David Ray Wilkerson (May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011[1]) 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 interdenominational Times Square Church in New York City.

He was the second son of a family of Pentecostal Christian preachers, and he was raised in Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, in a house "full of Bibles".

He served as a pastor in small churches in Scottdale and Philipsburg in Pennsylvania, until he saw a photograph in Life Magazine in early 1958 of seven teenagers who were members of gangs in New York known as "Egyptian Kings" and the "Dragons" which had merged into a single gang called the "Egyptian Dragons".

He later wrote that he felt the Holy Spirit move him with compassion and was drawn to go to New York, in order to preach to them.

[10] Wilkerson gained national recognition after he co-authored the book The Cross and the Switchblade in 1962 with John and Elizabeth Sherrill about his street ministry.

Nicky had been the leader of the "Mau Maus" gang, and he and his friend Israel Narvaez became Christians after hearing Wilkerson preach.

The 1970 film The Cross and the Switchblade, starring Pat Boone as Wilkerson and Erik Estrada as Cruz, was adapted from the book of the same name.

The church first occupied rented auditoriums in Times Square (Town Hall and the Nederlander Theater), before moving to the historic Mark Hellinger Theatre in 1989, in which it has operated ever since.

Instead, he focused on biblical preaching with the aim of encouraging people to seek God through a personal and deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ[13] and the experience of the Holy Spirit.

[15] From the 1990s, Wilkerson focused his efforts on encouraging pastors and their families throughout the world to "renew their passion for Christ".