FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS
volume 22, number 16, April 20, 2022
“. . . that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” -Luke 24:47
The postwar economic boom, leading to a new national prosperity and the growing of the middle class, along with the finalized construction of the Garden State Parkway in the 1950’s, led to a remarkable growth of summer vacation destinations along the Jersey Shore. One of the hottest spots was Wildwood, New Jersey, about four miles north of Cape May.
Many rock and roll historians tell us that the birth of that genre of music began at Wildwood, New Jersey. It is hard to argue with that assessment. On Memorial Day weekend, 1954, Bill Haley and the Comets first played their song “Rock Around the Clock” at the Hof Brau Hotel. Many say Haley’s song was the beginning of Rock and Roll music. Chubby Checker sang “The Twist” at the Rainbow Club in 1960 at the age eighteen. Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” began in Wildwood before settling in Philadelphia. The Treniers played at the Riptide Club and Johnny Mathis sang at the Bolero. Before air conditioning, Las Vegas was too hot for acts during the summer months so many of the entertainers spent their summers in Wildwood. In addition to the ones just mentioned, other artists included Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., The Platters, Del Shannon, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Conway Twitty, The Band, Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, Diana Ross, and Frankie Valli who all played there in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Bobby Rydell wrote a popular song in 1963 entitled “Wildwood Days.”
In the summer of 1941, as Europe was fighting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi war machine, Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) Minister Leslie Dunn, pastor of Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Wildwood, sensed a need to preach the gospel on the boardwalk at Wildwood to the thousands of people who walked the boardwalk during the summer months. Pastor Dunn, along with three other local, Bible believing pastors, began preaching every Saturday and Sunday evening on the beach near the boardwalk. They determined that was not a very good site to preach so the next summer they looked for something a bit more suitable. By the summer of 1942, in order to maintain total darkness on the Atlantic Coast, lest Germany attack our East Coast cities, canvas was placed on the wooden rails on the boardwalk to keep light from the stores being seen by potential enemy ships or U-boats. By then, of course, America was fighting world wars on two fronts and the crowds at the boardwalk were thinner than before the war. Nonetheless Pastor Dunn sought a new venue, the local American Legion Pavilion. This was met with severe opposition from local businesses who feared that the preaching of the gospel would stymie their business, so the owner of the Pavilion revoked their privilege of using his facility. Undeterred, Pastor Dunn still passed out over 20,000 gospel tracts that summer and witnessed Jesus to hundreds, if not thousands of people.
To add to his burden, the three other local pastors dropped out of helping Pastor Dunn. He soon realized that if the evangelistic ministry was to go forward then the Orthodox Presbyterian Church would need to get behind the vision in a big way. Selling the vision was not difficult after Dunn’s survey showed the Presbytery of New Jersey that between 2500 and 3000 people passed a vacant lot on the boardwalk every hour between 7 and 11 p.m. What a great venue from which to preach the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection
Dunn learned that a public auction was to be held at the City Hall where one could purchase a lot on the boardwalk. The opening bid was to be $1500. Lots normally sold for $4000 and Dunn was given permission by his Presbytery to bid up to $3000 but no higher. Bidding was brisk but his final bid of $2950 was accepted. God obviously wanted the Chapel there. Opposition from local businessmen was swift and furious. One man offered to pay Pastor Dunn far more for the property than he had paid and promised also to build him a fine church off the boardwalk. Dunn refused. Within a year they had built the Boardwalk Chapel. The ministry began there on July 1, 1945.
Since that time the OPC Boardwalk Chapel ministry has been a tool greatly used of God, not only in faithfully preaching the gospel and evangelizing on the Wildwood boardwalk, but also in training around two thousand high school and college students in evangelism and apologetics. Over the years, prominent OPC pastors like Meredith Kline, Marcellus Kik, I think John Murray, Dick Gaffin, John Skilton, Jay Adams, Robert Knudsen, Jack Miller, Robert Churchill, Henry Krabbendam, Cornelius Van Til, and Edmund Clowney have preached there. Since 2012 when Pastor Jim Zozarro took the leadership of the Boardwalk Chapel, around thirty young people have served each summer on the staff of the ministry. Each week different churches come in for a week of training and outreach. This amounts to around three hundred young people each summer being trained to share the gospel and to engage in evangelistic outreach on the boardwalk. I have been going to Wildwood once or twice each summer for the last six or seven years and it is one of my favorite ministries. We train people during the morning hours in how to evangelize one on one and how to preach in the open air and then we take them to the boardwalk in the afternoons and let them practice. At night there is a very good evangelistic service at the Boardwalk Chapel, led by the various church groups which come weekly. People from the boardwalk drop in and participate in the service. The staff members stay out on the boardwalk until after midnight speaking to people about Jesus. Every summer many students call on the name of the Lord to save them. I have always been amazed and encouraged at how open most of these people are to hear about Jesus.
I remember one summer I was preaching and two young Korean women came into the meeting with one of the women staff workers, who also was from Korea and was working on a doctorate at Westminster Seminary. After I preached I was able to meet these two young women who had just come to the U.S. and they told me they had never heard the gospel until that time. I think around fifty people became “hopeful converts” of Jesus that summer.
Pastor Jim Zozarro does a great job training the staff and church workers in presuppositional apologetics. He gets it down to their level and makes it very practical. I am scheduled to return there at the end of this August and train pastors and seminary students in open air preaching and evangelistic Bible studies.
The ministry is so popular now that it is difficult for churches to get a week to do ministry. I think there is a waiting list, but if your church is interested in training young people then the Boardwalk Chapel is worth the wait. I urge you to contact the ministry at <boardwalkchapel.org>
And if you are a high school, college, or seminary student and want to get some excellent training and practical experience in evangelism and apologetics then you ought to email the ministry as well at <boardwalkchapel@gmail.com>
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS 
Leave a comment