upstairs. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him. My girlfriend won't go to bed with me anymore. I'm going to kill him. And so he came upstairs with the intent of getting me. And I think he met the angel at the front door. He met the guardian angels because he ran. I never knocked on my apartment. He ran and slammed the door and he was gone. And so that's why I say, there's so many times that God protects who we don't even know about. But that was exciting. Oh, just to think about the fact that the greater is he that is honest, that he is the world. And so you can go to the darkest, the most darkest place over in the earth. You can go to the cities and God will protect you. Wow. That's really powerful. Well, that's all the questions I had over the interview. So thanks for sharing those stories. Thank you for having me. Yeah, and for all the time you've put in here and also I think the inspiration you've been to so many people. I know there's been a lot of volunteers come through here serving at your school and your church. What are you doing here? I think that's really powerful. I really want these stories to get out there. So thanks for joining us. Thank you.