What Is Teen Challenge?

The story begins with a skinny Pentecostal preacher from rural Pennsylvania named David Wilkerson. In 1958, Wilkerson felt God calling him to New York City to minister to gang members he’d read about in a magazine. He had no contacts, no plan, and no idea what he was walking into. He just went.

What he found in Brooklyn was a world of violence, heroin addiction, and young people who had been written off by everyone. Wilkerson started holding street meetings, building relationships, and eventually opened a small center where gang members could come off the streets and find a different path.

One of those gang members was Nicky Cruz, a violent leader of the Mau Maus who would later become an evangelist himself. Wilkerson wrote about those early years in “The Cross and the Switchblade,” which became a bestselling book and later a film.

From that one storefront in Brooklyn, Teen Challenge grew into a global network. The approach remained consistent even as the ministry expanded: meet people where they are, bring them into community, disciple them through Scripture, and give them time to rebuild. Sixty-five years later, that’s still what happens in Teen Challenge centers around the world.