Teen Challenge to Celebrate Fiftieth Anniversary This Month

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Teen Challenge, an evangelical Christian ministry and recovery program that provides help for alcoholics, drug addicts and gang members, among other troubled teenagers. Teen Challenge is one of the oldest programs of its kind in the world. It is also one of the largest and most successful. Since its inception in New York in 1958, Teen Challenge has grown to more than 170 centers across the United States, plus 241 in 77 other countries.

Teen Challenge was established by the Reverend David Wilkerson, then a young country preacher from Pennsylvania. In February, 1958, Wilkerson read an article in Life magazine about seven New York teenagers who were on trial for murder. The teens had beaten a young man to death during a gang fight in Manhattan.

The story troubled the young pastor, and he began to sense that God wanted him to do something to reach out to teenagers. After a visit to New York City, Wilkerson resigned from his pastorate in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania and moved to the NYC area to begin his new ministry in which he would work full-time with teenage gang members.

The ministry soon expanded to offer help to people addicted to alcohol and drugs. Teen Challenge has expanded across the United States and around the world, reaching out to teens everywhere, offering them an escape from their addictions and the gang lifestyle and, most importantly, offering them hope in Jesus Christ. While Teen Challenge USA operates as a division of the Assemblies of God's United States Missions Department, Global Teen Challenge maintains its own board and functions with no official relationship with the denomination's World Missions Department.

A small office in Staten Island served as the original headquarters for Teen Challenge when the ministry began in June 1958. Two years later, Teen Challenge relocated to a large house in Brooklyn. Springfield, Missouri is the current home of Teen Challenge USA, while Global Teen Challenge is based in Columbus, Georgia.

David Wilkerson documented his experience of starting up Teen Challenge in his 1963 book The Cross and the Switchblade. In 1970, Pat Boone portrayed Wilkerson in film adaptation of The Cross and the Switchblade, which also starred Erik Estrada as Nicky Cruz, a New York gang member who became one of Wilkerson's first converts. Cruz eventually went into the ministry and founded his own outrage ministry to help troubled teens.

Teen Challenge will celebrate fifty years of ministry and miracles with a fiftieth anniversary celebration being held June 25^th through 27^th in New York City. Speakers will include Nicky Cruz, Steve Hill, Sonny Arguinzoni and David Wilkerson and his brother, Global Teen Challenge founder Don Wilkerson. The event will also feature music by Sara Groves, Dallas Holm and David Meece as well as several other Christian artists.

For five decades, Teen Challenge has been reaching out to teenagers across America, and all over the world, shining a light in the darkness for those struggling with addictions or trapped in the gang lifestyle. Through the power of Christ, this ministry has seen countless young lives transformed. God has truly anointed and blessed Teen Challenge and enabled this ministry to be so successful. I look forward to seeing them continue their fine work for many years to come, and hope that many more lives will be changed over the next fifty years.