Sharing the gospel on the Jersey Shore

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 14th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: proclaiming the gospel seaside.

The Boardwalk Chapel in Wildwood, New Jersey, has been sharing Christ in the popular beach town since the 1940s, reaching the lost and training believers to share their faith.

BROWN: The message hasn’t changed. But this year, the staff are navigating new challenges. WORLD senior writer Emma Freire traveled to Wildwood to find out more.

AUDIO: Watch the tram car, please. Watch the tram car, please.

EMMA FREIRE: Visitors to Wildwood, New Jersey are pestered by the sound of tram cars shuttling passengers around the boardwalk. Millions of people flock to this acclaimed boardwalk every summer and the tram car has been in operation since 1949.

SOUND: [Boardwalk noise]

As vacationers walk past endless shops selling ice cream and funnel cakes, they also regularly pass teams of 4 to 5 people wearing red t-shirts that read "Boardwalk Chapel."

The teams are passing out gospel tracts. One of them holds a sign that reads “Are you going to heaven? Free test.”

Some vacationers are curious and stop to accept a tract or take the test. Micah Foster is serving on the Boardwalk Chapel’s staff this summer and joins the evangelism teams nearly every night of the week.

FOSTER: And if someone walks up, then we'll use kind of the evangelism explosion questions, which there's two questions. The first is: on a scale of one to 10, how confident are you that you're going to heaven? And then the second is, if you were to die tonight, and you were to stand before God, and He said, ‘Why should I let you into My Kingdom’ what would you say? And so we really are able to gauge where people are.

Pastor Chris Byrd is the chapel’s director of evangelism. He says the staff often don’t know how effective their ministry is.

BYRD: I don't think we'll know until the great day, you know, all the way that God has used this ministry to minister to people. But sometimes He gives little windows to see. We've gotten in the last couple years some emails from people who said they converted, or they have, you know, a child that was converted because they talked to someone here.

But this summer, the team’s work is even more challenging. After decades of freely evangelizing all over the Boardwalk, the teams’ movements are being curtailed.

BYRD: They changed some of the local ordinances. And so right now, we're limited to a couple of spots on the boardwalk.

Byrd says he understands some of the reasons behind the change.

BYRD: It's partially, it's a safety thing, because people are handing things out in the middle of the boardwalk where the tram cars are coming down, it can kind of clog up traffic, and it puts people in front of the tram car. So, and then, number two, they don't want businesses like just basically harassing people to try to buy their products.

The chapel often sends 40 to 50 people out on the Boardwalk each night. Fitting them all in the designated spots can be challenging. That’s partly why Byrd says the chapel is challenging the restrictions.

BYRD: But we want to do it in a way that's not unnecessarily souring relations, you know, with the local government. Which, by and large, you know, we've had a good relationship, and for a ministry that's as visible as we are and as active as we've been, it's a testimony to God's grace that we haven't had more opposition from people and from the township.

While they can’t hand out tracts wherever they want, the chapel is still free to put on an evangelistic service inside its shopfront on the boardwalk each evening.

BYRD: So we want to fill up the chairs in the font, that way we leave plenty of room for our guests, people that come in off the boardwalk.

The Boardwalk Chapel in Wildwood, New Jersey Photo by Emma Freire

The program features short gospel messages.

SPEAKER: And He was sent because of the great love of His Father sinners.

There’s evangelistic skits and there’s also plenty of singing

CHOIR: Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior forever
He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood
He loved me 'ere I knew Him and all my love is due Him
He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood

Outside, many of the people walking by pause to take a look. Noises from the boardwalk can sometimes interrupt the program.

AUDIO: Watch the tram car, please.

The programs are organized by the chapel’s staff of around 40 people. They’re mostly volunteers.

And throughout the summer, church groups from across America travel to Wildwood to help out. Everyone gets evangelism and apologetics training.

SOUND: [Boardwalk noise]

And they put their training into practice immediately. Each night after the program wraps up, they hit the boardwalk to evangelize.

Two young men wear baseball caps that say “security.” They often escort women and children volunteering at the chapel along the boardwalk because the evangelism continues until late in the night.

One of the young men, Andrew Zhou, says problems are rare. But occasionally, they have to deal with people who get unruly.

ZHOU: Usually you don’t get that much chaos. But there are times you just need to kind of escort people out but there’s no violence in any regard.

Foster thinks reaching people while they are on vacation represents a unique opportunity. Visitors sometimes stroll the boardwalk for hours in the evening without any fixed plans.

FOSTER: There's people walking up to the sign and taking tracts and wanting to talk. And people just have time. They're not rushing. And you have so many opportunities to wait for the right person, to wait for the person to be engaged. And people have time so they’re willing to slow down.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Emma Freire in Wildwood, New Jersey.

CHOIR: Spring up, O well, within my soul/Spring up, O well, and make me whole/ Spring up, O well, and give to me/ That life abundantly

[Applause]

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