Global Teen Challenge

Bringing the hope and healing of Christ to addicts worldwide

For forty years, the ministry of Teen Challenge has been a beacon for the power of the gospel, transforming the lives of drug addicts and alcoholics worldwide.

As founder of Teen Challenge in Brooklyn, New York, in 1958, I never could have imagined how the Lord would use this ministry. From New York City, Teen Challenge spread across America, where there are now more than 200 centers.

In the 1980s, Teen Challenge was recognized by the Reagan Administration as having one of the world’s highest success rates for substance-abuse rehabilitation. That 87-percent rate reflects the unique ministry of the Teen Challenge program: it unashamedly identifies Jesus Christ as the High Power of all powers.

As more and more centers began to open overseas, a need grew for someone to oversee and coordinate the development of those local centers and the training of workers. My brother Don Wilkerson was led of God to accept that call, and in 1995 he became the first executive director of Global Teen Challenge. In 2007 Jerry Nance was elected as the leader of Global Teen Challenge. Today this is a network of over 1,000 Teen Challenge centers in more than eighty countries, including Russia, Angola, Ethiopia, Portugal, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Serbia.

Global Teen Challenge conducts a very intense, one-of-a-kind “School of Evangelism” for workers and leaders. World Challenge has been able to scholarship many of these trainees, who come from poor or war-torn countries. The trainees then go back to their nations equipped with God-given direction, compassion and anointing. And their challenges are incredible.

In Swaziland, young children are sniffing cheap shoe glue to take away their hunger pains. Teen Challenge trainees are now reaching them with a message of love, hope and salvation. In Angola, starving boys are sent to prison for stealing a handful of flour because they are hungry. They have to pay a $50 fine to be released, but they have no money. Teen Challenge workers there are praying in those funds, paying the fines and bringing the boys to the ministry center, where they encounter the love of Jesus and are saved. In Lithuania, trainees are working with hardcore alcoholics and addicts, both men and women, providing them a place to live and grow in the love of Christ.

Every Teen Challenge ministry focuses its efforts beyond rehabilitation, centering instead on discipleship and life transformation through the power of the gospel. This provides not only “rehabilitation” for the addict, but a powerful reach to those in his sphere of influence: family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. And the “domino effect” continues to multiply outward: it not only offers hope to others with life-controlling substance problems, but also extends the hope of salvation and abundant life that is found in Jesus.

Drug addiction — and the global drug trade that thrives on it — continues to soar worldwide. Government efforts to provide rehabilitation, and many efforts in the private sector, continue to prove fruitless. Only the gospel of Christ offers true change and transformation, from addict to society. And that has given Global Teen Challenge open doors of ministry that are closed to traditional missions efforts and organizations. Government leaders in all of these countries want an answer to their drug problems, and Teen Challenge has that answer because we preach Christ.

Your Gifts Are Life Changing
As you can see, your gifts go far beyond the work of World Challenge. Precious men and women, as well as boys and girls, are being transformed through the power of the gospel of Christ in countries you may never visit personally. We thank God for you, and ask that you continue to pray for Global Teen Challenge. Pray for the workers in those 1,000 centers in 80 countries, including the 200 centers here in America. Today there are more than 30 nations that have standing invitations for the first Teen Challenge to be opened in their nation.

Each Teen Challenge center operates autonomously and is responsible for its own financial support. Thus, the Teen Challenge ministry is a primary focus for the missions support of World Challenge and all David Wilkerson ministries.