Who Founded Teen Challenge? The Story Most People Get Wrong

Most people know the name David Wilkerson. They've read The Cross and the Switchblade or at least heard the story. A young preacher from rural Pennsylvania feels called to New York City. He walks into a courtroom, gets thrown out, and ends up on the streets of Brooklyn reaching gang members for Jesus. It's one of those origin stories that sounds made up until you realize it launched what is now over 200 centers across the country.

But that's only half of the founding story. And it might be the less important half.

David got the call from God. His brother Don got a phone call from David. And that second call is the one that built Teen Challenge into what it actually is.

I sat down with Don Wilkerson for the podcast, and he told me something I think most people miss. "It doesn't matter how the call comes to you," he said. "It matters how you answer it." David had the dramatic moment. Don had a conversation with his brother while finishing ministry school. One felt like a movie scene. The other felt like a Tuesday. But Don is the one who showed up in Brooklyn, took over daily operations in 1971, served as Executive Director for 16 years, and developed the residential discipleship program and biblical curriculum that became the standard for every Teen Challenge center in the world.

That matters because it reframes what Teen Challenge actually is.

If you only know the David Wilkerson story, you think Teen Challenge was born from a dramatic act of obedience. And it was. But it was built by a guy who answered the phone, moved to Brooklyn, and started doing the unglamorous work of figuring out how to actually help people get free. David wrote the book. Don built the program.

Here's what Don told me about those early days. They started by reaching gang members. That was the whole thing. Street ministry, rallies, conversations in alleys. Then heroin hit, and within a few years those same gang members were drug addicts. The gangs basically dissolved because the drugs took over. There was nowhere for these guys to go. Don said there was one hospital in America at the time, a federal facility in Kentucky, where you could get detoxed. That was it.

So Teen Challenge became the place. Not because someone drew up a business plan. Because there was nobody else.

That's how most of the best ministries start. Not with a strategy. With a need that nobody else is meeting.

What strikes me about the way Don describes those years is how clearly he connects the dots from Brooklyn to right now. He told me he never imagined addiction would go mainstream. In the early 60s, the people coming into TC were from the inner city, often minorities, often tied to gang culture. By the late 60s and 70s, the drug problem spread to middle-class America. Today, Don said it's college students, working professionals, church people, every walk of life. The program that started for gang members in Brooklyn now serves families in small towns across every state.

I think about that a lot because I'm one of those people. I didn't come from the streets of Brooklyn. I came from the Shenandoah Valley. And when I walked into Teen Challenge, the same curriculum Don helped build decades earlier was the thing that taught me how to study the Bible, how to pray, how to rebuild a life that I had burned to the ground. The program I went through existed because a guy answered his brother's phone call and spent the next 60 years building something.

There's a lesson in that for anyone evaluating faith-based recovery programs right now. The flashy origin story gets all the attention. But the thing that actually produces results is the daily, unsexy, curriculum-and-accountability work that happens inside the walls. David Wilkerson gave Teen Challenge its story. Don Wilkerson gave it its structure.

And honestly? The structure is what saves lives.

Don is now President Emeritus of Brooklyn Teen Challenge. He founded Global Teen Challenge in 1995 and spent 13 years helping plant centers in over 100 countries. He co-founded Times Square Church with David in 1987. He's written more books than I can list. And he's still sharp, still passionate, and still the same guy who told me that the goal of Teen Challenge was never just to get people clean.

"It's one thing to be clean," Don told me. "It's another thing to be pure."

That line landed on me because I've lived it. Getting clean was the easy part. Finding out who I actually was without the drugs, without the old identity, without the life I'd built around addiction, that was the real work. And that's what Don built Teen Challenge to do. Not a detox program. A discipleship program. The difference matters more than most people realize.

If your family is looking into Teen Challenge and wondering what it costs, what the success rate looks like, or what happens after graduation, those are good questions. Ask them. But the thing worth knowing is that the program your loved one would be entering was designed by a man who spent his life in the building, not behind a pulpit. Don Wilkerson built Teen Challenge from the inside. And it shows.

If your family is dealing with addiction and you don't know where to start, we can help you find the right program.

Hear more on our podcast: Don Wilkerson: The Co-Founder of Teen Challenge on Transformation, Relapse, and What Recovery Really Means.