Welcome to the Sober is Dope Podcast with your host, POP Buchanan. This episode is dedicated to the late Pastor David Ray Wilkerson. David Ray Wilkerson was an American Christian evangelist, best known for his book The Cross and the Switchblade. He was the founder of the addiction recovery program Teen Challenge, and founding pastor of the non-denominational Times Square Church in New York City. David Wilkerson was known to a broad readership through his many books. His most famous, “The Cross and the Switchblade” (1963), chronicled his ministry among gang members in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where he had arrived as a young preacher in the late 1950s. Written with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, the book has sold tens of millions of copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages, according to its current publisher, Chosen Books.

“The Cross and the Switchblade” was made into a feature film of that name, released in 1970. It starred Pat Boone as Mr. Wilkerson and Erik Estrada, in his first film appearance, as a member.

Mr. Wilkerson was also widely known for his work with teenage drug addicts. He was the founder of what is now Teen Challenge International, begun in Brooklyn in 1958. The organization comprises about 200 religion-based residential drug treatment centers throughout the country and many overseas.

Through World Challenge, the umbrella organization for his ministerial activities, based in Lindale, Tex., Mr. Wilkerson founded the Times Square Church in 1987. Originally in Town Hall on West 43rd Street, it now occupies the former Mark Hellinger Theater, an ornate palace of lavish moldings and draperies at 217 West 51st Street, near Broadway. The Times Square Church is a nondenominational Protestant church whose worship style draws on the Pentecostal tradition. Services typically include gospel singing and the opportunity for congregants to approach the stage for healing and salvation.

The World Challenge

https://worldchallenge.org/david-wilkerson

New York Times Article

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/nyregion/rev-david-wilkerson-79-evangelist-dies-in-crash.html

Cover Art Article

https://internetmonk.com/archive/david-wilkerson-may-19-1931-april-27-2011

Video -

Sermon https://youtu.be/MX6jc2MBTkU