On the Day February 28 1958

Dave Wilkerson Becomes Public Fool for Christ

Khen Lim




Rev Dave Wilkerson (Image source: christiantoday.com)

What if someone were to make a fool out of you and the public laughs at your expense? What if someone were to embarrass you on national TV? How would you feel? Evangelist Rev Dave Wilkerson who tragically died in a car crash in April 2011 was that 27-year-old fool on February 28 1958 when he shamed himself for the Lord.

Dave was glancing through the LIFE magazine when he stumbled across a photo of seven gang members who were in New York on trial for murder. Flushed with compassion, he felt the Lord telling him to act on it. But he wasn’t sure. After all what did New York have to do with him when he was nothing but a small-time rural preacher in little Scottdale and Phillipsburg in Pennsylvania? Tried as he might, the thought stuck to his mind so much so that one day, he resorting to speak to his church leaders about it before he went to the Big Apple for the court hearing.

In the courtroom, Dave wanted to speak up but before he could, cops rushed to and roughed him up. Then they cuffed and hauled him out to the jailhouse. That was what they did in fear of some outbreak of violence in the middle of the courtroom. It wasn’t exactly a very successful day for Dave; at least not in terms of what he thought the Lord had wanted him to do. Bankrupt with ideas, he didn’t know what to say to his church (or his family) when he got back home.

Nicky Cruz (left) and Israel Narvaez (right) swapping their gang weapons for Bibles with Dave Wilkerson (centre) (Image source: mtc.myteenchallenge.com)

But the Lord spoke to him again. This time, Dave knew crystal clear he had a mandate to act and so he returned to New York not once but on several occasions where he would walk the streets of Fort Green housing project that were thick with gangs. To underline how dangerous this endeavour was, Mike Zello, former Teen Challenge director, said this in an interview:

“Truthfully, I don’t think David Wilkerson ever knew how real the danger was anywhere he witnessed and preached. God protected him! Only those of us who lived there knew. I did! I thought, ‘This man must be crazy. He is so naïve. Everybody is going to laugh at him. He is going to get himself killed. Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he know that nobody wants to die with him or even go near a gang member? I hope he knows what he’s doing.’ Everyone was terrified of the gangs in the City.”

That was when he finally recognised God’s calling for him to be made a fool for His express purpose. His invariable public arrest earned him some acceptance among the youth that he sought to help bring to Christ. In his endeavour to reach out to them to break their drug addiction, self-destruction and violence, he realised his next act and that was to establish Teenage Evangelism, which later became his first Teen Challenge Centre later in Brooklyn in the same year, that merely proved yet another perilous project for him.

While Dave simply had no idea where the next quid would come as bills mounted, God, however, blessed his work with a whole bunch of young workers enlisting to evangelise New York’s hardcore areas. Like him, they faced great hardship in their work. Other than intimidated, they were physically abused and even stabbed. 

Yet their determination hardly waned and many teenagers were successfully brought to Christ, which led Dave to turn Teen Challenge into a nationwide operation based in Missouri before other unaffiliated organisations (with similar purpose) arose outside USA in over 100 countries. He also founded the non-denominational Times Square Church in New York in October 1987.

Image source: booksmusicandlife.blogspot.com

It is in the Gateway Films’ 1970 movie ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’ that Dave (played by Pat Boone) told his story alongside teen gang member Nicky Cruz that, in paperback form, drew the attention of 50 million more around the world to the glory of Christ at work. Christianity Today lists it in its ‘Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.’ Cruz would become an ordained priest and director of Teen Challenge serving under Dave.